Page 91 of The Step Dare

“I’m only here to support her. You know I love you both.”

“I saw the invitation on Instagram and thought it would be a pleasant surprise.”

Once he made it through some bullshit story about how this all came about, he kept trying to get me to talk, but I’ve been too determined to get him as far away from the venue to pay attention to much of it. Only thing I know is I’ll let him fuck this day up for Mom over my dead body.

At some point, he said,“Let’s grab some breakfast and chat,”so now we’re sitting at a booth in a diner. I’m mostly trying to calm my anger because if I lose it, I don’t know what I’ll fucking do to this bastard.

I haven’t craved vaping since Brenner found new ways of keeping my mouth busy, but damn, I could sure use a hit to take the edge off right about now.

As I’m about to say something, the waitress comes over with the coffee he ordered.

“Do you have oat milk?” he asks.

“I can check.”

“No,” I say through gritted teeth. “He’s fine with this.”

The way he eyes me, it reminds me of other times when I was younger and called him out on what he said about Mom, the thing about Aria that finally made me snap. He knows he fucked up by showing here today.

“Yes, I’ll be fine with this,” he says, echoing my wording.

The waitress has barely turned around before I say, “What the hell are you doing here?”

“I told you—”

“And I don’t believe any of that bullshit about coming to patch things up.”

He winces. “Does your mother let you talk like that?”

I glare at him. “You wouldn’t know either way.”

“That’s not by choice, and you know that.”

As I find myself able to think straight, I notice the changes in him—more grays, a few more lines along his eyes. Evidence of the time that has passed since I last saw him.

“I just don’t know whythishas to be the choice, Taylor. I care about you and your mother. I’ve tried to contact you, but you changed your number. You’ve blocked me on all social media accounts.”

Occasionally he’s tried to hit me up on socials, and I’ve promptly blocked him.

“So you do know I don’t want to see you, but you came anyway. On the day Mom’s getting married, I should add. You don’t think I know what you’re doing?” I scoff. “You haven’t changed a damn bit.”

Now I’m cursing intentionally to piss him off, really giving this my full-blown teenage-asshole tantrum, the way I would when I was forced to stay with him.

“You’re still trying to do it,” I add.

“Do what? Be in your lives?”

“Convince me you’re not the monster I know you are.”

He cringes. “A monster? You know I’m not that.”

“Yes you are. A monster who’s terrified of being seen for what he is.”

“I can understand how your mother’s convinced you of that with all the years she’s had to get in your head.”

“You may have managed to convince the courts and a few of my family counselors, but you’ve always known I never bought it. And it just drives you crazy, doesn’t it?”

“Taylor, you were too young to understand the dynamic between Nicole and me—”

---