Chapter 42 Wolfe
FORTY-TWO
WOLFE
“You can’t let me have one good day,” I mutter to the universe.
I expected my dad to show up, so I’m not surprised, but not this quickly.
Archangel’s hand finds my lower back for just a second, but it’s enough.
“You going with him?” Archangel asks when I don’t walk toward him right away.
“I should probably get it over with.”
He sighs.
“Tell me.”
“You don’t have to go with him. Actually, you don’t ever have to give him the time of day again.” Archangel’s eyes shine with emotion. He’s holding it back.
“I know, but I don’t want to make our lives difficult.”
“He’s making your life difficult, and I want to fight him.”
I growl. “I hate that we’re in public right now.”
“Why?” he searches my face.
“Because I want to kiss you.”
He glares, but he’s still emotional, and I can’t do anything without crossing his boundaries. “Kissing me won’t change what he does to you.”
“You don’t know what he is capable of. You think you do, and yes, it would be great to just cut him off, but do you really want to get a parking ticket every time you take your car out the rest of the time we’re in the city?
And that’s them being nice. I don’t need you being picked up and harassed any time my dad remembers you exist.” The idea of what cops might do to him flays me wide open.
I can barely live with the idea that they’d hurt him the second we are apart. “I don’t trust my father.”
“I would sue the department.” Archangel won’t ever hide who he is or bow to those power dynamics, and I love him for it, but I can’t risk it.
“Not before it’s already an issue, and I don’t trust any of them alone with you,” I whisper, carefully holding back tears. I don’t want to guilt him into anything, but I don’t know how to get him to understand.
He knows what my mother is. He saw her and my step-father, but when I had to stay with my father for months over the summer, he was always thousands of miles away, enjoying the time off school while I was in another version of hell. He didn’t even meet my dad until we moved here for college.
“Please just let me deal with him for now.” I have to keep him safe until we are out of the city at least.
“You’re right.” He shakes his head, holding back, but I’ll have to get him to talk to me after I deal with my dad.
“I won’t be late.”
“When do I assume he’s taken you to a holding cell and is not letting you out?” He’s joking but only partly.
I weigh my answer. “If I’m not at practice tomorrow.”
He frowns.
“I’m kidding. He won’t keep me from practice. He knows we need to win this weekend.”
“Fine.”
I squeeze his shoulder, then walk over to my dad.
“Am I being arrested?” I say stone-faced.
“Not yet.”
“So I’m free to go?”
“Very funny. Get in,” he replies, climbing into the driver’s seat.
I walk around, getting in the passenger side, not even trying to fight it.
We drive around for a while in silence. I don’t push it. I had many of these growing up, and it’s best not to rush him. He’ll say what he needs to say when he’s ready.
“You are in the best position you could possibly be in. Better than I expected after everything,” he says thirty or forty minutes later.
I look over at him, not adding to it. With a cop as a father, you learn to use your right to remain silent before you learn to tie your shoes.
He glances over, clearly gauging if I’m going to reply, and when I don’t, he says, “It’s more important than ever to be the guy they want. You could have gone last year or the year before.”
I can’t argue. With how they changed the draft, making it more like football and extending the eligibility to give players a chance to develop more in college or other leagues, things are more competitive than ever.
“I wanted to finish college with my team.” Hockey can end at any point, and if I have nothing to fall back on, I’ll end up like him. But I won’t say that to his face.
We both know plenty of guys don’t make it out of their rookie contract. But he won’t hear any of that. He’s still living in the memories of his hockey days and thinks he can rewrite his history with mine.
“You’re wasting your most valuable years.”
“Younger isn’t better. I wouldn’t have been top of the draft two years ago.”
“But you’d be almost out of your rookie contract.”
“Maybe.” I grit my teeth and pull my annoyance into my chest. Showing him he’s getting to me will not do me any favors.
“You only have so many fucking years to play.”
“If I did what you wanted, I’d be in the AHL or ECHL for years and maybe never would have gotten where I am.”
“Or you could be on an NHL team already and positioning yourself to sign a huge deal. Your agent agrees with me.” He’s talked to my agent?
I dig my nails into my palm to not react. I count back from five before saying, “But now I have a degree and whatever happens, I’ll be okay. One puck could take me out, like it did you.” I shouldn’t have said it, but the words were already out.
His fingers ball into fists, and I flinch. A grin flickers on the corners of his mouth, and I fucking hate him.
It doesn’t matter that I’ve got inches on him and outweigh him by a decent amount. That fucking asshole will always make me a helpless little kid.
“You have opportunities that were taken away from me. I couldn’t spend years jumping from minor team to minor team and leave you with her.
I had to get a stable career quick and marry your step-mother so you had a fucking shot.
” He’s better at keeping himself under control now than he was ten years ago.
He’s got his fucking reputation to uphold, but it’s only just barely that he doesn’t revert to who he is under the surface.
“But you did leave me with her.”
“I didn’t pick my duty station.” But we both know he didn’t fight her for custody either. “I offered for you to come live with me when I realized how bad it got.”
“It was always bad. I just couldn’t speak.” I don’t even know why I’m arguing with him. He’ll never be the bad guy in his mind.
“I didn’t know.”
“You didn’t have to leave. You chose to.”
“It was a better job and a better life.”
“For you. Not for me.” Emotion creeps into my voice, and I shut that shit down. I will not let him see me weak.
“I did the best I could.”
“I know you sacrificed. I’m not saying you didn’t. But this is my life, and I am making sure I don’t have to make the same decisions.”
My words shut him up. For a minute at least.
“You need to talk to your agent and work out a strategy.”
“Okay.”
“You can’t be parading around with a guy.”
I grind my teeth. “You do not get to tell me who I am with. Wilder has done more for me than you ever have. He took me in when Mom kicked me out.”
“You couldn’t move in with me. You wouldn’t leave your team.” It will always be excuses.
“That doesn’t change the fact that he took care of me when I needed my dad.”
He chews on my words, not saying anything for a long time. “I don’t actually give a fuck if you’re gay. But I want you to be drafted and get everything I never got, and I know what those guys think of gays after playing as long as I did.”
I don’t even know what to say to that or how to process it.
Can that be the truth? I guess I just assumed he’d be homophobic, as the rest of him is hot garbage. I’d never bothered to ask.
“Just talk to your agent. At least listen to her advice. You don’t have to break up; just maybe play it cool for a little while until the team trusts you.” I know he thinks he’s giving good advice, and in some twisted way, he thinks he’s doing the right thing for his kid.
“Neither you nor her will be telling me a damn fucking thing about Wilder. I will fire her and be damned before I take a call from you again. He’s totally off limits.” I set my jaw and look over at him so he can fucking feel how serious I am.
Another long stretch of silence passes.
“I know I’ve made mistakes, but I didn’t know. I would have done more. I do love you, and I do want the best for you.”
I hate that this is the best apology I’ll probably ever get, and I want so badly for him to mean it, which I hate too.
“Your mother keeps calling me.”
I don’t want to talk about her, but I’m glad to have the subject changed. “She’s called me a few times, too.”
“Do you know why?”
“I’m assuming she wants money or something.”
“Don’t give her anything.”
“That ship sailed a long time ago.”
I’m emotionally dead by the time we get back to the city. My dad took me to a late lunch and tried to small talk us back to normalcy, but it just drained me more to have to pretend to be okay.
I hesitate at the front door, just praying Archangel isn’t rethinking everything.