Page 37 of Hired Help

I hate this. I hate this. I hate this.

There’s a moment where I think I’d rather I just ceased to exist than keep stumbling under this burden.

“Harrison, I…”

But I can’t listen to her any more than I can talk. I push past, shoving the door open so hard it nearly swings into the girl on the other side. Floss jumps back, giving a yelp, then her eyes widen. She leaps to stand between me and Brooke, even though I was heading away.

“Don’t you touch her.”

I hold my hands out to my side, seeing a few students edging closer in response to the loud panic in Floss’s voice. “I’m nowhere near her.”

Underneath the fancy collar, her throat is probably red, possibly bruising already. Her dress hides my crime, and she doesn’t rush to show her friend. “It’s okay. He wasn’t—”

“Harrison?”

I spin around, the voice familiar but coming from too far back in my memory to be sure.

My battered heart takes another punch. There’s a high whine in my ears and my lungs shrink away to nothing.

The years have barely touched him. If not for the tux, he’d look exactly the same he did the last time I saw him. The time when he was drunk, shouting and screaming at a family wedding, about how dreadful my mother was, how she deserved her pathetic husband, fuming about how she’d restricted his visitation, conveniently forgetting how many times he’d failed to show.

“Dad?”

Beside me, Floss gives a startled squeal and I glance at her, a horrible suspicion dawning. “What are you doing here?”

“I…” His face goes blank. My only consolation to the awkwardness is that he appears as puzzled as I am.

His eyes move to Brooke. There’s a plea in them, like he’s begging her to tell him it’s not what he thinks it is.

“What did you do?” My voice is quiet, so low it barely rates as a frequency. I inhale through my nose, struggling to pull the breath into lungs that refuse to accept it. “Brooke? What did you do?”

My father shakes his head. Brooke stares at me, the blankness in her face morphing to sadness before sparking into fury.

“I upgraded to the deluxe version,” she spits at me. “Which is nothing more than you fucking deserve.”

My vision shrinks to a darkened pinhole. The whine in my ears increases until I can’t hear another sound. I haven’t had anything to drink but the floor lurches and recedes like it’s a frail ship caught in a torrential storm.

Everywhere I look, students are staring, pointing, laughing. For a split second, I believe every single one of them understands how I failed her, how no matter what I did I couldn’t satisfy the needs of the only girl I’ve ever loved.

A hundred teenagers getting a front-row seat to my failures.

The whine in my ears grows intolerably loud. A black hole sucks away my vision.

Brawny arms haul me away as I yell at her, “Come near me again and I’ll kill you. I’ll fucking kill you.”

CHAPTERELEVEN

DAEGAN

The momentI’m through the front door, I strip off my tux, change into jeans and a t-shirt, grab the vodka from the freezer, and pour a couple of fingers into a glass. My hands shake, so I knock it back in one, barely feeling it as I pour another, not even bothering to cap the bottle as it goes the same way as the first.

I can’t believe what just happened. When I close my eyes, all I see is Harrison’s puzzled face. His whispered, “Dad?” like he hoped I had an explanation for him different from his first thought.

And how I wish I did.

Anger erupts and I slam my hand flat on the counter, the sting deepening into a tight ache that makes my bones feel like they’re melting in acid. Of all the disastrous thoughts I’d had for this evening, that my date to the dance was my son’s girlfriend hadn’t crossed my mind.

Funny that.

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