AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Dash glared at Ariel while he slammed his coffee cup down on the table, making coffee slosh over the sides. He crossed his arms over his chest and sat back in the chair. “What harem? What the hell are you talking about? I see nothing funny about this situation. Both of you had better stop laughing about this right now.”
This was starting to get uncomfortable for me, and if they were going to fight, I wished they’d go home to do it. Finn shifted from side to side as he stuffed his hands into the front pockets of his dark jeans. He was clearly uncomfortable with this turn of events as well.
“Dash…” Ariel sighed, sounding as if she was close to losing her patience. “I keep telling you that your dad and my dad have some kind of secret relationship going on. Isobel is involved with both of them somehow. I know it’s gross to think about, becauseeww, our parents,but if it makes them happy, that should really be all we care about. I don’t know how Finn fits into the mix, but the more I think about it, the more I honestly think he and Isobel would be perfect for each other. Those two psychos deserve each other.”
“Isobel’s not a psycho,” Finn growled as he stepped into the room.
Dash slammed his fists down onto the table, making the coffee cups jump. “My dad isnotfucking your dad. That’s… That’s incestuous and just plain wrong. Besides, I already told you, he’s celibate.”
My mouth dropped open as I stared at my son. I’d very rarely seen him lose his cool which he held onto so tightly. I had no idea why the thought of me having a sex life disturbed him so much when I’d never once claimed to be celibate. How the hell did he think he’d gotten here in the first place?
“Seriously, Dash, you can only claim incest if they are related, and clearly they are not, or that would make our own relationship weird and wrong.”
“She’s got you there,” Quinton said smugly as he pointed at my son. “Seriously, a blind person can see your dad is half in love with Rain, and Isobel’s been obsessed with the man since he first brought her home. I don’t know how Finn fits into that, though, because he’s still obsessed with Rebel and he’s dead.”
My eyes shot to Finn in time to see his jaw clench as he backed out of the kitchen and was swallowed up by the shadows in the hallway. He disappeared and I heard his boots thud up the stairs.
I was incredibly pissed on his behalf. I had practically forced him to move in with me, and that meant it was my responsibility to look after him, and I’d just failed miserably at it.
“Why the fuck would you throw Rebel in his face like that?” I snapped at Quinton.
He opened his mouth but snapped it closed when I shoved my chair back from the table and stood up. I carried my cup over to the sink and tossed it in, not caring when it cracked.
I stared out the back window and attempted to calm myself down. I was glad it was dark outside, because seeing the charred ground out there where the grass still wouldn’t grow would have just pissed me off all the more.
“Don’t blame this mess on me,” Ariel whispered harshly. “I don’t like Finn. You’re supposed to be his friend, so what’s your excuse?”
“Fuck, I hate it when you’re right,” Quinton grumbled as a chair scraped back. “I’ll go talk to him right now.”
I wanted to tell him to leave Finn alone and to get the fuck out of my house, but I knew that would just likely cause more problems. Finn deserved an apology from both Ariel and Quinton. He’d get no apology from Ariel, so getting one from Quinton was better than nothing.
“I’m going to go call my dad and see if I can get some answers from him,” Ariel said as she followed Quinton out of the kitchen, leaving me alone with my son.
I didn’t really want to be alone with my son at the moment, which was something I had never felt before, and I didn’t know how to feel about it.
The room was deathly quiet and so uncomfortable it was almost unbearable until Dash walked up beside me and placed his mug down on the counter. He bumped my shoulder with his, and I immediately relaxed.
“You know I just don’t want to see you get hurt, right? My whole childhood before you disappeared is full of memories of you being hurt in ways no child should ever have to see. Now that I have you back, I’m terrified something’s going to happen to you, and I’m not going to be able to control my reaction, and I’ll likely do something awful. If it’s Rain who hurts you, well, that’s my wife’s father and that could potentially make everything awkward for the future.”
I swallowed past the lump in my throat. We didn’t talk about what had been done to both of usbefore.It might not be very healthy for us, but nothing good would come from rehashing it. It would only serve to make us both miserable.
And, to be fair to him, I hadn’t once taken into account how he’d feel about my obsession with Rain or how that might affect him or anyone else if it went badly. I did not like having him point out that things could go badly and potentially hurt more than just me in the aftermath.
I really wished he hadn’t pointed it out now, because I wanted so badly to be selfish for the first time in my life and I didn’t want to feel guilty about it.
“What’s going on between you, Rain, and Isobel?” Dash demanded. “And what the hell is Finn doing living with you, and why didn’t you say anything about it? I mean, I knew you had someone move in with you, but I was never expecting it to be fucking Finn.”
And here came the questions I absolutely did not want to have to answer. Wasn’t I just saying something about me being the parent? What happened to that?
I turned to face him and didn’t like seeing the look on his face. He looked about two seconds away from either raging or coming out of his skin. Neither option was good, and both made me feel about seven inches tall.
Fuck.
“Dad, I need you to be careful. When Rain first got here, it was almost like he was dead inside and only came alive when he was around Ariel. He is not a normal man. And Isobel isn’t normal or stable either. She tried to drug Rain with pot brownies. I mean, he might not care, but let’s be real here, that shit is not okay. And Finn? Jesus, where do we even start with the mess that’s Finn? Now you’ve got him living with you. What the fuck?”
My stomach soured, and for the very first time in my life, I was actually disappointed in my son. I never thought I’d see the day, but here we were.
“When did you get to be so goddamn judgmental? And do you actually thinkI’ma normal man? I hate to break it to you, son, but I’m just as fucked up as the three of them, if not more so. I know you’re worried about me, and that’s understandable given our history, but it doesn’t give you the right to come in here and act like an asshole.”
