Chapter 6
Six
I wasted half my life telling people how to spell my name.
—Mable’s secret thoughts
Mable
“What are you doing?”
I looked up at the angry voice and wasn’t surprised to find my father in his truck looking at me with distaste. “I’m about to work out. Why?”
“Here?” He all but curled his lip.
I looked up at the rec center’s gym then to him. “Where else would I go?”
I mean, there were only three options, and two of those options I couldn’t afford.
“The country club?” He rolled his eyes. “You can’t be seen going here.”
My father’s disdain could barely be contained. He hadn’t always been so stuck-up.
When it’d just been me and him during my mom’s slow degradation into cancer, we’d been thick as thieves.
We’d go to the thrift shops looking for clothes.
The junkyard looking for bikes we could fix up together.
Hell, we even went to the trades days Bear Pass had where everyone sold everything from homemade soap to crafts and garage sale items.
But now, he wouldn’t be caught dead doing any of those things.
He wasn’t the person I’d once known.
This man was a stranger, and he got more and more distant with each year that passed.
Hell, at some point in the not-so-distant future, we’d be just mere acquaintances that smiled at each other in passing if we happened to see each other out and about.
Not sure if that was happily or sadly, but that point wasn’t here yet.
“I am going here, and I get seen all the time,” I pointed out as I leaned into the interior of my car and pulled out the workout bag that I carried with me.
I’d need to change my clothes before work and take a quick shower. There was nothing worse than sitting in your own sweat all day, especially when you were a salty sweater.
There was never a time that I worked out in any capacity that I didn’t walk out of the gym with white flecks all over me. Dried salt everywhere from my sweat.
It was embarrassing as hell, and not a single person failed to point it out.
“You seriously can’t go here. My daughter can’t be seen going to this gym.”
The reason my father hated this gym so much was because my stepmother’s ex-husband owned it. And there was not a single person in the world who hated Vito more than my dad.
I, however, loved Vito. He’d turned into the greatest non-dad I’d ever had.
He was kind, caring, and actively took part in my life. We had lunch together a couple of times every month, worked out together, and had formed a bond of sorts.
A trauma bond, but still a bond.
He hated Whitney, and I did, too.
He missed his daughter, who all but cut him out of her life. I missed my dad and who he used to be. The same went for him. He didn’t recognize this version of his daughter, and it was no wonder.
She’d changed a lot since we’d first met, turning into this mean girl that no one could ever find appealing.
But when Vito had learned that Birdee had turned into this vindictive person, he’d finally had enough.
He’d disowned her and wanted nothing to do with her.
I couldn’t say that I wasn’t happy about that, either. Because Vito was seriously one of my best friends.
He ranked up there right along with Cody, my actual girl best friend.
Though, that was understandable since Cody was Vito’s second daughter. Though one that was a hell of a lot better. She’d been raised by a better mother, too. One who actually cared about making a quality human being.
Grace, Vito’s second wife, was the epitome of elegant. She definitely lived up to her name. She was the best person that I knew in my life, and to be completely honest, she had been the mother that I no longer had after my own had passed away.
Cody was a year younger than me, but that hadn’t stopped us from being best friends growing up, much to my dad’s absolute disdain.
He hated that I was friends with Cody, and went out of his way to make it harder for Cody and I to spend time together.
But when you have a best friend soulmate like I did, there wasn’t a single thing in this world that could keep you apart.
The moment that I turned eighteen, I’d moved out and in with Cody and her parents.
Vito and Grace had taken care of me like my own family should have.
And that had only made my dad’s and my relationship even worse.
I guess I should’ve known better than to leave Brawny with him. He couldn’t be trusted, and I could see that now in his eyes. He was completely gone to me.
“Listen,” Dad said as Brawny chose that moment to jump out of my truck, his big paws sinking into the snow. “Where’d you find him?”
“A man found him and has been taking care of him for six months. He saw a social media post I made and brought him home to me,” I said. “Your ‘daughter’ dumped him at his house.”
Dad blinked. “Birdee did no such thing.”
“Yeah, that’s why I have a civil lawsuit against her right now.” I snorted.
It was very ladylike of me.
“You need to drop that. Do you know how that’ll look having one of my daughters suing the other?” he asked, clearly exasperated with me.
“I seriously couldn’t give less than a fuck,” I admitted as I caught Brawny’s leash in my hand and threw the bag over the opposite shoulder.
“But she needs to pay me back for everything that she stole from me. And this.” I lifted Brawny’s leash.
“This is the final straw. You’ll never guess who had cameras and recorded the whole thing. ”
The lie was a big one, but he didn’t know that it was a lie, and clearly reacted the way I expected him to.
Dad’s lips thinned. “She didn’t understand what she was doing.”
He damn well knew that Birdee was responsible. They all did.
