Chapter Seven – Bad Moon Rising #3
I’d known better than to leave him alone, hadn’t I? Even though he’d begged not to be dragged to the wedding, Luca had not proven himself trustworthy since we set foot in Rivers. So why did I continue to give him more rope to hang himself with?
Angrier than I was panicked at this point, I headed for the kitchen and the back door.
As soon as I opened it, Akela whined and ran out, barely making it off the deck before he took a piss.
“Luca!” I shouted.
Nothing moved in the backyard.
Fuck.
I left the door open and jogged back inside, yanking open the door to the bite-sized laundry room and the rack I’d hung on the wall for Luca’s skateboarding gear.
His board and helmet were gone. Damn it.
The dog ran back inside, wagging his tail at me as if he’d done good. I slammed and locked the door and headed for the front with the white furball on my heels.
I had both feet out on the porch before I realized my problem. I didn’t have a car. I’d have to go on foot to the park down by City Hall that Luca had taken to skating in.
With no other place for him to perform the stunts he was damn good at, it was hang out there or hang up his wheels, and Luca lived to skate. Since our town ordinances prohibited skateboarding there, I’d agreed to build several pipes in the backyard…if he stopped skipping class.
I’d hoped the dog would help motivate him. Instead, he’d just abandoned the damn thing to go play.
Akela barked, bounded off the steps, and ran straight for Vader, who was ahead of Andie as she returned from Beckett’s place.
I didn’t have time to take care of the dog and go get my son. I reached back inside, grabbed the leash we’d bought at the Emporium the day before, slammed and locked the front door, and jogged down the steps.
By the time I joined the trio, the two dogs had already made friends, and Andie was petting Akela’s head.
“Aren’t you a handsome boy,” she said, her tone sweet and light in a way I wasn’t sure I’d ever heard before. It was yet another version of her that twisted my insides up.
“I didn’t realize you had a dog.”
“It was on a trial basis. One that has now been cut short by the sheer destruction he wreaked on my house tonight,” I growled.
“You left him unattended? He’s a puppy, right? Has he been trained to be left alone?” she asked, judgment loud and clear.
“Luca was here. But it looks like my vagrant child took off skateboarding and left the dog behind.”
I bent and clipped the leash onto Akela’s collar.
“Let’s go, furniture destroyer.” The dog could run off some of the energy he was still bubbling over with while I worked out some of my anger. Hopefully, I’d have a clearer head and a plan by the time I found my son.
The sound of wheels on pavement eliminated the chance.
Luca carved a path down the middle of the road, the slope giving him enough speed to execute a pop and kickflip, then a 360, which he landed perfectly.
He performed it with the same ease he breathed.
Smooth and graceful. It was more than talent.
Luca had been born to ride. He was only thirteen, but he’d already won several competitions in his age group back in LA.
Having no place for him to practice in Rivers and no trainer nearby were only more reasons for Luca to hate it here.
But what other choice had there been? I’d had to get him away from the influence of not only his mom’s Hollywood crew, who partied every night at her house, but the group of kids he’d fallen in with, who saw boarding as a hobby second only to their favorite one of getting high.
At fucking thirteen. As mere seventh graders.
Moving here had been far more about him than it had been about my father and the county board of supervisors begging me to take over for Dad.
After Eden had left Luca by himself for nearly a week, and then him breaking his arm in the backyard with no one there to help him, my case for full custody should have been a slam dunk.
Instead, it had still taken months to finally win because Eden was Eden, and she had an army of expensive lawyers at her beck and call.
But no amount of begging and pleading from her had softened me that time.
I held tight to the rage I’d felt walking into her empty home and seeing my son gingerly holding his arm to his chest while tears ran down his face.
My fury had kept me fueled until I’d finally crossed the finish line.
A line I should have held the moment Eden and I had gotten divorced.
I wasn’t sure the guilt would ever subside.
Andie hadn’t been entirely wrong in saying I had anger issues. I did. But they weren’t directed at anyone other than Luca’s mother and myself. We’d both let him down.
But we were in Rivers now, and I was trying to right his ship before it sunk permanently.
Tonight wasn’t that night.
It took Luca nearly a minute to realize we were waiting for him at the end of the block. And when he did, his face turned grim in the white of the flashlight app on the phone he had tucked into the strap of his backpack.
The phone I’d locked in a drawer.
He popped off the board, caught the edge with one hand, and breathed out, “Shit.”