Page 4 of More, Daddy
The next thing I know, it’s two in the morning.
CHAPTER
TWO
“What?”My response is a grumble trapped inside a yawn, grumpy and loud as I stretch my feet through the undiscovered cold pockets of the bedsheets.
“I certainly hope you looked at your caller ID and saw it was me before answering your phone.” Dean pauses. “What if I was your mom, man?”
I bark out a laugh. “Sorry—hey, Dean. What’s up?” I ask, rhetorically, because then I add, “I didn’t sleep much last night.”
“No?” he asks, and in the background Ican hear the distinct chirp of the local radio station, reporting on last night’s away game.
Another yawn. “No. What’s up?”
Dean is the first to report about last night’s game. “We won all three games,” he says of the football teams. “And how many calls did you field?”
“None,” I tell him, happy to report back that my lecture-threat worked.
“My little angels,” Dean deadpans. “They came through.”
I run my tongue over my teeth. “What time is it?”
“Almost ten,” Dean says.
“They haven’t checked out yet. I’d wait until the hotel gets in those rooms before I’d start praising.”
The line goes quiet for a moment. “Damn, you think there will be damage?”
Dean put his money on the line when the school district chose ten dollar meal stipends over a safe hotel stay for the players. The pool at another high school needed retiling, and apparently that took precedence over not putting a hundred students in a bus on a winding, wet road at night.
“I hope not.” I consider how quickly the good kids like Ryan and Briar would’ve called and ratted the others out. When I was their age, I’d die before I was a snitch, but now, as the man responsible for a bunch of high schoolers, I’m glad to have snitches and goody-two-shoes around me. “I seriously doubt it. One of the suck-ups would’ve called me.” I scratch the side of my jaw where a day of unshaved stubble is getting momentum. “I’ll call some captains and junior coaches later this afternoon, get a pulse on it.”
Dean takes another pause. “Good, okay.” He sucks in a breath. “Well, that’s not why I called.”
I peek out of my one open eye, gauging how assaultingthe sun is this morning. I’ve yet to hang curtains or shutters in the back of the house, and every time I attempt sleeping in, I curse myself for having not taken care of it yet.
Yet.
I say yet as if I haven’t lived here for six fucking years.
As much as I’d like to claim a life so busy that window coverings simply haven’t made it onto my radar, that would be bullshit. A lie. And I fuckinghateliars.
“Why then?” I ask Dean. He may be one of my only friends, but I’d give my left nut to get off the phone with him. The thought of rereading my chat log withDaddysGirlhas my pulse leaping, and the back of my neck tingling.
“Thought you might be interested in a set up,” he hedges carefully, slowly, like he’s headed down a road full of spring loaded traps. He wouldn’t be wrong—he’s been injured making this journey before.
This time, I take a different approach. And I always find it hard to be a complete prick after a night talking toDaddysGirl. “Let me ask you something. If you don’t like the idea of being set up, why in the world do you thinkIwould want to be set up?”
Dean adjusts the radio in the background. He’s probably headed to work in the local food bank or plant trees for Greenpeace or some shit. Dean McAllister is a good guy, one of those good guys that genuinely thinks in rainbow and wholesome things at all times, who wants the best for everyone in the world, who believes in good and rails against evil. He drops his free change in those plastic boxes at grocery store checkouts, and stands and listens to people with clipboards in front of the hardware store.
Total fucking goody-two-shoes. And why is that? He hasn’t been divorced. He hasn’t felt the excruciating sting ofhumiliation and betrayal at the hands of the person who promised to love him most, to love him forever.
He has no reason to be cynical.
“Well, I guess I just thought—” He starts but I finish.
“No. I don’t want to be set up. Before Clara June, you didn’t want to be set up either, remember?” I tell him before adding a cursory, “Goodbye, Dean,” and hanging up.