“She knew exactly what she was doing,” I scoffed as I closed the door of my truck with my hip. “But we already knew that she was a bitch, and a vindictive bitch at that.”
“Don’t talk about your sister like that.”
I stopped and looked at him then. “Dad, or maybe I should start calling you Tom? Get a fucking clue, Tom. Your ‘daughter’ is a piece of shit. She is manipulative, conniving, and doesn’t care who she hurts to get what she wants.
There’s not a single person in three counties that fucking likes her, and the only reason you do is because you like her mother’s disgusting vagina.
A woman, might I add, that you met while she was supposed to be taking care of my dying mother.
” I turned more fully to him then. “Did you sleep with her while my mother was dying in the hospital bed in your marital room? Did you think about anyone but yourself in that moment?”
Dad’s eyes bulged out, and he opened his mouth like a guppy for a few seconds before he decided on anger.
“You don’t have the right to question my life choices.”
I ignored him and walked toward the door, but his parting comment had me turning fully toward him once again.
“I’ll take back every single cent of that inheritance.”
I narrowed my eyes and said, “You could try, Dad. I already have a really great lawyer, so maybe you’ll need to find one that can stand up for your shitty morals. He’ll have to be shady, though.”
“If you go through with this farce of a lawsuit, you’ll no longer be my child.”
I rolled my shoulders to ease out some of the stiffness before turning back toward the door and opening it. I did leave him a parting shot as I said, “Tom, you lost your daughter years ago, and you didn’t even know it.”
The door closed behind Brawny and me, but I could still hear his car as he tried to pull out of the parking lot and failed.
Dummy.
He knew better than to rush in the snow. Plus, his fancy car wasn’t made to deal with the environment.
“What was that about?”
I looked up to find Grace behind the counter filling out paperwork, but she had a look of concern on her face that made my shoulders release the rest of the tension. “He’s an asshole.”
I told her about the rest of the words my dad had spewed, and she got up and hugged me.
“Sometimes when bad people get a hold of good people, their brains can’t comprehend the bad.”
Whatever the reason, my dad was now in my rearview mirror.
No longer was I going to trust him with anything in my life. Not my dog. Not my heart. Not even my time.
To say that my workout was a disaster would be an understatement.
And when I got done, the last thing I wanted to do was talk to all the guys as I gave out all the food that I’d made earlier.
When I got into the office, I placed all the food on the table in the middle of the room then went to the back of the room and put on my noise canceling headphones.
I sat like that, in the back of the room, until the boss came in looking frazzled.
I slipped one earphone off my ear and waited.
He didn’t take long.
He crossed over to the food and took a bagel sandwich out and bit into it. Egg juices went everywhere, including his shirt, which only seemed to piss him off more.
“Any of you have any fuckin’ idea why the big boss is calling me in today?”
No one said anything.
“Great,” he grumbled as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief, wiping his chest and big belly down. “Just what I want to do. Get yelled at. Just fuckin’ great.”
He walked out without handing out any assignments, which we all assumed meant that we were back where we were yesterday. Which fuckin’ sucked, because that meant that I was in the grappler again, and let’s just say that my head already hurt from yesterday.
I didn’t complain, though, just picked up my shit for lunch and headed out.
A couple of the guys from the other crew were also eating the food that I’d given to Meo without a word the moment I spotted him in the lot.
He’d given me a look of concern, but hadn’t tried to stop me from leaving.
Which was good, because I was still mad, and I didn’t want to take my bad mood out on him.
I marched across the parking lot and got into one of the trucks that would be taking us to the job site today. I shoved my lunch down between my legs and slipped my headphones back over my ears.
People piled in, but I didn’t pay them any mind, instead focusing on my audiobook.
Only when we pulled to a stop did I open my eyes.
My gaze went to the rearview mirror to find Meo’s on me.
He looked concerned, but again didn’t say anything as he got out and left me to my own thoughts.
Thoughtful.
He didn’t push.
I liked that he was giving me the space, even though it was clear he wanted to reach out.
I walked to the grappler and got inside, starting it up without a word.
I let it idle for a good twenty minutes before I started doing anything.
And when I did, I did it with aggression, pissed off and angry.
At one point, everyone took a break, and I kept going, seeing no point in stopping.
Usually, I was all about my breaks, but at this point, nothing was going to stop me.
At least, I thought nothing could stop me.
I’d worked right through the break and straight into lunch, fully intending to keep going until it was quitting time.
Not until one lone man started walking toward me with a look of determination.
He walked right up to my tracks and waited.
I was forced to stop or I’d have run him over.
I threw it into neutral and stared at him through my dirty windshield.
It was snowing, and the snow was collecting on the man’s hood and shoulders.
I crossed my arms over my chest and glared.
Because it wasn’t just any man.
It was Meo.