Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR_
EMOTIONAL DAMAGE
Winston slipped away from Calvin and Lucky when they were in the gift shop and when they managed to meet up with him again, he had a bag full of purchases.
“What’s all this?” Lucky asked. “I thought we were just browsing.”
“I wanted to get you two something to commemorate the day we had.” Winston was such a sentimental fool, but it was one of the things Lucky loved about him. Winston had a big heart, and he wasn’t afraid to shower people he loved with affection.
Lucky reached for one of the bags, but Winston laughed and stepped out of his reach. “I didn’t say you could have them now. You can open them when we get home.”
“Wow, you’re no fun.” Lucky pretended to pout. “Did you want me to drive so you can guard the gift bags?”
“No need. I’ll put them in the trunk.” Winston stepped close enough to brush a kiss against Lucky’s cheek.
Winston practically glowed, he was so happy.
Happy without pretense or pretending. Happy because he had everything.
Happy the way Lucky should have been but couldn’t make himself.
Not when everything that wasn’t Winston and Calvin was going to shit.
Lucky took a seat in the back and let Calvin ride shotgun.
He leaned his head against the side window like he did when he was a kid being schlepped off to boarding school.
He’d feigned sleep then the same as now.
He knew he probably wasn’t fooling Calvin, but that was fine.
Lucky just needed a few minutes to get himself together.
Pretending to sleep, though, had manifested actual sleep, and Lucky jerked awake as the car came to a stop outside their house.
“Fuck.” Lucky sat up and tried to stretch out the kink in his neck.
“You crashed pretty hard,” Winston said.
Lucky half expected Calvin to rattle off some sort of statistic about how much REM sleep Lucky got and what was the optimal amount for a human male his age. But, thankfully, his little fembot kept any incriminating information to himself.
“The zoo wore me out.” Lucky stretched then unbuckled his seatbelt. “I feel like I could go back to sleep,” he said as he climbed out of the car after Winston.
“Then I guess you don’t want your present yet.”
“No, no, that’s not what I said.” Lucky wrapped an arm around Calvin’s waist. “Back me up, buddy.”
“If you’re still tired, perhaps you should rest.” Calvin slung his arm around Lucky’s shoulders and steered them toward the front door.
“Traitor. I want my present. Don’t you?”
“I am a patient person, Lucky,” Calvin said.
Before Lucky could form a response to that, they stepped inside and were greeted by Novak and his severe expression.
“Lucky,” Novak said. “Your dad was here looking for you.”
Lucky flinched. Not good. That was definitely not good. “He’s been trying to call me, but I’ve been ducking him. What did you tell him?”
Novak rolled his eyes. “Nothing. I told him you were out and wouldn’t be back until late, and that I’d tell him to call you the minute you got in. Seriously, man, call him back. That man is fucking scary.”
Lucky forced a smile. “Try growing up with him.” He pressed a kiss to Calvin’s cheek. “Why don’t you go top up your battery, and I’ll call my dad?” Lucky didn’t need Calvin around to take his heartbeat or his respiratory rate or anything that might give him away.
“Okay.” Calvin gave Lucky’s shoulder a squeeze before he let him go. He pulled the ticket stubs from his back pocket and smoothed them out. “Winston, where can I keep these?”
“I’ll show you,” Winston was quick to offer, and Calvin followed him up the stairs and Lucky had to wonder if he got Winston out of here on purpose.
“I’m going to step out back and give my dad a call.”
Novak’s brow was furrowed, and he chewed on his bottom lip. “Are you sure everything’s okay?”
“It’s all good,” Lucky promised.
Novak gave Lucky the side-eye, but Lucky slipped away before he could be interrogated further.
Calling his dad was the last thing he wanted to do, but if he was showing up here, that meant shit was serious and Lucky had to deal with it now while he could hopefully contain the fallout.
He strode through the house and exited out the back door. He walked to the back corner where a small fire pit and some benches sat. Lucky dropped down onto one of the benches and called his dad.
“Lucien.” His father’s voice was hard but tinted with exhaustion. “You’ve been avoiding me.”
“I was out with friends.” He wasn’t about to tell his dad that he was out on a date with his best friend and their shared robot lover.
“I heard from the dean, Lucien. And I bet you know why.”
Lucky took a deep breath. “I’m aware.”
“Failure is not tolerated, Lucien.”
If Lucky closed his eyes, he’d be able to picture the perfect posture, the rolled back shoulders and the angle of his dad’s nose as he looked down it at Lucky. “I’m sorry.”
“Do you have any idea what it cost me to see that you’ll graduate?”
Lucky’s stomach twisted. “I didn’t want you to do that.”
“What you want is irrelevant,” his dad snapped, and Lucky shrank back out of sheer habit.
“What you want is to gallivant around the country when you should be studying. What you want is to be a waste of space while other people pay your way. What you want is to be an embarrassment on the family name.”
Lucky’s voice got trapped in his throat the way it often did when his dad laid down the law. His chest tightened to the point of pain and left him unable to draw a full breath.
“You’ll graduate with your peers, like you should. And then you’ll come work for me. I didn’t put you through school so you could fail out in the last semester. You’ll have your degree, and I’ll make sure you have a job that even you can’t fuck up.”
“Dad, I—”
The line went dead. Lucky was slow to pull the phone away from his ear. When he did, he stared at the screen for a few minutes. His body was still trying to fight off the influx of anxiety that talking to his father had given him.
Lucky knew he was a bitter disappointment of a son.
His father had wanted someone who was the opposite of Lucky.
He’d wanted a son who was smart and broad, like him, and a force to be reckoned with.
He’d wanted a younger version of himself, Lucky realized some time ago, and no matter how much he tried, he could never be like his father. For better or for worse.
Lucky was still failing. Only now he was a failure who would graduate anyway.
A failure who would have to go work for his dad.
He saw no other alternative. If he refused, he knew his dad would make him suffer for it.
His dad was vindictive and controlling, and he wouldn’t take well to the insult of Lucky working somewhere else now that he was beholden to his dad.
The diploma his father had secured for him wasn’t a ticket to freedom, but a noose around his neck.