Page 7 of Forever Always

He disconnected the call, and it left me reeling from everything.

It took me a full 10 minutes before I finally got my shit together enough to stand up and leave the building. I needed to stay in control. This was nothing to panic about. It just was what it was. It wasn’t even that shocking. Dad would steal anything he could fuckin’ get his hands on. It was just our life. But I couldn’t stop my hands from shaking even as I got to the street and started the short walk to the bus stop.

Beckett would be home in about 3 hours. That meant I had that long to calm down enough to talk to him. If he saw me panicking, there would be no way I could convince him to let me take a semester off. It was a long shot anyway, but I had to try. There was no way Becks could get that kind of money in 10 days. At least not legally or safely. I wouldn’t let him do that. I just wouldn’t.

CHAPTER 2

BECKETT

I was gonna kill him with my bare hands and enjoy every second of it. It was one thing to steal from me, but to take Ri’s college money? His one chance of getting out of this shithole town and actually making something of himself? And the fucker just helped himself to it? He was a dead man.

I couldn’t even figure out how he’d managed to take it. The account was only in Ri’s name. We’d learned a long time ago not to put the last name Cooks on anything important because, apparently, no one bothered to look close enough to realize that Beckett Cooks wasn’t a 50-year-old, strung-out meth head. I was fucking thrilled Riley never took the asshole’s last name. It had saved us more times than I could count.

Not this time though. Dad had to have gotten it from the bank, right? But how? I couldn’t fuckin’ figure it out. There was one debit card, and Ri still had it with him. We didn’t have checks or apps or a paper trail of any kind. The bastard had broken in way too many times already for us to be that dumb.

Yet, he still found a fuckin’ way. He always did.

Still, there was no point in going to the bank about it. Something like this had happened so many times that they now thought we were frauding them, and the chances of us getting the money back any time soon were slim. We’d have to change banks again, I guessed, but where? We’d had to change our accounts so many fuckin’ times, we were on a ton of blacklists. It was ridiculous.

“Cooks! Take five.”

Fuck. I blinked back to life and turned toward my foreman. Tim was a cool dude. He cared about us and took no crap from the higher-ups. Right now, he was lookin’ at me with his eyebrow raised and his arms crossed over his chest.

I pushed away from my station and stalked away, knowing Tim was gonna follow me. I lost myself there for, fuck, I didn’t even know how long. Lucky I didn’t take an arm off.

As soon as we were in the quieter break room, Tim closed the door behind us. He didn’t look pissed, just concerned. Like I said, he was a good dude.

“Wanna tell me what the fuck that was about?” he asked once we were in private.

I just shrugged and stalked to the watercooler. I wasn’t thirsty, but I needed to move before I destroyed something and lost the best job I’d ever had.

I didn’t wanna talk, but Tim wasn’t gonna let me leave this room until I did.

“Just my old man.” He knew enough about the situation for that to be enough of an answer.

“Is Riley okay? Do you need to get him?” See, this was why everyone here loved Tim. I couldn’t even tell you how many crappy jobs I’d gotten canned from because I had to bail and get Riley.

“Nah. He’s safe.” Riley was probably surprised I didn’t send Jay to pick him up, even after he’d said no. But that was cause I’d asked him to go to the apartment and make sure Dad wasn’t there. No doubt he had a good portion of $2000’s worth of drugs swimmin’ through his veins right about now. If he was conscious enough to walk, he’d likely show up at our place. It was his fuckin’ MO. I wasn’t gonna let Ri walk in on that on his own, so I asked Jay to check it out. He had sent me a thumbs-up, which meant all was good, and I knew he wouldn’t leave Riley alone, even if my brother would be pissed and claim I was being overprotective. Well, he wasn’t wrong. I was always gonna be overprotective of my little brother.

“Good. You know if you ever need anything, you can talk to me.”

I smiled tightly at him, since I didn’t want to lose my shit on one of the few people who actually gave a damn. But as much as I was pretty sure I could trust Tim, I was never gonna get help from anyone ever again. I’d learned that the hard way long ago, and it wasn’t a mistake I planned on repeating. Well, except Jay. I took help from him. But he was as fucked up as us.

“I appreciate it. But I’m good, Tim. I swear. I’m sorry I lost it out there.”

“We all have our shit, Beckett. I ain’t worried about that. But it was almost like you blacked out. You were completely unresponsive, just staring. It’s dangerous out there. I can’t have that happening.”

Fuck. I didn’t even realize I’d done that. How long had I zoned out?

“I’m sorry, Tim. I swear I ain’t on anything. It won’t happen again.” I couldn’t lose this job. Especially now.

Tim’s eyes narrowed. “I know you’re not. I never even considered it, Cooks, otherwise you wouldn’t even be out there. You know we can’t mess with that shit here. I’m just worried about you.”

I ran my fingers through my hair. It was gettin' long but I couldn’t be assed to get a haircut. “Well, I’m fine. I swear. I’ll be more careful.”

I wasn’t sure he believed me, but finally he nodded. “Fine. See that you do.”

“Got it.”

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