Chapter Twenty-Seven
Maggie
“I’m going to vomit,” Cassie muttered, head between her knees as we sped down the road.
“Since when do you have such a weak stomach?”
I glanced over to where she sat in my passenger seat, pale and slightly sweaty.
“Since when do you drive ninety in a thirty-five?” Her head popped up, barely long enough to glare at me. “Oh, nope. Head’s going back down.”
I laughed as she resumed position and slowed down to an easy 70 mph.
“Where are we going, Maggie?” Cassie groaned, staring down at the floor mats. “And how are we not already there yet at this speed?”
“I have some business to take care of,” I told her.
And a lot to say before I lost my nerve.
Running high on emotion, adrenaline, and the horrific memory of Brody’s lips on another girl permanently branded against my eyelids, I pressed my foot harder against the gas and accelerated once more.
Cassie groaned, and I reached one hand in the backseat to grab an empty takeout bag.
“Here,” I shoved it at her. “In case you get sick.”
My fist pounded against the door, eager to do something with the anger practically radiating from it.
“Maggie!” Cassie yanked on my arm to whisper-hiss. “Whose house is this? I don’t think you’re on close enough terms with any of your clients to show up at their home in the middle of the night!”
“It’s not a client.” I banged again. “It’s my dad.”
“What!” she yelled, before clasping a hand over her mouth to stifle the sound that had already escaped. “You said it was for work.”
“No,” I said slowly. “I said it was business. As in, the unfinished variety.”
And I had to do it now or I never would.
“I can’t meet Liam’s dad like this.” She gestured to herself, hair wild from the windows she’d rolled down for the sake of ‘fresh air,’ and the huge Harbor Wolves jersey that fell down to her
mid-thigh.
“You don’t need to impress him, Cass,” I told her. “He’s nothing but an arrogant, waste-of-space, sorry excuse for a father, ass—”
The door opened, and there he stood, in all his glory.
“Making a habit of this, are we, Margaret?” he asked, looking an infuriating mixture of bored and indifferent.
Then, he peered to where Cassie was shrinking behind me, eyeing her up and down.
“Are you girls coming from a high school game?” he asked sarcastically, taking note of our jerseys.
Asshole, I thought.
He was just bitter that he was too ashamed to show his face at the Garden after Liam told him off five years ago.
“Hi,” Cassie said uncertainly. “I’m—”
“Don’t tell him who you are,” I told her. “Because we’re never going to see him again.”
He rolled his eyes and sighed, as if I were nothing more than the child I was acting like.
But then, his eyes widened, and I realized he was noticing the details of Cassie’s jersey.
Number twenty-six branded on the arm. The fact that it wasn’t a knockoff fan jersey, but a real, genuine Harbor Wolves one.
“Are you—” he stared at her, slightly speechless. “Is she Liam’s—?”
“Wife?” I filled in the blanks. “Yes. And she doesn’t want anything to do with you, either.”
And even after everything—even after knowing what he was and even after claiming that this was the end, the last time I’d bother with him—it still hurt that even an extension of Liam was of more interest to him than his daughter standing in front of him.
“I didn’t know you were so closely acquainted with Liam’s wife to be making late-night ambushes with her,” he said, still staring at her instead of me.
“That’s because you don’t know me,” I said, feeling myself breaking. “And you don’t even want to, do you?”
Disregarding me, he stepped out of the doorway, staring at Cassie intently as he slipped into the role of charming father-in-law.
“It’s so nice to finally meet you,” he held out a hand, which she felt obligated to take. “Unfortunate that it’s taken this long.”
I scoffed, shaking my head at his audacity.
Cassie, ever fearful of being impolite, said nothing, even as she squirmed to put some distance between the two of them.
“My son’s been stubborn—takes after me in that way.” He chuckled. “But Maggie’s told me about you. He’d do anything for you. You can get him to talk to me, to give me another chance—”
“Oh, no, I—” she stumbled over her words, freezing on the spot.
