Page 22 of Wicked Little Game
Icouldtell him that I have a few cameras on the first floor, becauseIam not a dumbass like my father, who places them so obviously that they are begging to be destroyed, but I don’t.
Instead, I look after James, who sneaks out there like a goddamn special forces agent, albeit in sinfully hot gray sweatpants and without a shirt. Makes it even better.
Frustrated, I realize that this would have been the perfect opportunity to see his face, but I was too focused on not getting shot. Apart from that, it was too dark to really make out anything. The moonlight only graced me with a marvelous view of his back muscles, as if to mock me.
James told me to stay in his bathroom, probably because he thinks that there’s a burglar in the house, but I know that it’s just my father. I sneak back to my room, leaving the door slightly ajar so that I can hear them.
“Hello?” James yells into the darkness, his gun probably still drawn. It would be kind of hilarious if he would shoot my father, thinking that he’s an intruder.
“Mr. Mills?”
Through the camera in the living room, I see James hastily shoving his gun in the back of his sweatpants.
“Oh, Mr. Barron, I’m sorry for surprising you like that. I thought you planned on returning next week?”
My father laughs and says something about how it’s a good thing that James is so attentive and keeps his property safe. He heads straight towards his bedroom and I see how James breathes a sigh of relief.
“We can catch up tomorrow morning, Mr. Mills. I had a long drive.”
Silently, I close my door, already knowing that I won’t leave my room in the next few days. The cameras prove to be a brilliant investment over and over because that way I can see where my father is in the house and I immediately know when he’s gone.
I can barely sleep for the rest of the night, not after the whole rollercoaster of things that have happened. I keep the surveillance app running the whole time, and just when I doze off, there’s movement on the first floor.
James walks down the stairs, definitely more put together than last night. He switched his sweatpants for dress pants, and he’s wearing one of those black polos again. He reminds me a bit of the kids at the country club where you can clearly see that grandma got to dress them today.
He always seems so stiff, like none of his actions come naturally. A carefully crafted facade, and I wonder if it’s because he has a military background.
Jamesshould be more careful with his dog tags. Or at least wear them underneath his preppy polo shirts. Okay, in his defense, he only forgot to tug them away one time, but sometimes, once is enough.
My father is already in the kitchen, a tiny cup of espresso in his hand. The coffee machine is the only thing he’sable to use.
He’s holding his free hand out to greet James. The watch on his wrist is way too big, and I repeatedly told him they look tacky back when we still talked, but he refused to listen to me. Some people will never be classy, no matter how hard they try, and Jay Barron is the poster child for this phenomenon.
“Did you clean up?” my father asks James.
“No, that was Ruby.” It’s not the direct praise I had hoped for, but there’s still a warm feeling spreading in my stomach.
“I’m impressed, how did you get her to do that?”
“I didn’t, she did it on her own accord.”
I wish I had a replay button because I surely must have misheard that. My father makes an acknowledging face, drinking another sip of his espresso.
“Well, Mr. Mills, I hope the little princess isn’t tormenting you too much?”
I roll my eyes and from the way James' posture changes, I’m pretty sure he’d do the same if he wasn’t standing in front of my father. With the way they are standing in the kitchen, I can only see James back. As if God himself doesn’t want me to see his damn face.
“We get along all right, I expected worse,” James answers with a forced laugh.
“Did she try to run off?”
“No, Sir. She behaves well, spends most of the time in her room anyway.”
Now I’m really sure that I’m sleep-deprived and hallucinating because why the hell is he lying for me like that? I thought I was “so annoying, a spoiled brat he can’t stand?”
I’ve heard enough, certainly enough to make me question a few things, so I close the surveillance app and try to sleep for a few more hours.
The next time I wake up, it’s because my father knocks on my door. He’s talking to me in that fake sympathetic tone of voice I know so well, the one he isn’t able to hold for morethan five minutes. The one he uses when he wants to trick me into thinking that he really changed. That he cares for me and that he’ll listen to me from now on. I may have fallen for his tricks back when I was still a kid, maybe also when I was still a teenager.
