30. Jack
30
JACK
I race to my closet and find the first available pair of pants. Usually I’m not one for freeballing it, but there’s no time. I need to catch Dad before he drives off.
I thank the construction gods for making the windows taller than usual. Dad could only see chest up. So yeah, what a relief that he didn’t see me getting my ass tongued. But he still saw Griffin standing behind me, shirtless.
Speaking of shirtless Griffin, he’s already dressed by the time I return to the couch. Bless him for getting the severity of the situation.
“You’re fast,” I note.
“When you have little kids, you don’t get much time to yourself to get dressed in the morning, so you need to be quick.”
He tosses me a pair of flip flops he presumably found on the floor.
“Thanks. Shit.” Mortification hits me. I’m wading through high-tide of this ocean of embarrassment.
“We’re high up. It’s dark. He probably didn’t see anything,” Griffin says, not even convincing himself.
I may never forget the awful look on his face down in that parking lot. I worry it’ll be the last time I ever see his face. Dad and I don’t get along, but the possibility that he’d cut me out of his life sends a sharp pang of fear stabbing through my heart.
“I’ll be right back.” I kiss him goodbye.
Turns out, I’m not going anywhere. Dad bangs at the door with such force that it shakes the cabinet doors and causes a framed poster from my hockey days crashing to the floor.
Griffin leaps up and throws a protective arm across me.
I give him a nod that it’ll be okay, even though my pulse is racing so fast it’s bound to go sonic boom.
Dad bangs at the door again, sending another framed poster to the floor.
“Open up!” he yells.
Griffin squeezes my hand. “I’m right here,” he says.
A beat of quiet takes over the apartment as I unlock the door. It’s so silent, I can hear the click. And then all hell breaks loose.
Dad bursts through the entrance, shoves past me, and takes a swing at Griffin, getting him in the eye patch. Did Dad aim for that spot on purpose, or was it a twist of fucked-up fate?
Griffin stumbles back yet stays on his feet.
“Dad! Stop!”
“What the hell are you doing with my son?” he yells at Griffin, seething with a rage I didn’t know he had in him.
He doesn’t wait for an answer. He lunges at Griffin, who avoids his punch this time. Griffin pushes him into the fridge. Cereal boxes and bags of chips fall to the ground.
“Dad, I can explain!”
He barrels into Griffin, sending him into the island. More of my shit falls to the ground. Griffin yowls in pain and grabs his lower back where he made contact.
“Stop!” Griffin yells.
“Is this some kind of sick revenge?” Dad heaves air through his nostrils like a bull, and to him, Griffin is a wall of red. “You ruined my career, and now you’re out for my son, too?”
“I didn’t ruin shit. You ruined mine!”
Dad charges at Griffin, bum-rushing him onto the couch. Fortunately, that’s the one thing in my apartment that can’t break.
“Stop it!” I yell at the top of my lungs. I grab a plate from the sink and throw it against the wall above the couch. The shattering break gets Dad to stop.
“Get off me!” Griffin says, pushing out of Dad’s grip.
Dad paces by the window and smooths out his sweater. We have a brief window before he can be detonated again. For the first time since he barged in, he acknowledges I’m in the room. Behind his glare is something resembling heartbreak.
“What the hell are you doing with him?” he asks me.
“We were…we…” The beginnings of sentences tumble out of my mouth, but I can’t finish any of them. While I’d be happy to proclaim my feelings for Griffin to almost anyone, I don’t know how to thread this needle with Dad.
“Dad, it’s not what you think. Griffin isn’t here out of revenge.”
“Are you two…” Dad points between us. His face drains of color. “I can’t even say it.”
“We are.” Griffin stands up and straightens his shirt. “I like your son.”
“What? You’re…no.” Dad looks like he wants to vomit. He turns to me. “Jack, you’ve made a lot of bad decisions in your life, but this has to be one of the worst.”
“It’s true, Dad.” His dig at me makes me find my backbone. I’m tired of him looking down at my life. “Griffin and I are together.”
Griffin holds my hand, which threatens to send Dad back into bull mode.
“Jack, this man cannot be trusted. Look, what you do in private is your business. I’ve never asked. I respect your privacy. But him, of all people? He took me out like an assassin in the middle of a game and destroyed my career. I know our relationship isn’t as strong as it used to be, but why are you trying to hurt me?”
Dad’s eyes are big and round, puppy-like, a new low for him. His silent ask for pity only makes me angrier, and I find I’m the one becoming the bull. All of my pent-up anger at Dad spirals out in a tornado of fury. He drilled into me and finally hit a gushing geyser of oil.
“It’s not about you!” I yell at the top of my lungs with such ferocity it actually takes my breath away. It takes both Dad and Griffin aback. “You want to make everything in my life about you. What you didn’t get. The future you want for me. Your rival. But I’m with Griffin for me. Because he makes me happy. He actually cares about me.”
“You think I don’t care about you?”
“You care about what I can do for you. I’m just your puppet that you can maneuver to get what you think is owed to you. You don’t love me, and I’m fine with that. I’ve come to terms with it. And guess what? I don’t love you either.” His face goes even more wounded puppy dog, which only drills deeper into my oil well of rage. “You don’t get to storm in here and tell me who I can and can’t be with. And you definitely can’t throw a punch at the guy I’m dating.”
Dad shakes his head, as if he took a really bad punch. Where I thought I’d hit another nerve of anger and disappointment, there’s a more subdued reaction from him. I turn to Griffin, who gives me a supportive nod, but even that gesture seems more subdued.
“You really think all that?” Dad asks quietly.
I stalk to the front door and gesture out into the hallway. “It would’ve been nice if you asked about my private life. Maybe I wouldn’t have felt so alone. It was you who made it a secret.”
Dad shuffles into the hall. “If you only knew how much I sacrificed to give you a good life. Everything I did, it was out of love.”
He has the gall to sound genuine.
“Why did you even come over here?”
Dad pulls my lucky bracelet from his coat pocket. “I searched the whole house. Found it in a shoebox in my closet of all places. Thought you might need it for Sunday’s game. I was really looking forward to watching you back in action. I feel like I’m watching magic when I watch you on the ice.”
He tosses the bracelet into my hand. I stare at it, but don’t react.
“Okay then.” He shuffles down the hall, out of sight, perhaps for the last time.
I close the door. The silence in the apartment lets me hear the lock click back into place.
Griffin puts a hand on my shoulder, and it’s the drop of rain that makes the levy break. I collapse, sobbing into his arms.