Wild Forces: A Friends to Lovers Romance (O-Town Book 2) by Karen Renee (summer reads .TXT) 📕

“Outstanding news, son! And I was going to call you in a little while anyway.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I wanted to know if you’re free for dinner this evening?”

I picked at the cinnamon bun. “Uh, yeah. Is something wrong?”

He sighed. “No. Nothing’s wrong. I just wanted to treat you to dinner. Your brother said you had Sonic last night. That’s just wrong, especially as good as you are in the kitchen.”

“No, Dad. What’s just wrong is Brock runnin’ his mouth about where I eat, but whatever. Besides, you can’t beat their tots and chili-cheese dogs.”

“Enjoy it while you’re young, Gabriel. That’s all I can tell you. Now, you feel like steak tonight or what?”

I chuckled. “I’m always in the mood for steak.”

7 Your Best

Gabe

AT THE STEAKHOUSE, Dad looked at our waitress and ordered drinks for both of us. If my instincts weren’t already on alert, him ordering two whiskeys neat definitely would’ve done it for me.

I put my menu on the table in front of me. “Okay, you said nothing was wrong when you invited me to dinner, but you ordering ‘the heavy-duty artillery’ as you normally call it for us both makes me a little skeptical, Dad.”

Dad had been an Army guy, Vamp had gone hard-core with the Marines, and Brock wound up in the Navy for four years. I suspect Dad always hoped I’d do him proud and join the Army, but my love for the trumpet never leaned toward the bugle. Maybe it was because I was the youngest... I didn’t know, but I knew I didn’t have the discipline needed to join any branch of the armed services.

Dad was so proud of my musical talent, he had been more than willing for me to apply to Juilliard and Berkley. When the rejections came rolling in, he seemed just as disappointed as I had been. And my eighteen-year-old ass had taken full advantage and pressed my luck with the notion of a gap year.

Dad broke into my thoughts when he nodded. “It’s funny sometimes how similar you boys can be, and yet how different you all are. I took your brother out to Wendy’s earlier today, and I thought he’d blow a gasket, so let’s just say I’m trying to soothe the beast in advance.”

“But you said nothing’s wrong.”

He nodded and grinned. “I did, so how about we keep that firmly in mind.”

The waitress returned with our drinks, and Dad told her we would need a moment before we ordered.

I gave Dad a long look. “I’d ask if you knocked Marnie up, but even I don’t find that very funny. So—”

Dad exhaled and hung his head at the same time. He raised his eyes to meet mine. “Christ, you can be so damned irreverent, Gabe.”

I grinned. “Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, am I right?”

He gazed past me and his chin dipped. “If you knew your mother better, you’d be absolutely right.”

That brought me up short, and I stiffened in the wooden booth. “Okay, now I’d say that’s irreverent. To me.”

His eyes hardened on me. “You need to watch yourself. It’s as much on your mother as it is on me that you never got the chance to bond with her.”

I shook my head. “To hear Brock or Vamp tell it, I didn’t miss out on much.”

“Neither Brock nor Cary is in a position to say that, Gabe, and you know it. I’ll never know if I did the right thing or not by keeping her on the periphery for the last seventeen years of your life.”

I shrugged. “What’s done is done, Dad. I know she’s trying to make up for it, but I’m not eager to accept her olive branch or whatever that dinner was supposed to be.”

Dad sipped his whiskey, and I followed suit. Since I wasn’t picking up the bill, I couldn’t exactly criticize, but Dad should’ve specified which brand he wanted – like Crown Royal or some other top-shelf brand. Instead, I had no doubt we were dealing with a well-brand whiskey because it didn’t go down half as smooth as the stuff from Canada.

I held back my wince at the harshness of the liquor, but Dad set his glass down with a thunk.

“That dinner should have been a steppingstone. The fact is, your mother’s been helping you boys out for far longer than you realize.”

“What do you mean?”

He picked up his glass, swirled the amber liquid in it, and put the glass down. “Since she tried to come back, she’s been paying me child support for you three.”

I inhaled deeply to fight against the burn building in my gut. “All right. And?”

“Like I told your brother, neither of you asked where I got the money for your deposit and first month’s rent on the place you live in right now. I know you two are covering it now, but it was a little tight early on, right?”

I nodded and fought saying it was a little tight now, too.

“Your mother found out you both would be at the same school, and we agreed you should be in a nicer place than the first apartment you two had selected.”

No amount of deep breathing was going to make the burning feeling subside. When Cecilia insisted on paying her share of the rent, it wasn’t Brock who first turned her down flat, it was me. Being brutally blunt about it, I’d said I didn’t want a woman paying for the roof over my head, and I still didn’t. I knew it was sexist to say it like that, but I did not want to end up like my Dad.

He had provided for all of us, but even as a kid I could see he had to bust his ass and take more shit than he should’ve in order to do it. All of that was because of my mother.

It also didn’t help that I’d overheard Dad talking to my Auntie Sandy the night before Christmas when I was eight.