Page 68 of Bending The Rules

Twelve

“I thought I told you not to bring your ass by here if you weren’t bringing my granddaughter, or buying a car?”

I shook my head as my father stepped aside to let me into his office at the dealership, despite the harsh words he’d used to greet me at the door. Weeks had gone by since the thing with Imara, and they still weren’t back on the best of terms – and apparently, my father and I weren’t either.

“You’re still blaming me for that, man?” I asked, dropping onto the couch that sat at the back of his office. “When are you and The Professor going to sit down and talk through this foolishness?”

“Whenever you get some business of your own. What do you want?” he asked, crossing his arms as he leaned against his desk.

“To get some advice from my father.”

“You want me to help you fix your shit, after you messed up mine. You may as well carry your narrow ass right back out of that door.”

“It’s about Toni.”

Those words made his scowl soften.

My father had never had a daughter of his own, so when my brothers and I brought women into our lives, he took it seriously. Reese and Devyn – and even Cat, even though she and I were divorced – were dear to him. Toni and Bri though… they were precious.

Bri, just by nature of his being his grandchild, but he’d watched Toni grow up. She was always around, always making him laugh… it had taken a while for him to stop being pissed at me when I explained everything that happened between us.

The thing was, as precious as Toni was to him, she was to me too. So now that I knew my daughter was okay, and her mother was back from her trip to France, and had insisted on a “girl’s day”… I wanted to take a minute to get my bearings on that situation. Especially since spending yesterday tending to Bri meant that I had missed catching Toni before her flight.

“What did you do to my Tonithistime?” Pops growled, scowling at me.

“Nothing.”

The look on his face said he didn’t believe me. “So then what’s the problem?”

“Thatisthe problem. Me doing nothing. She wants… she wants me to make a move I’m not sure about making.”

His scowl deepened. “What kind of move?”

“I… I think she wants us to try something other than being just friends. Something like us being together, as a couple.”

Pops held up a hand. “Hold up – I thought she was engaged to some knucklehead that couldn’t even be bothered to come and get my blessing?”

I shook my head. “Knucklehead is out of the picture. I almost had to kick his ass.”

“Because you took his woman?”

“I didn’t take his woman.”

Pops scoffed. “You don’t have to deny it son, it’s in your blood. I took your Mama off one of the DeBarge brothers back in the day.”

“Man,whatever,” I laughed, waving him off. “That didn’t happen.”

“You ask Sammy,” he countered, referring to his long-time friend, who owned a little hole-in-the-wall lounge that we frequented. “He was with me when they ran up on me, but we handled those boys. I don’t know how they covered up those black eyes to get up there and sing that night.”

I threw my head back to laugh, holding my stomach. “Pops, youcannotbe serious!”

“As a heart attack, son. And look at your brothers. Both of them took their women from a man who didn’t deserve to be called that. You relieving that man of duty with Toni… that was just the way things had to happen.”

I chuckled. “So you’re saying… home-wrecking is the Wright Family birthright?”

He shrugged. “Somebody has to be the one to set things in order. May as well be us, instead of being on the other side of the equation.”

“I guess you have a point there.”

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