Page 103 of Jaded

Avery doesn’t respond. Doesn’t offer any sign that he’s heard. The only sound is the whir of the engine, the low thrum of the machine.

“You want me to call your stepmom?” I pull the car onto the ice-slicked street, and the lights and dark of the city blur outside the windshield. The one constant is the snow, the ice, always, always, encasing our city in brutality, like the unyielding grip of winter.

Like hockey, a constant.

“No.”

“You want to talk about why you were there?” My voice is a sharp crack through the quiet of the car. “Trying to buy your way into the Ice Out?”

Avery simply stares through the window at the passing city lights. I get it, though. I wouldn’t have answered me either.

So I make a decision—the kind that nobody made for me when I was his age. I drive past the street that leads down to the battered apartment complex he shares with his dad and stepmom.

Continue on towards my townhouse instead.

He doesn’t speak until I pull into my short driveway in front of the door and cut the engine. Only then does he sit up. “I didn’t need your help. I had that.”

“I really don’t think you did, kid.” I turn to look him in the eye. “Everybody needs help. Learning to ask for it is part of growing up.”

He grunts, shoves the door open without another word. I follow him out into the frigid night. My breath clouds the air in front of me, like the ghosts of breath Olli and I shared. Why am I still thinking of him, remembering him, tasting him in the forefront of my mind’s imagination?

I yank open the door and nudge Avery inside. Syd trails behind. “You’re gonna be sleeping in my room, kid. I’ll be on the couch. So if you get up and tryanything, I will know about it.”

Avery grunts something indecipherable.

The three of us traipse into the living room. Syd goes right to the couch; takeout containers sprawl over the coffee table from a hastily abandoned meal. My stomach clenches. I should have been here.

I should have been here. Having dinner with my daughter. Staying apprised on the drama that I surely could have prevented before it turned into a full-blown fight.

Guilt clutches my stomach tight, and I swipe the takeout containers away before she can bring them into the kitchen. Instead of tucking them into the fridge, I divide them up onto two plates, toss them into the microwave.

When I return, she’s curled onto the couch beside Avery. A first-aid kit sits on the coffee table in front of her.

I hand each a plate heaped with warmed up Chinese food. “Eat.”

I take a seat on the other side of Syd, reach for the first-aid kit. Because as much as I don’t want to let her see it, my knuckles are bleeding. “Did Avery tell you why he was there, Syd?”

“Yeah.” Her gaze refocuses on my hands as I extract a disinfectant wipe from the kit, tear the package open. On her other side, Avery’s curled into the corner of the couch, and I don’t know if he’s awake.

“So.” I scrub the moist towel over my bruised and split knuckles. “You more upset about why he was there, or how I handled it?”

“You mean, how he was trying to get an invitation to the Ice Out?” Syd says, her voice carefully scrubbed of emotion. “Or how you cracked a knuckle on some guy’s face trying to prevent it?”

“Yeah, exactly that.” I shove the bloodied towel back into its packaging, flex my hand into a fist. It’ll be sore tomorrow morning, but I don’t think anything’s broken. “So?”

“Both, I guess.” Syd shrugs, wraps her arms around her knees. “Maybe I’m tired of being surrounded by stupid men who can’t see past their own goddamn stupid.”

I wince, and my chest clenches tight. Again. I wasn’t thinking of Syd when I intervened. Didn’t think of what it’d be like for her, watching her fucking father lose his shit on some random drunk asshole in a bar.

Not that she doesn’t realize I’m not the perfect father. Never have been or will be. But it’s one thing to hear about it, another entirely to see it in action.

“I’m sorry, Syd.” The words trickle from my mouth. “I always want what’s best for you, but sometimes I don’t think enough about the right way to get that.”

She sighs, and her gaze drifts back to my knuckles. “Yeah, I know.”

I resist the urge to fold my hands together, hide the evidence from her appraisal. I’ve never hidden myself from her, from anyone. But not for the first time, I wonder whether she’s ashamed of me—her rough around the edges, too-young, too-single parent with a less than admirable career, with too much ink and too many scars.

God knows I’m not like Maggie’s suit-wearing dad and pretty blonde mom, or even Avery’s stepmom with her pristine hair and makeup and nails.

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