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“Okay.” I sigh. “I’ll talk to him. Thanks for the call, Sam.”
“No problem. You’re not going to ask if he’s clean?”
“You know I don’t care if he is or not. Keep me posted, Sam, and let me know when you deserve a raise.”
He laughs. “We surpassed that day months ago.”
I say a goodbye and we hang up. Back inside the bar, Noah looks a little concerned.
“Everything okay?”
“Are you worried about me, Rams?” I place a hand over my heart. “I’m so touched, but there’s no need. Marco Polo can take care of himself. He also needs to make a few more phone calls, so I’m heading up.”
Noah doesn’t say much more, and I make a break for my hotel room. I try calling Elizabeth on my way there, but she doesn’t answer. This is really starting to bother me. What the fuck has happened for her to be ignoring me? For the first time ever, I hate my job a little. If I was at least in the same state, I could drive over there and demand some answers.
This puts me in a great mood to deal with my father at least. I call him next. He answers on the second ring.
“Hello, son.”
My entire body tenses at hearing his voice. I hate hearing him calling me that. “Hey.” There’s a brief pause. It’s only long enough for me to wonder which Francis I’m going to get today. Will it be the nice guy or the hateful son of a bitch?
“It’s nice to finally talk to you.”
Looks like he’s going to fake being the nice guy.
“Sam called. He said you wanted to see me, but I don’t think we can make that happen. Not anytime soon.” We don’t need to make small talk. We need to get this over with as soon as possible. I only add that last part because it’ll buy me time. I haven’t seen my father in years and I’d like to keep it that way. It’s safer that way, too.
“You don’t want to know why?”
“Why do you want to see me?” I ask, withholding a sigh.
“It’s something that should be told in person.”
Of fucking course. “We can’t make that happen. We’re in the middle of a season, my days are full, and you don’t need to make the trip.”
“I don’t mind making the trip. You don’t play every single day and I can come down on one of those days.”
“No,” I firmly respond. “Just fucking tell me what it is.”
That was a mistake.
“You don’t fucking cuss at me, Marc Francis. You don’t get short with me and you don’t get annoyed with me. Since I finally have you on the phone, why don’t we catch up? Let’s start with tonight’s game. For once, I wish you’d get on the ice and act like you’ve fucking played before. You—”
I hang up. I listened to that shit enough growing up and I’m in no mood to endure it tonight because yes, sometimes I find myself still enduring it. He immediately tries calling again, so I turn my phone off. It’s not like I’ll be talking to anyone else tonight.
“Can I come over early?”
Noah’s eyes widen. “You’re not going to rush over and see Lizzy? Or see if she wants to come over for dinner, too?”
“You said Meredith missed me, so I thought I would surprise her. I’m sure this will somehow earn you bonus points by having her favorite Rebel show up. So, can I come over or not?”
“Depends.”
“On what?”
“Are you coming over to see her or coming over as a means to avoid the fact that you still haven’t heard from Lizzy?”
I roll my eyes. “I want to come over because your fiancée is probably going into Marco withdrawals and it would be extremely cruel of me to make her wait until later tonight. Not to mention, I haven’t hit on her in a while, so I’d like to do that as well.”
