Page 12 of Cam Girl

To say things are strained between us is an understatement.

“I’m gonna take the master bedroom if you wanted to crash,” Bill continues. “You don’t ask about me, I won't ask about you.”

“No paternal concern for my welfare?” I tease lightly.

He cuts me a sideways glance that ruffles his scruffy brows. “Should there be? Are you in trouble?”

I shake my head. “I have everything handled.”

“If you had it handled then you wouldn't come back.” He snorts at his own joke. “You’ve always been tough, Gilli Girl. You know how to handle yourself. Got that from me.” He belches again, louder now. “Kerrigans push through.”

Except I shouldn’t havehadto “push through,” to be resilient all my life. My parents were both too selfish and caught up in their own failures and shortcomings to care about anyone else.

Sometimes I wonder if Ma had three kids just tocreatesomeone to love her. Luckily for her, she’d found the perfect partner in the selfish, cheating, Scrooge McDuck rich prick she ended up marrying her second go around.

I knew what had drawn her to my stepfather, I muse, casting my gaze toward the one picture of their wedding day she’d left us with. Bill had turned the frame down to avoid looking at it.

Alistair Savage shit big and spent with reckless abandon.

And Honey Kerrigan could suck the chrome off a truck bumper.

Boom. Match made in heaven.

Bill tracks my gaze to the frame and his expression sours. He buries his disdain in a long swig of beer. “You hear from her at all?” he presses.

“Nah. We don’t get along.”

“Last I heard, she and Richie Rich took off to Fiji. Looking at houses or some shit.” Billsnorts, the sound ending on a yeasty hiccup. “Bullshit, if you ask me. Especially since his kid’s in real estate.”

“I didn’t ask you,” I whisper.

“Don’t they have enough houses? Lake Tahoe, Schenectady, and a shitty little fishing cabin in Bumfuckville, Jersey.” Bill’s bitterness is on display the same as his alcohol gut.

I force myself to shrug. If I’m this uncomfortable, I really should leave. There’s no reason to stick around because there is definitely no room to think about my next steps with Bill present.

For some reason, I stay. Not settled; I’m on the edge of the couch cushion with my knees bobbing like I’m five again.

“How do you know about their houses? Are you keeping track of her?” I ask.

It was more interest than he’d ever shown his daughters.

What would he think of my side hustle? My sisters don’t know. My coworkers are oblivious.

There’s only me and my secrets.

“I follow the son on Instagram. Hotshot real estate agent, or broker, or something.”

I turn to Bill with my jaw seconds away from dropping. “How doyouknow about Instagram?”

Christ, does my dad have an actual social media following?

Bill’s laugh is the sound of two wet stones grinding together and his belly shakes with the movement. “I’m not completely ignorant, or helpless, you know. The boys at the shop got me on there. Helped me follow certain…influencers.”

Ugh, yuck. “And my stepbrother is one of those influencers?”

I haven’t thought about Soren for years.

Not like we got along. Or spent much time together in the past. He’s closer to Suzanne’s age than to mine, and Iremember the wedding where he hung out with his buddies and they all looked down their noses at me.

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