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"As I recall, you said sentimentality was for soft, silly people who had nothing better going for them."
"Did I say that? I always did have a way with words." He grinned weakly. It was what I used to secretly call his villain's grin. It was really the only smile he had. "So you're all right with me giving the house to charity?"
"Yes, I don't mind."
His eyes had sunken deeper into his face, making him look as if he was a century old. "That didn't sound too convincing. I could have the lawyer—"
"No, Dad, I think it's a good idea. I'm just a little surprised to hear you are giving to charity. You were never much of a philanthropist."
"Bullshit." He shifted back in an attempt to look taller and more broad shouldered in his bed, but so much of his muscle mass had withered away, it was impossible. "I gave to charities all the time. I just never boasted about it like most people. Enough of that." He smoothed the blanket on his lap with his shaky hands. "What else is new?"
How badly I wanted to break into a long, happy narrative about the incredible woman who was living in my house and who, without being anything but herself, was teaching me how to be more human. Something I never learned at home.
"Nothing much," I said, knowing full well he wouldn't be the least bit interested in hearing about Shay. "Pruitt said there's a woman named Miss Odenkirk who comes here once a week—"
"What the fuck is he talking about?"
"I saw someone leaving the house in a Mercedes with tinted windows, so I asked him who it was."
The subject had made him fidget and readjust himself against his pillow. "My head feels heavy from the damn drugs." He made it glaringly obvious that he didn't want to discuss the woman in the Mercedes. I helped him move his pillows down. He rested back against them and pulled the blanket up higher. He looked like a helpless, sick little boy in his vast antique bed.
His eyes drifted shut.
I lifted my hand and hesitated before pressing it against his head. I could count on one hand the number of times we had touched each other with something remotely like affection. His skin was clammy, but he didn't pull away from my touch.
"Sorry I've been a disappointment, Dad," I said quietly.
"You've never been a disappointment, Nash," he muttered as I walked away.
I stopped at the door and looked back at him. Every time I walked away from him, I wondered if it would be the last time we spoke.
I headed back down the wide staircase with the green carpet runner and the creepy eyed portraits. So many times I wished that our house had been like a normal house with cheery, lumpy furniture that had been lived in and enjoyed. So many times I wished that I would be walking down those stairs to a big fatherly smile and a box of ridiculously sugary cereal like my schoolmates did in the morning. But now, as I walked through the cavernous rooms to the entry and the front door, it occurred to me that I was going to miss the place when the old man was gone. It was even entirely possible that I was going to miss the man himself.
22
The weight of what an asshole I'd been in the morning felt extra heavy on my chest as I pulled up to the house and saw Shay's sad little car parked out front. I'd worked myself into a fucking jealous lather without even knowing for certain that she was off meeting another man.
I walked inside. Music was playing, but Shay wasn't around. I headed down to her bedroom but heard a noise coming from my room. I pushed open the door and stopped to catch my breath.
"This is what you wanted, right?"
Shay was curled on her side, stripped naked and looking like an edible confection. Her skin had to taste like cream. I swallowed thinking how sweet her pussy would taste with my mouth buried against her. My dirty thoughts went into overdrive. I had never wanted anyone so badly.
There was the slightest pout in her full bottom lip that let me know she was still angry with the way I spoke to her earlier.
She rolled back onto my quilt. The sight of her stretched out and naked on my bed made my heart pound against my ribs.
"Shay, I was an asshole this morning."
"Uh huh." She smoothed her hands over her breasts causing her nipples to pucker. Then she let her thighs drop open. She trailed her hands over her belly stopping against her pussy. "But you're right. We're running out of time." She was working on sounding seductive, but there was a touch of hurt in her tone.
She turned over and pushed up to her knees and came closer to the edge of the bed before lifting her breasts with her hands. Not that she needed to do anything to arouse me. She could have been sitting in the center of my bed in rain gear, and I would have been turned on.
