Page 47 of Only With You

His cheek twitches, and finally, he looks up at me, crossing a leg over his other knee, and sets his notepad on his lap. “You’re a straightforward, straight to the point kind of guy, huh?”

I blink, feeling underwhelmed by this conversation. I don’t mind mindless conversation, as long as it entertains me. This isn’t that.

I’m bored and over it.

“It’s pointless to hold back on the inevitable.” I give a half shrug.

He drums his fingers along the notepad. “The inevitable?”

I lean back, resting my arm on the armrest. “Yes. You’ll eventually find out since it seems I have to come here until the season ends. So why hold back on something you’ll eventually know? Might as well tell you now and not waste time.”

Reid stares at me thoughtfully and softly taps his pen along the pad. “Is this how you always perceive life?”

I space out for a second, thinking back to when everything changed. I didn’talwaysview life like this, but I grew up and understood either you make a choice or life chooses for you.

It’s one path or the other. You can’t take both.

“It’s how I live it.”

Reid tsks, picks up his pen, but he doesn’t write. The ballpoint hovers over the paper, but then he sets everything down on the round coffee table.

“We have a few minutes before the session is over. I just have one more question. Tell me about your family.”

“My mother is dead, my father might as well be, and I have a half-sister and stepbrother.”

His brows jump and I can see the gears rolling in his head. I can tell he’s going to want to unpack my statement and study the tone of my voice, but I have nothing to say.

“Your father, you say he might as well be dead. Why?”

Now, my brows rise. I wasn’t expecting Reid to be this straightforward.

“You know what, why don’t you hold onto that thought, and we’ll discuss this in our next session?” He stands and a broad smile stretches across his tawny face.

I say nothing, because I’m not eager or dying to talk about the man who means nothing to me. So I stand and follow him to the door.

He makes a joke about my short goodbye, but I say nothing and walk away before he can make another one.

Stepping out of NCU’s Student Health Clinic, I head straight to the parking lot where my 1970 Dodge Charger sits. As I slip inside, my phone vibrates in my pocket, but I ignore it until it stops, but then it goes off again. And again, I ignore it, but when it goes off for the third time, I grab my phone.

“Damn it,” I mumble under my breath at the name on the screen.

I contemplate changing my number, but I know if I do, he’ll somehow find a way to get it.

Since school started, John, my father, has been calling me nonstop. I haven’t answered and hadn’t planned to, simply because I don’t want to talk to him. A normal person wouldassume if their calls and messages aren’t getting returned, it’s because the other person doesn’t want to speak to them.

Unfortunately, John isn’t normal, or very smart.

I’m tempted to shut my phone off, but I know he’ll call Jagger like he has before in the past. The last thing I want is to pull Jag into my shit. He already has too much going on to also deal with John’s bullshit.

Reluctantly, I answer and put it on speaker. I pull out of the parking lot and drive to the house. “Yes.”

“Hey, son, how are you?”

I’ve told him countless times not to call me son, but he never listens.

“Hello, John, it seems that your memory has gone to shit once again, and you’ve forgotten that I’ve told you multiple times not to call me son. But that’s all right, I’ll remind?—”

“Landon,” he interjects. “Don’t speak to me like that. You need to respect me. I’m your father.”

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