Page 108 of Alec’s Dream

“It would. Thank you.”

Alec gave me a wink and turned back to the kids. “Sounds like we have a plan.”

I took a sip of my coffee wondering how it was possible my life had gone from shit to marvelous in less than a week. Then I decided I didn’t care how it happened, I was just grateful it had.

“Hey, Dad!”

“You got something to tell me, Macy Lou?”

At the tone of my father’s voice, my back shot straight and I looked to make sure my office door was closed.

Today when I came into work with Jocelyn, I was met with a few startled looks but no one had asked why I had Joss with me. I checked her in, took her into the playroom, left her with Veronica and went about my morning. I knew there would be questions but I needed to have a conversation with Monica about my relationship with a father of one of our students.

But right then, priority one was calming my dad down. I wasn’t sure what “something” he was referring to because there were a lot of things I hadn’t told him about. I felt like I was one of those bomb squad techs faced with the choice of cutting the red wire or the blue wire and since I didn’t know which thing he’d heard about, cutting either wire could detonate my dad.

“Well…”

“Don’t be cute. I’m not in the mood. I turned on my phone when we got to BWI and the damn thing starts pinging with messages and voicemails. Your mother’s, too. Chip Houge left a messaging asking if you and the kids were okay. He’d heard about Josh Malone attacking you. Then Dave Carlson left a message asking if we needed any help getting your house sorted after there was a goddamned drive by fucking shooting.”

Oh boy, Dad was using the F word. Dad cursed, but never around the kids, rarely around my mother and me, and only when he was madder than a hornet and ready to blow. Him saying the F word was reserved for being madder than that. So I knew he was going to detonate. It didn’t matter which wire I cut, it seemed he already knew pretty much everything.

“Had about fifteen messages, your mother the same. Wanna know who didn’t leave a message? You!”

“Dad—”

“You did not call!” he shouted. “My daughter gets attacked, I expect a phone call. A drive-by shooting? Macy, I don’t even know what that entails or the details of that but I expect a fucking phone call.”

“Will you let me talk?”

“Obviously you’re talking to me so you’re alive. So I wanna know how the kids are.”

“They’re fine. No one was hurt in the…um… the shooting.”

“Josh Malone?”

“Arrested. I can explain—”

“Need to calm down first. Your mother and I will come by tonight. You can explain then.”

“I’m not staying at my house. Rory said she never wants to go back there and I agree, I’m not taking my kids back there.”

“Mom and I will come by Becky and Rob’s then. You could’ve just stayed at the house but now that we’re home, we’ll go to the Keene’s and help you bring your stuff home.”

Oh, shit. Dad going thermonuclear was imminent.

“I’m not staying with Becky. I’m staying with a different friend.” God, could I sound any more like a child? A friend? Well it wasn’t a lie, exactly. Alec was my friend—but still it was totally a lie. “Listen, Dad. There’s a lot I need to talk to you and mom about. I’m staying with Alec Hall. He works with Nixon Swagger, you may’ve heard about him and Gemini Group. I’ve known him a while, he brings his daughter to Little Lights. He was there when the shooting happened. Well…there’s just a lot, okay? I’ll text you his address. You and Mom come over for dinner tonight. You can meet Alec and we’ll all talk.”

The silence stretched so long I thought my dad had lost service.

“Dad?”

“You’re staying with a man? A man named Alec Hall?”

“Yes,” I confirmed.

“This the same Alec that told you to stop taking shit from Doug?”

“Huh?”