Page 11 of Wanted You More

Cringing at the use of my full name, I rub my arm. “I’m at Marybelle’s, we—”

“I know for a damn fact you’re not at Marybelle’s, so try again.Where are you?”

Before I can answer, the brakes from the car that pass by me squeal to a stop. When I see the reverse lights flicker on, I swallow, knowing who it is. Dad’s car has a bumper sticker on the back, identical to the one on the fender of the dark car backing toward me.

“Get in the car,” I hear Dad say twice. Once on the phone and once from the front window of the vehicle idling beside me at the curb. “Now, Austen.”

Hanging up, I tuck the phone into my back pocket and round the front of the car to climb into the passenger seat. Glancing in the backseat to see if Wolfe is there, I frown when I notice it empty. There goes the mediator of the tense ride home.

“He’s in bed,” Dad informs me, knowing who I’m looking for as he turns the car around and starts driving us home. “Where you should have been this entire time. And is that alcohol I smell on you right now?”

Closing my eyes, I sink against the seat and let out a small breath. “I barely drank,” I tell him, as if that’s supposed to make a difference.

He knows I’ve done worse. He’s seen me high, raiding the kitchen cabinets at midnight, and he’s seen me sprawled across the bathroom floor, drunk as hell hugging the toilet.

For a moment, he doesn’t say a word. His fingers grip the steering wheel a little tighter before loosening. “I’m tempted to ground you and take away your phone. But I have a feeling that wouldn’t stop you from sneaking out anyway. And God forbid you do that without your phone. If something happened to you…”

The choked sound of his voice makes my throat constrict. Twiddling my thumbs in my lap, I try figuring out how to tell him he’s wrong. But he’s been lied to enough by me, so I choose silence instead.

“Were you at least…safe?” he asks, making a face as he gives me a once-over. Something captures his attention before he quickly returns his eyes to the road with a shake of his head.

Safe?

Oh God.I’d smacked Monty earlier when he bit my neck. Is there a mark? Hand moving to the column of my throat, I will the universe to let the seat I’m in swallow me whole. “Yeah, Dad,” I rasp in embarrassment. “I was.”

The rest of the ride is spent with nothing else said between us. I look out the window, hoping we can just go to bed as soon as we’re home. He hates having conversations anyway, especially ones where he has to parent. Mom was always better at being the bad guy and preaching about the consequences of our actions, even when we were little.

After he pulls into the garage and turns the car off, he stays buckled in his seat and looks over at me. As much as I want to make a break for it into the house, I force myself to stay where I am and hear whatever he has to stay.

I don’t expect what does come. “You remind me so much of her,” he says, voice nearly inaudible. “The stories she would tell me of all the shit she’d get into…It always made me nervous about what you and Wolfe might get into. But your mother always said that as long as we raised you both right, you’d respect us and the rules we laid out.”

I’m still silent, palms tucked under my thighs to hide the slight shake to them.

“So what,” Dad asks slowly, eyes both hard and hollow simultaneously, “have I done wrong to make you act out this much?”

His question hits me in the chest, the force making it hard to breathe. “Nothing,” is my answer after a long stretch of time. I glance up at him through my lashes hesitantly. “You’ve done nothing wrong.”

He unbuckles himself and pulls the keys out of the ignition before opening his door. “Your mother could lie through her teeth too.”

With that, he climbs out and closes the door behind him. I hear the garage door slowly lower behind me, followed by the one attaching the mudroom to the two-car garage currently occupied by Dad’s vehicle and a bunch of storage containers full of Mom’s stuff.

“Nice going, Austen,” I scold myself, fighting off the swell of emotions that prickle the backs of my eyes as I undo my seat belt and climb out of the car.

The tease of tears. But none fall, regardless of the guilt getting thicker by the second.

Typical.

I know Dad doesn’t deserve all the shit I put him through.

So why can’t I stop?

***

Dad takes mycar privileges away, hiding my car keys somewhere I’ll never find them. Truth is, I probably could if I wanted to. I just don’t feel like putting the effort in.

Instead, I’ve resorted to the old bike I haven’t ridden in years that was stuffed away in the back of the garage. Since I’m not grounded, I still go to Queenie’s and Marybelle’s, but I don’t go out at night and instead hang out in my room with Wolfe watching dumb movies to pass the time.

Tonight, he chooses some ridiculous horror flick about a giant spider. Unlike him, I’m more focused on the full moon in full view of my bedroom window. It’s probably a good thing I’m staying in tonight because weird things always happen during a full moon.

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