Page 22 of Love Me Boldly

“No, that’s not it. I just…he talks about you, you know? When we’re out of town and stuff.”

“Oh…you’re one of the guys he went on a trip with last week?”

Eli’s brows tugged low. “Trip? I mean. Yeah. We were together, but I saw you. He showed us a picture, and I guess I wanted to…shit…I don’t know. Not warn you or anything. That sounds bad, but ask for a favor, I guess?” He kicked at the cement, his unease growing.

It didn’t rival mine.

“You want me to doyoua favor? A guy I don’t know? About a guy I barely know?”

“Barely know? Graham says you talk all the time.” His confusion increased. It was still nowhere near mine. He shook it off quicker than I did. “Listen, then yeah…I mean, if he’s just some guy to you, I’m going to ask you to cut him loose.”

“Excuse me?”

“He’s had a crap year. Worse than most. I guess my favor was going to be if you don’t like him, really like him, then bow out now before he gets hurt. I’m not sure he can handle any more and the guys…well, me…us…well, we need him healthy.”

My head spun as the guy babbled, and all those flags that had been popping lit on fire until my blood was boiling.Hehad a hard year? Hisguysneeded him?

“I’m not talking about him with someone I don’t know.” I turned to head off toward class, where I should have kept going before someone started shouting at me, andhowdid he recognize me anyway? Questions kept coming, but the one who had the answers wasbusytonight.

Like he usually was.

Unfortunately for me, Eli kept following.

“Crap, he’s going to kick my butt for this. Probably put me through hell later. I didn’t mean to make you mad. I’m just having my boy’s back, you know? Someone had to say something.”

I kept walking. Anger made my shoes slap against the pavement as I tried to put distance between Eli and me, but he was tall. Taller than Graham, and man, he had long legs. He didn’t have to hurry to catch up to me at all.

“You’re going to tell him I said this, aren’t you?”

There was something—a terror or sadness or maybe the guy was just realizing how badly he’d messed up that I paused. Looked at him. Arched my brows. Did he think I was anidiot?

“Yeah, Eli. I’m going to tell him about some guy chasing me down on campus to tell me to stay away from him. Stop following me.”

Once I told him about this lovely, interesting conversation, I’d be getting answers.

Or my contact list would have one less number in it.

* * *

It was well after dinner.I’d worked the shift at the University bookstore before stopping by The Grille to grab dinner to go. One of the servers was sick, so I ended up staying through the dinner shift. At all points, the bookstore and then the diner, I was half-expecting Graham to appear out of nowhere, somehow knowing what his friend had said to me and wanting to make things right.

I found myself disappointed he didn’t, and then jumping and feeling my cheeks heat when my phone finally rang. Only for it to be a blocked number.

Dread settled as I debated answering and then hit the End button without bothering. My dad had once been the kind of man who picked me up from preschool and took me to get ice cream instead of real food for lunch. He sang and danced in our living room. He shouted at football games on television without them ruining his mood. He did all those things without requiring a twelve-pack at his side.

I didn’t lose my mom the day her addiction swallowed her whole and she took off in search of her next high, completely forgetting she had a husband and daughter who adored her. My dad died that day. My mom wasgone, but Dad turned into a walking, drunken zombie, shriveling a little bit more right in front of me.

I was eight the first time I cleaned up his vomit. Ten when he lost his job at the city and found a part-time job doing maintenance for one of the hotels in town, one job that would lead to dozens off and on over the years. Fourteen the first time he handed me the keys and told me to drive him home from the bar. I hadn’t even taken driver’s education yet. Not like he knew or cared.

I turned twenty-one the day before he got drunk, got pissed, and then drove a small SUV off the road on the way down Crystal Mountain Highway, killing the driver, a college student at Duke. A girl my age.

He’d never apologized. Never showed remorse. He lost our home years before, and he never apologized for that, either. In all my years of living, I had a mom who abandoned me and a father who quit knowing I was alive while staring at my face daily.

Thatwas why I despised him. It wasn’t his mistakes. It wasn’t his own grief. It was the fact that as soon as Mom left, he never saw me. When he was being taken to prison, right after his sentencing, he didn’t share fatherly advice or a hug or an apology. He glared at me and grumbled, “This is such a bunch of bullshit.”

Those were the last words my father said to me before I started getting calls demanding more money on his federal account. He left me with nothing but a run-down trailer and my plans to leave this town shriveling down to almost nothing considering the statewide news his horrible decisions made…and then decidedIowedhim.

And I was still the little girl who remembered her father’s booming laughter and his comforting embrace. In my weak moments, I hoped that if I gave him more than he asked for, he’d see me again. That he’d become the dad I needed for the last decade even if it was from a distance.

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