Page 33 of The Pucking Grump

My father’s interviews to the media were deliberately planned. He started off by painting me as a brat, before giving me a mental illness. The public has taken his words as the truth. If I reveal my side of the story now, I’d be judged as being a nutcase.

And if people believe I’m crazy, my dad could file for conservatorship. I would be under his care for a long time, possibly forever.

My fingers are trembling again, and this time, I can’t stop them.

“No,” I mutter, cutting him short mid-sentence.

“Glad you figured it out,” my father says smugly. “Now, I don’t know where you’re at—I’ve called every single person who could know and have gotten nothing—but I trust you’re going to be making it back home soon.”

Home. I think of my own huge, white-washed apartment, complete with a personal recording studio requested by my father. And then, I think of my father’s house on Long Island. A sickening feeling rises up within me. I don’t belong there. In fact, Blake’s cabin feels more like home than they’ve ever been.

My palms are sweaty. “I’m not coming back to Brooklyn.” It’s a last-ditch effort to contradict him, but I can tell how limp my words sound.

My father lets out a low chuckle, like he’s speaking to a toddler about to commit mischief and not to a grown adult he’s threatening to swindle. That chills me to the bone. I’ve tried to ignore, for years, the burning feeling that my dad does not care for me much.

Right now, I’m forced to realize that he doesn’t care for me at all, in and outside of my career. All he wants is to maintain complete control.

“You can take as much time as you want,” he says, his tone honeyed. “As long as whoever’s got you stashed away still wants you around. But if you’ve started to realize the futility of you hiding and you want to come back to the city, you can call me back. In the afternoon next time, because I won’t be getting out of bed for you anymore.”

The line goes dead.

I stare at the receiver, tears forming in my eyes. Yesterday, after Kevin’s call, I knew things were dire. They were bad enough that I considered leaving the cabin this morning. But I decided on a last-ditch effort to call my father to see if I could work things.

It turns out that I was wrong. From that conversation, it does not even seem as if me going back into society would change a thing. Even if Blake would agree to get me a phone so I could put up a message on social media, my father has the passwords to all my accounts. He’d have changed all of them by now. Maybe he was preparing to release a message on my behalf in the near future.

The long and short of it is that I’m screwed.

I rise up and make my way back to the bedroom, my chest heaving. Blake is still beneath the covers, fast asleep. For a fraction of a second, I want to crawl underneath them with him and bury my face in his chest, forgetting the world.

Don’t be stupid, I scream internally at myself. I desire Blake sexually, but that’s about it. His behavior is still repugnant, and he can be an asshole every time he chooses to be. I can’t let the boundaries get muddled up.

I reach into the drawer for my bikini. Even now, I feel a spark of excitement deep in my belly as I remember Blake’s words, how affected he claimed to be when he saw me wearing it. I’m not going to be modeling it for him today, though. I need to swim for a bit and figure out a strategy to outsmart my father.

The lake is biting cold when I step into it, but I barely notice. My head is still messed up, and every time I think of my father’s threats, tears start stinging.

I dive into the water, closing my eyes, blocking out everything but my thoughts.

Maybe I kind of deserve it. I’d known from the moment I started singing songs about Ben that I was lying. To myself and to my fans. I knew I was only doing it to please my dad in the hopes that one day, he would look at me and not have that distant expression in his eyes.

That one day, he would love me.

I should have stood my ground back at the wedding instead of just running away. Should have told my father to his face I wasn’t going through with it. Better still, I should have walked up that aisle and told the guests that the wedding was off.

Blake was right after all. Love does make people pathetic.

I come up for air as my thoughts switch to the man inside the cabin. The phone call from Kevin dulled a lot of things, and after I came to the conclusion that I needed to leave, everything else was shoved in the past. Still, as I recall the memories of the previous evening, my thighs ache with a distinct longing.

I’m probably going to be out of here soon. I can’t figure out a good plan, much less by myself. There’s a lot to do: decide which city I want to live in, hire a PR team, probably get a few lawyers, figure out the best way to relaunch myself. All I know for sure is that I’m not going back to New York and that I won’t let my father bully me. Getting back together with Ben is not an option either.

I sink back into the water. If I’m being perfectly honest with myself, I wish I got to explore Blake like he did me before the curtain closed on my stay with him. In a couple of days, we’re going to go back to being strangers, and I’ll be another popstar who annoys him with her love songs.

My face breaks the surface of the water again. I’m aware something is different from the moment I gulp my first breath of air. Goosebumps rising on my arms, I look around.

I don’t need to look too closely, though.

Blake, whose mussed hair tells the story of his recent awakening, is standing on the bank. He looks like he just came out of the house in search of me.

Swimming to the edge, I raise my torso out of the lake. I’m about to apologize for possibly startling him when I notice something.

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