AllFreeNovel
Share Us
For the past few weeks,Hailee and I kept falling more and more for one another.
I felt the happiest I’d been in a very long time, and I knew that was because of the freckle-faced girl who let me back into her life. When we weren’t making love to each other’s bodies, we were making love to one another’s brains. The conversations with Hailee came as easy as ever before.
My father and I hadn’t spoken much, except on the surface level at Thanksgiving, and I only did that to please my mother. She didn’t push for me to reconnect with Dad because she knew how much damage he’d done with the choices he made.
On Thanksgiving Day, Jake came to dinner, and Dad gave him money again. Something I’d never understood. Jake asked me for a handout, too, but I was beyond the point where I felt as if I owed that man anything. Of course, Jake made a big scene about it, calling me a famous selfish asshole. Saying that I had more than enough to help family.
I knew enough that family was much more than Jake had ever been to me. Still, for the life of me, I couldn’t understand why Dad kept feeding the beast. He’d given him more money through the years than made sense, and it only went to feed Jake’s bad habits. At that moment, when Dad pulled out his wallet on Thanksgiving Day, I realized how toxic love could be. My father gave and gave to his cousin and never got anything but disappointment back from him. Each time he gave to Jake, it was as if he was breaking a piece of my mother’s heart. She didn’t speak about it much, but it was easy to see if my father took the time to look into her eyes.
“Sometimes he feels like a stranger to me,” she confessed on Thanksgiving evening after one too many glasses of wine. “Like the man I once married was a completely different person.”
I couldn’t blame her.
He felt different to me, too.
He tried to force me to talk to him, but I set a boundary and said I’d come to him when I was ready. I wasn’t to the point where I wanted to converse with him about what he’d done.
December brought cooler temperatures with it, along with our first snow. The closer I grew to the new year, the more I started overthinking my return to Los Angeles. How was I going to leave this small town where the woman I loved resided? The break from the Hollywood world felt much better than I’d ever thought it would’ve felt. A huge part of me didn’t want to go back.
One afternoon, my father kept calling me repeatedly as I walked beside Hailee to take her home after her workday. It was damn near a blizzard, and truthfully, we would’ve been better off driving. Her rosy cheeks were damn near frozen as I wrapped my arm around her to pull her into my side, trying to keep her warm.
“I think it’s rude that you set a boundary with your father, and he keeps reaching out to you,” Hailee said.
“Yeah, well. My father never really was good at having boundaries set against him.”
“You know what they say, those who struggle the most with the boundaries you set were probably the ones benefiting the most from you when you didn’t have them.”
I smirked as I kissed her forehead. “Oh, yes, Hails. Talk therapist to me. It turns me on.”
“You’re ridiculous, but I adore you, so it’s fine.”
She asked if I was staying the night, but I had some work to do back at the inn, so after I dropped her off, I headed back to the Starlight only to find my father standing inside the lobby, waiting for me.
My gut tightened as annoyance found me. “Dad. What are you doing here?”
“I’ve been trying to call you.”
“Yeah. I told you. I needed space and time. I’m not ready to talk.”
“I know, but…it’s just. Your mother and I got into a fight tonight. We were arguing about Jake and how I’ve helped him financially all these years. I know it’s a tricky subject, but me helping him comes from a place of love. Your mother doesn’t see it that way.”
“Can you blame her? At some point, it feels like you’re feeding his bad habits.”
“I know…it’s just…he’s done a lot for me. For us.”
“A person doing a good thing once doesn’t give him the right to forever abuse you.”
He grimaced. “I know. I know.” He slid his hands into his pockets. “That wasn’t the only thing we were arguing about.”
“What else?”
“Your mother mentioned that she gave you a letter from your biological mother.”
I tensed up. “Yeah, she did.”
“What did it say?” he asked, concern dripping in his tone. “What did she have to tell you?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t read it yet.”
