Chapter 14
Two months ago
Alexandria
Ash Riley
Ichecked James’s reply quickly.
Yeah, still ongoing. Let me know if you want me to go over there.
Oh, I’d be home soon enough. In half an hour, if my GPS was correct.
I inserted my earbuds and called Nate instead.
He was chuckling when he took my call. “Hey. Dad just told me he’s sending your old man a collection of magazines from the fucking ’70s as a care package.”
Christ. Those two old fuckers knew each other. “He will love that. Are you still at your folks’ house?”
“Yes, but I’m about to head home. I just have to wake up Lily,” he answered. “I told her we’d head up to see Grandma and Grandpa this weekend, and I guess she passed out from sheer excitement.”
I chuckled, though it sounded forced to my own ears.
It’d been a clusterfuck of a few days, once we’d heard my old man was in the hospital.
He’d somehow managed to shoot himself in the foot with a nail gun a few days ago, and it’d been a source of frustration and entertainment until we’d learned that the wound had gotten infected.
So I’d packed a bag and headed up there to support Ma and tell Pop to lay off the damn garage project for a while.
“You must be exhausted,” Nate murmured. “Are you all right?”
If he’d asked me forty-five minutes ago, the answer would’ve been yeah, sure, I was okay. Now, though…
“We might have a teenage rebellion on our hands,” I said, clearing my throat. “What did Dylan say about where he’s going tonight?”
“Uh, he’s at Steven’s house,” he answered.
“Yeah, he lied.” I checked the rearview before switching lanes. “I got a text from James about forty-five minutes ago. Apparently, there’s a big party raging at my house as we speak.”
“What the—are you serious? I can’t believe him.”
“Can’t you? He’s a teenager.” My brother and I had pulled that shit once or twice too, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t royally ticked off. “Can you go someplace private? I wanna talk this out before I become our son’s worst nightmare.”
“Already on it. No, Micah, stay here with Nana—I’ll be right back.” He’d left wherever they were a few seconds later when the background noise faded and a door clicked shut. “Okay, I’m alone. Do you want me to drive over too?”
“No, it’s okay. I’ll handle it. But I wanna make sure we’re on the same page.”
“Oh, you have my full support to ground his butt. Even when we know it’s standard teenage behavior, we can’t condone it just because one of his fathers did the same crap to his parents decades ago.”
“Damn, boy. We’re throwing out decades now?” I asked defensively.
“You turn forty-six in a few months. I think we’re passed years.”
What-the-fuck-ever.
“Stay on topic instead,” I muttered. “Before I barge in there, I need the shrink in you to level with me. And the dad, for that matter. Do you think he’s acting out because of us splittin’ up? He and Hallie have had this knowledge for over a year now.”
Granted, we’d made sure to talk to them a lot.
We always touched base and tried to dig below the surface to see how they were doing; we’d even gently told them—told them, not asked—to see the school counselor right after we’d let them know we were separating.
But teenagers weren’t easy. Dylan wasn’t much of a talker when it came to sensitive subjects.
On the other hand, he’d been open enough to show he was upset in the beginning. He and Hallie had both been incredibly distraught the first few days, and then… The emotions had tapered off, with few reappearances here and there.
Nate sighed. “We obviously can’t rule it out, but I struggle to think it’s a reaction to that. He’s been in a good mood lately—hasn’t he?”
That was my impression too. “I think so. I mean…” Our boy was growing up, but in between those moody teenage days, where shrugging and muttering seemed to be his main language, we saw glimpses of a young man in the middle of creating his own path.
He and I always had a good time on the golf course or when we went to an indoor climbing place.
He still went swimming with Nate some mornings.
He wasn’t pulling away like many kids his age did.
“He’s doing all right in school, he’s having fun learning to drive, and he’s got that job now.
” Twice a week, he worked at my local AMC.
“He needs to feel this punishment,” Nate stated.
“I mean, no need to embarrass him in front of his friends, but I want him grounded at least two weeks. This is a level of lying I don’t care for at all.
He told me he was just going to play video games with Steven all night, and he promised me Steven’s parents were going to be home and they were okay with the sleepover. ”
I nodded along in agreement. “The little shit gave me a spiel about the house too—said he wouldn’t mind having a set of keys so he could come over and get used to the idea of moving.”
I’d shown him and Hallie the house last month, and their reactions were understandably a mixed bag of not wanting Nate and me in two different places and…
well, new house, bigger than the old one, more space for them upstairs, having the freedom to pick out their own furniture, and so on.
