Chapter 62
“So this is what you left medical school for?”
Keep calm. Keep calm. I reiterate my reminder repeatedly. My father's nurse, Randy, picks up his head, and I see the moment he wants to correct my father about his judgmental, elitist attitude, but I don’t want him defending me. I refuse to let others fight my battles with him any longer.
Julian is there, and I can hear him listening.
Jacinda left earlier for a doctor’s appointment for her diabetes.
The fewer people who are privy to my fucked up family dynamic, the better.
The years of wanting his approval, and finally, I thought I would get it.
I have artists booked. Jacinda and Julian.
I haven’t asked him for a dime. Yet, still, I’m not good enough.
For years, I’ve been searching for it. Feeling as if I got his approval, he would forgive me for my mother’s death.
The surprise visit from my father is pushing all the buttons. The way he says ‘this’ with that dismissive tone pisses me off. As soon as he walked in, I knew it was going to be a shit show.
I was knee-deep in dealing with the electrician, plumber, and my emotions about Stone.
I haven’t seen him for a few days, despite his telling me that we would continue whatever the hell it is we’re doing.
I wanted to thank him for the bed. I’ve had some of the best and worst night sleeps.
I fall asleep immediately, buried in his T-shirt, the soft sheets, but then I wake up horny.
I’ve played around with the smallest butt plug, but don’t have quite the courage yet to fully insert it.
It feels dark and delicious, and I’m way out of my depth with it, but I want to.
The man makes me want to do things, experience things I never would have imagined I’d be into. Knives, blood, piercings, tattoos.
I’ve waited for him to knock on my door.
To show up, so I can cash in on those dark promises in his eyes.
I’ve listened to the wall between us, and there’s been dead silence.
The shop has been closed for the last three days, and I have no clue where he is.
Not that I should be clocking for him because, as he put it, we are just having sex.
I’m the one who doesn’t know the rules. Sex for the sake of sex is new to me.
I could call Sophia and ask her. She told us at a girls’ night last year, before she got with my brother, that she had sex for sex’s sake with a man for almost two years and kept her emotions locked away.
I don’t know how she did it because I’m definitely struggling with keeping shit separate.
I’m sleeping in his shirt like I’m some girl with a high school crush and at his point, I might as well be because I find myself lost in recollections of those insane two days, using them as fodder for daydreams about him walking into the gallery or my apartment and tossing me down on the nearest surface and reminding me why he’s burned into my consciousness.
I’m losing my mind even more than before.
Two days ago, I woke up swearing I could smell him.
Which was insane because I went to bed alone.
It followed the most realistic dream I’ve ever had.
Stone was in bed with me, and I could feel him touching my ass, his fingers caressing my asshole while he whispered in my ear.
When I woke up, I was out of breath, horny as hell, and searching my apartment, but he wasn’t there, and everything was still in place.
I blamed it on wearing his shirt. The same shirt that I’ve worn since.
And it’s not like I can call him because I don’t have his number, and I damn sure am not going to ask my brother. I can imagine Jace’s face when I ask him for Stone’s number. I wince at how the conversation would go.
“Hey, can I get Stone’s number?”
“Why?”
“Because I want him to come by my apartment and fuck me until I can’t think.”
Double hell no to that conversation.
Not to mention what the hell would I say if I did manage to get Stone’s number and call him?
Hey? I’m horny, please come through. Yeah, I’m definitely not good at this.
This morning, when Jacinda stopped by so we could discuss the pieces she planned to use for the art show, I wasn’t in the mood, but work and life must go on.
Of course, Murphy’s Law meant that today, of all days, my father would waltz in like he owned the place.
Suffice it to say, I wasn’t prepared to deal with Tae Park.
I welcomed him, trying to hide my annoyance that he wasn’t seeing the gallery finished.
I know when I first bought the space, it was a dump, but it’s coming along.
It’s far from perfect, but I’m proud of the new, gleaming wood floors.
The walls are painted. Stone’s mural is gorgeous and really adds to the space.