I stepped in front of her, shielding her from the slimy man in front of us. I didn’t want my father anywhere near her. I didn’t want him to even look at her.
Not because he was a creep or anything. He was, but not in that way. But because he was an exploiter who would prey on someone’s weakness to get what he wanted from them.
And Cassie, pathological people pleaser as she was, would be trapped and defenseless when up against a guy like him.
“You just can’t give it a rest, can you?
” I laughed bitterly. “Liam wants nothing to do with you. Cassie wants nothing to do with you. Hell, anyone with a properly functioning brain would want nothing to do with you. But you know who did? Me. I wanted a relationship with you, and you didn’t care.
I’m your daughter, and you still didn’t care. ”
“What’s all this about, Margaret? Between this and the showing up at my doorstep the other evening, you’re starting to raise some concerns.”
I was starting to raise some concerns?
No. I think I was finally acting like a normal person.
It was like everything that had happened, everything he’d done had finally clicked in my head. The rose-colored glasses were off, the wool had been pulled from my eyes.
He wasn’t the man I’d put on a pedestal. He wasn’t the father I dreamed that maybe he could be, with more patience, more effort on my part.
He was just exactly who he was.
And it wasn’t enough.
“I just wanted to tell you that I don’t need anything from you anymore. I don’t need you to validate my successes, which you never did anyway, by the way—”
“Margaret—”
“I don’t need you to view me in the same light you see Liam. And I really don’t need to keep doing these father-daughter luncheons at shitty, overpriced restaurants where you pay more attention to my boyfriend or the bottle of scotch you order than you do to me.”
“Yeah!” Cassie said behind me.
“Where is this coming from?” he scowled. “Is this your mother talking?”
“No,” I said, outraged. “Because I barely speak to my mother, since for so long I blamed her for you leaving. Can you believe that? I actually blamed the only parent who stuck around for me. She wasn’t perfect, but she tried. And you know what? She did a good job.”
“If this is the type of woman she raised, then that’s debatable.”
“Screw you,” I told him. “And you know who else stayed? My brother. And after years of him being distant and all screwed up over you, we finally broke down all these walls that had always been between us. And for the last few years, we’ve had a good relationship.
He wasn’t just my brother, but my friend.
And I screwed that up too! For you! I hurt Liam because I wanted you to be happy.
And proud of me. And finally see me for once in my life. ”
I think I ended on a whimper, but it felt good to get it all out there, the ugly truth swirling in the frigid air like bombs that had lived precariously inside of me for years.
“Stop it, Margaret,” he said with a look of disgust. “You’re being too emotional. You’re embarrassing yourself.”
“For the last time, it’s Maggie, you absolute sociopath!” I yelled, his words blowing the lid off my carefully contained temper. “And there’s nothing wrong with having emotions! Maybe if you had a few of them yourself, you wouldn’t have abandoned your family and I wouldn’t be so screwed up!”
Instead of sympathy, or guilt, or any of the myriad of human emotions I expected to see cross his face when I finally confronted him with all the pain he’d left me with, I only found irritation.
Not even anger. No, that was too strong a feeling for someone like him to have. I wasn’t even worth his rage. Before, it might’ve made me feel pathetic and small and inconsequential, but now it just solidified my belief that he was nothing but a monumental waste of my time.
“And maybe if I didn’t let myself get screwed up by you, I wouldn’t have pushed away the only man I’ve ever loved. And now, it’s too late.”
He snorted.
“And you wonder why,” he stared down at me disapprovingly. “You think any man wants to deal with such a basket case for a partner?”
His words coiled inside of me, filling me with dread. Filling me with anger.
He should’ve stopped. He should’ve shut his mouth. If he’d stuck around, he would’ve known that I had a temper on me I couldn’t contain even if I tried.
But he didn’t know me, so he kept going anyway, throwing one final blow at me that might’ve knocked me clear off my feet any other day, but tonight only fueled the storm that was already inside of me.
“If you didn’t push him away,” my father said as he looked me in the eye, “he would’ve left on his own.”
And then I lunged at him.