After painting Dylan’s room gray and Hallie’s room a muted purple, I’d left the rooms alone.
The floors had been polished and re-treated, and I’d replaced the baseboards.
“He’s thought this through. He knew you didn’t plan on coming home until tomorrow originally,” Nate said. “Okay, ground him for two weeks, during which he also has to surrender his phone after eight PM every night.”
“Deal.”
When I pulled into my driveway and heard the music blaring and saw the kids on the porch, I was surprised nobody had called the cops. The front door was open too, so they were letting out all the damn heat. Maybe Dylan should pay that bill next month.
Little fucker.
After killing the engine, I pulled out a folder from the glovebox, where I kept my contact information for all the parents of the kids in Dylan’s class.
It was my weapon of choice tonight.
There’s that duck.
I had to ask Nate if Lily played with little plastic ducks. I kept forgetting, but three times now, I’d found those tiny things. Once in my truck, once at work—just randomly on my desk—and once in my jacket pocket. I’d tossed one of them into the glovebox with the mental reminder to ask Nate.
I liked to think I was caught up on all the toy trends.
It was especially easy these days since only two of my kids still played with toys. The other two were insistent on becoming adults.
Fuck, I hated it.
Was I going to find Dylan drunk? So help me God, if anyone was hooking up in my bedroom, I would call their parents.
I grabbed the printout with a solid list of contact information, and I climbed out of my truck and aimed straight for the house.
For every kid I saw, there was one red Solo cup—and that was too many for the three extra cars I saw parked along the street. Thank fuck not many of Dylan’s friends had gotten their license yet. About eight or nine kids were on the porch, girls with too much makeup, boys trying to look cool.
God-fucking-dammit. I’d watched these little hellions grow up. I’d handed out hot dogs and juice boxes at baseball games, and now my property smelled like a stoner’s paradise.
One of Dylan’s classmates spotted me when I reached the porch steps.
“Oh crap, it’s Mr. Riley.” Sabrina thought she was subtle when she threw her drink over the railing.
“Who?” some boy slurred.
“One of Dylan’s dads, dumbass. We gotta go.”
“Not so fast,” I told the girl. “Who drove here tonight?”
“What?”
I pointed at the cars parked in front of the house. “Those cars didn’t appear by magic. Who drove?”
“Oh, um, probably Martin’s big brother and his friends.”
“Martin Nielsen?”
She nodded quickly. “His brother’s name is Brent. I think he’s in the kitchen.”
Excellent. “Okay. Go home.”
And there was little Jonathan. I narrowed my eyes at the oblivious guy, went up to him, and took the cigarette from his mouth.
“That shit will kill you. Get the fuck out of here, Jonathan.” I threw it on the ground.
His eyes bugged out, and he dragged two friends with him that I didn’t recognize.
“So sorry, Mr. Riley—please don’t call my dad!” Julie ran off too, with another drunk boy.
“Everyone get off my damn porch,” I snapped.
The kids scattered.
I took a deep breath and entered the house, where people were dancing, jumping around, laughing, getting drunk and high—
“Are you fucking kidding me, Lia? You have a game coming up.” I took the joint from her and the Solo cup from another, and I just started ruining their party. “Go home.” One bottle of vodka there—thank you, it was going down the drain soon. Beer, beer, beer.
I peered into the kitchen and spotted half a dozen little assholes playing poker and another half dozen sitting around on the floor.
“There’s a cute girl asking for a Brent Nielsen…?” I mentioned.
A boy was quick to jump to his feet. “That’s me.”
He was drunk off his ass, so this wasn’t gonna be difficult. A handful of his buddies stuck to him like a shadow, and I guessed two of them had cars.
“I’ll be honest. This girl loves cars. She wants to know if you have a sweet ride before she asks you out,” I said. “Otherwise, she’ll go with someone else. So, show me your keys, boys.”
It was like taking candy from a baby…
Brent and two of his friends eagerly revealed what kind of cars they drove, while digging out their keys.
Kids could be so stupid.
I didn’t fuck around. I grabbed the keys and told them they could get them back tomorrow—
“Whoa, man! I need to get home,” Brent slurred.
“I agree. Start walkin’.” I pointed at the hallway. “All’a youse. Unless you want me to call your folks.”
One of the kids seemed to sober up at bit, and he tugged at Brent’s arm. “Dude, I’m supposed to be at my cousin’s house. If my parents find out, I’m toast.”