Art is going to look amazing with the new recessed lighting.
There’s even a huge vintage chandelier that I found online, hanging from the center of the room.
My mother’s name was etched in the glass window.
The Whitter Gallery. It made me smile every time I saw it.
But none of the improvements seem to matter to Tae Park.
He can’t see that progress, my progress.
My father will never see me, and that makes me happy.
I follow behind him as he appraises every inch.
Randy is off to the side, and I can see the displeasure on his face over my father’s comments.
When his eyes meet mine, there is something sad there, something pitying.
It’s evident that my own father can’t be happy for me, can’t see my accomplishments.
“Yes. This is what I left medical school for. It’s my gallery.”
“It’s a waste of your education, Camryn. Your childish rebellion is not funny.”
The beleaguered shit from his mouth is as familiar as the sunrise.
My ‘childish rebellion’ should be tattooed on my forehead.
Maybe I can ask Stone to do it. A ridiculous bubble of laughter threatens to come out.
I wonder if I ask him, will he fuck me again?
Nope. Not thinking about sex right now. I need all my brain cells to deal with my father, and thinking about Stone will turn them to mush.
But it seems fate wants me to turn to mush, because just as I’m about to tell my father there is no way I’m going back to medical school, in walks the very man taking up way too much room in my hippocampus.
The memories of him are deeply ingrained in my mind.
He walks right in, dressed as he always is.
Dark jeans, ripped and battered, paired with a black T-shirt, revealing his sexy muscle definition.
It’s been two weeks since I’ve seen him.
Two weeks of listening for that bike. I run my eyes over that brooding dark look on his face.
It’s beyond sexy, and heaven help me, my whole body reacts.
From the tips of my hair follicles down to my toenails, my body is attuned to him.
His face is covered in stubble, that pouty lower lip with his piercings, making it hard for me to concentrate.
I can’t help but look down at his crotch.
I can see his dick in my mind, and I want it again.
While I’m lost in flashbacks of it in my mouth, pussy and ass, my father continues his monologue, not realizing that anyone new has entered.
Stone just leans against the wall, watches me, watches my father.
“You’ve wasted the money your grandparents left you.
Your hands were meant for patients, not paint and plaster.
You still have time to go back to medical school.
I know a few people on the board at Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medicine.
Donations will have to be made. Payments sent out, but it is what it is. You can restart this fall.”
“I’m not going back to medical school,” I say, but he keeps talking as if I’m not even there.
“I never held high hopes for your intelligence, but this gallery as you so eloquently put it, will fail and then you will further sully your mother’s name.”
Even sick from radiation, he is brutal and harsh. The mention of my mother hurts, and I close my eyes, praying for patience.
“And the neighborhood will never bring in the type of clientele to make the sacrifice of your success worth it. The shop next door is decrepit and clearly filled with criminals.”
My father turns, and the moment he sees Stone standing inside the front door, he stops. It feels like the air has been sucked out of the 6,000-square-foot space.
My father dismisses him quickly, turning back to me.
I would laugh at the disgust on my father’s face.
Yes, the neighborhood is filled with a criminal, one in particular that I had sex with for 72 hours straight.
A naughty part of me wants to tell my father that.
Let him know that I’m sleeping with a man he would hate, that the man he so easily dismisses is also a respected businessman in the neighborhood. That Onyx and Riggs are my friends.
I see the moment his eyes scan everyone else, including his own nurse, Randy, who, for him, is a servant, an employee.
He looks at Julian, who is on the other side of the gallery, adding hooks to one of his sister’s installations currently lying on the ground.
He disapproves of his tattoos. His punk rocker vibe and backwards hat.
He would have easily dismissed Jacinda’s long, rainbow-colored dress.
The bangles on her arm. Her Carhartt jumpsuit is covered in paint.
The huge gauges in her ears. She’s magnificent and one of the most beautiful black women I’ve ever seen, but all my father would see is the superficial.
Not her degrees, not her passion, and certainly not her talent.