Chapter 5 #3
Startling awake, he knew that he was in the emergency department by the smells.
He tried to sit up, but his head was hurting him so badly that he was nearly sick with it.
Lying back down carefully, he tried hard not to puke on himself.
Whatever happened, it was something that he didn’t want to happen again.
He looked around with his eyes, and even that hurt him.
“You’re in the hospital.” He looked at the officer that was standing at the end of his bed. “You’ve been here about two hours. You must have hit your head pretty hard.”
“I was punched.” He said that he’d tripped over his baggage. “No. I was punched in the face by some man that was in my house. Trin and I are supposed to be married soon, and he hit me when I tried to tell her when that was going to happen.”
“We looked at the surveillance cameras. You were hit, yes. Two times, as a matter of fact, but you got up after each hit, and then you tripped over the luggage you thought you were going to take into the house. Audon told you that he was going to marry Trin, and you should have listened.” Telling the man that his daddy wanted him to marry Trin only had him laughing.
“She’s getting married in the morning. I’ve already talked to both her and Audon.
They might have waited a bit to get married, but you and your wanting to move in with her had upped it for them.
They’ll be man and wife before you get out of jail. ”
“Why am I going to jail? You said yourself that I was hit two times. Why isn’t whoever hit me going to jail? I want to press charges.” He said he was keeping him from entering the house, which was his right. “It’s my house, and I’ll decide who lives there beside me.”
That made more sense in his head, but it was hurting too bad for him to make much sense of things right now. Asking for something for pain, he was told he could have it, but he was going to have to wait a while. The staff was busy with real patients. That’s when he called his dad.
After telling everything to his dad—well, most of everything. He didn’t tell him he’d been hit twice but had ended up in the hospital. Dad wanted to know what he’d done to do that, and he said that he didn’t believe him at all about her getting married.
“She’s just getting over the death of her family, and she’s not thinking right.
Not that it matters, I’ve changed the locks on the house, and you’re not getting back in.
” He asked him what he was supposed to do.
“Get her to marry you, you moron. That’s why I sent you over there in the first place.
Once you get into the house, I’ll make sure she can’t kick you out again.
I’ll pay her whatever it takes to get you two married.
She’ll be the calming force that keeps you out of trouble. ”
“I’m not in trouble all that much, Daddy. I mean, I do get into trouble, but it doesn’t always cost something to get me out.” He said something more, but since he yelled at him, his head started bursting again. “Daddy, I have a headache from falling. Can you please not yell at me right now?”
“I thought you said you were knocked out.” He couldn’t remember what lies he’d told his daddy, but it shouldn’t matter. He was his son, and he should be taking care of him. “Which is it? Did some man get the better of you or did you fall like you just said?”
“What does it matter?” He didn’t see any reason for him to get all up in arms about a little lie when he was hurting.
“Are you coming down here to get me out of this? I can’t get them to give me anything for the pain.
Don’t you donate a shit ton of money to this place?
They should be waiting on me like I’m a god. ”
“You’re an idiot if you asked me. And no, I’m not going to come down there and get you home.
You should call that damned girl and have her come and get you.
Better yet, I’ll call her. She’d better get in line here, or I’m going to have to do something drastic.
I’m sick of pussy footing around with her.
I’ll call her now.” He thanked his daddy.
“You’re still an idiot. If you had done what I told you to do, then there wouldn’t be any trouble from her.
I told you to move in like you own the place, and you didn’t even try all that hard.
I swear to you, Peter, you’re not moving back home. I’m washing my hands of you.”
“Daddy. What am I supposed to do now? She’s getting married in the morning to some guy that hit me.
And he did hit me. Twice.” His dad started cursing again and told him he’d call him back.
He had to make Trin Banton see he was a man that always got his way.
Then he asked what the name of the man was.
“I don’t know. He never gave it to me.” He’d thought about that too and realized that he’d not said anything other than he wasn’t going to be marrying Trin.
“Well, I’ll find out what’s going on and call you back.
She’s going to have to learn her place in this world, or it will eat her alive.
And I’m just the man to teach her too. Once the two of you are married, I’ll keep an eye on her finances too.
I don’t want her to go broke with you around, or I might have to take you both back into my house.
And that’s not going to make me very happy, Peter.
And you know what happens when I’m not happy. ”
“I do.” He did too. His father gave the impression that he was this loving man to everyone, but he didn’t have a heart.
He was forever telling him to get a job or marry Trin.
Like he wanted that to happen. Just as he was going to tell his daddy that they weren’t giving him anything for pain, he hung up.
It was another two hours before he got anything for pain.
He was also told that he had to have fourteen stitches to the back of his head too.
And this was all that man’s fault. As soon as he figured out who he was, he was going to kick his ass all over town just to show him he was the bigger man.
Then he was going to marry Trin. Even if he didn’t want to, he was going to have to do it so that he’d have someplace to live.
If his daddy really had changed the locks, then there was no way he was going to be able to sneak in again.
He was starving by the time he got to jail.
They were going to keep him for seventy-two hours.
It took him asking several times what that meant in days before someone finally told him it was three.
Three days in jail wasn’t anything to him.
Peter had served a lot more. But this wasn’t going to make his daddy happy either, and his daddy was a mean bastard when things didn’t go his way.