Page 234 of Steeling Her
I set the two plates down, making sure the forks don’t slip off the side, onto the nearest space available on his workbench. A harsh sigh leaves his mouth as he removes himself from the hunched over position he was once in underneath the bonnet of the car, continuing to work. He waits for a reply, and I give him one.
“I think you and I should have a little talk,” I speak, making him stop in his tracks.
Chapter Forty-Six
Just Say It
Nick
He sighs and rests both palms on the ridge of the car that divides the car from the outer paint and panels, the inside and the outside. The complexity of the dusty car engine has his attention and not me.
The heavy smell of oil mixed with the sweet sensation of the chocolate cake’s aroma rolls into one, making my stomach churn a little. Mom’s chocolate cake should only be eaten at a table, and not the one in the garage.
“Well, I don’t need to say anything,” he finally speaks to me with an attitude I don’t agree with. He refuses to look at me, which shouldn’t be much of a surprise, but I am his only son.
“Fine, you don’t have to talk. You can listen.” I finally dominate this conversation that we should have had many years ago. That even is still fresh on my mind. I didn’t want to deal with it until I had the conversation with Elaine. I just gave him his chance to have a civil conversation with me after five years of dodging it, but he refuses to do it on my terms.Well, I’m not going to do it on his either.
“No.” He throws a wrench into the tool box with a loud clang and moves the others around that are tucked inside the box. He moves toward a red metal box to retrieve another tool for another job he wants to dodge me with.
“Yes.” I deny his rejection. I watch his shoulder drop after another long sigh from hearing my harsh tone that he has brought out of me. His head lifts up, and he stares forward at the wall full of tools hanging neatly in their places while I stare at the back of his head, noticing the grey hairs dominating a good portion of his hair, and wait for him to turn around and face me.
When he does, he leans back against the table, acting like he couldn’t give two shits about this. Folding both his arms across his chest and his legs at his ankles, he rests all his body weight onto the old, crooked, and stained table he uses to house the rest of the tools he’s collected over the years that don’t hold a place on the tool wall.
“What? What could you possible want to say to me after five years of not coming home or traveling nearly two thousand miles that you couldn’t say over the goddamn phone to me, Nick? Hmm?” he says in a huff, like I’m annoying him and interrupting his precious car time that he’s used all these years to avoid family. I can see that it has bothered my mom and sister when he excuses himself from their company.
“Stop acting like a child!” I huff at his attitude.
“A child? You think I’m acting like a child? Why don’t you start looking in the fucking mirror and start doing some growing up of your own! Or do you need your mother to do that for you too?” He points one hand at me and the other at the door I came from.
“Don’t bring Mom into this. This”—I point between the space where we’re both standing—“is between you and me. I haven’t traveled this far to come and fight with you . . . again. If I did, I would have gladly done it over the phone.” I roll my eyes at how immature he’s acting. “While you’re at it, get the fucking pole that’s lodge up your ass removed because it’s obviously affecting your mood.” Before he says anything further, I interrupt him, “Save me the comebacks or the threats. I’m tired of it.” I wave him off and reach back to grab a chair that’s lodge behind the stack of boxes in the far corner and drag it over to where he was working to make sure he listens to me loud and clear if this is how it’s going to go.
“What do you want?” He leans back and waits for me to sit down. I can see him going into defense mode already, which is not ideal, but I’m not surprised either. “To hit me again?” he scoffs. I can see that he just wants to get this over with, judging by his standoffish demeanour.
How inviting,I think to myself sarcastically. “You deserved it—”
“How?”
“You fucking told me to break it off with Carter!” I yell at him in irritation. “Can you not see that what you did is completely wrong! You pressured me into breaking up with the only girl that I have ever opened myself up to and fallen in love with. I fucking loved her, heck, I still do! And you have the nerve to stand there and act dumb, pretending that what you made me do was the right decision?” I talk back, finally getting to the root of it. No more beating around the bush, it’s game time.
“It was for your own good and you know it—”
“No, it wasn’t. It was for your own good,” I finally say it. The look on his face let’s me know that I hit him hard with that one.Good, at least he knows how it feels.He knows just as well that I did it because he wouldn’t have stopped. “You were living your dream through me. The simple story of the dad living his dream through his only son because he never got his shot at going pro—”
“How dare you—”
“How dare I?” I laugh until it falls into silence once again. The mortified look on his face let’s me know that he never thought I’d find out he was a college footballer, too, but he wasn’t good enough to go pro despite working hard. He had a bad ankle injury and it never healed right. “I know everything,” I say diplomatically. “I know you never got your chance, so you wanted mine.” I slam my hand on the table. One directed at him out of anger and another directed at myself for getting heated so quickly. “You wanted to live through me, you know I’m right.” A look of shock on his face tells me that was the last thing he expected to leave my mouth.
“How did you—”
“Know?” I scoff and turn my gaze to the side wall and shake it. “Is that all you really give a shit about right now?” I laugh in disbelief that it’s all he picked up on.
“Don’t play with me now, boy, I’m warning you.” I rise up to my feet to show him how much I’ve outgrown him both in height and width. Gone are the days of me feeling intimidated by him.
“And what are you going to do?” I test his anger when I know I shouldn’t. This is not how the talk should go, but here we are.
“Sit down now,” he urges me with a fire in his tone. I do it anyway, not because he told me to, but it’s because he knows I got my point across. I have the upper hand.
He walks back to the tool box and fishes around it until he finds the tool that he wanted. I, on the other hand, reach for my cake, not letting it go to waste despite the god-awful smell of this place.
