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“You are fucking unbelievable,” I say, shaking my head. My voice is nearly spitting venom as I contemplate if murder in a courtroom would look bad. “You just let our daughter walk away without even telling her that you were okay with her decision.”
“I’m not okay with you turning her against me,” Jake says, his arms crossing over his chest. “I’m not going to tell her that it’s okay, because it’s not.”
“First of all, I didn’t turn her against you. You did that yourself with your new family. You didn’t leave time for the little girl who has idolized you since the day she was born. Second, you don’t let her know that you’re disappointed. You tell her that you love her no matter what she chooses.”
“I do love her.”
“Congratulations,” I say, tossing my hands in the air. “Maybe you should show her that instead of dropping her back off at my house because Britney doesn’t want her around. Maybe you should have invited her to your engagement party. Or maybe you should spend some time getting to know her as the amazing young woman that she is.”
“That’s not fair,” Britney says, her nasal voice grating against every nerve in my body. “We’ve been busy with the wedding and the pregnancy.”
“And tearing lives apart,” I say, my glare never leaving Jake. I poke a finger into his chest, watching the hurt flash across his face. “Oh, so that one gets to you. Now you care that you destroyed our family. That’s funny.”
“Tracey, I love Deja, and I don’t want to hurt her.”
“Then stop doing it. Hurting her is all you’ve been doing for the last year. You know who has taken all that anger and all that pain over the last year? Me. I’ve been there to pick up all the pieces every single time.”
“I didn’t—”
“Bullshit, you didn’t! If you didn’t mean to hurt her, then you shouldn’t have done it! You knew what you were doing, and you knew what it would do to Deja. And you still did it. Repeatedly!
Britney scoffs and reaches out to smack my hand. “Don’t you talk to him like that.”
“Touch me again, and I’ll rip those over-bleached extensions right out of your head,” I say sweetly, stepping closer to her. “Stay the hell away from my daughter. Both of you.”
“You can’t keep Deja from me.”
“The court order says I can do just that. If Deja doesn’t want to see you, I’m not going to make her.”
“You’re cutting her out of my life.”
“You did that yourself,” I say, brushing past them and heading to my car.
My blood is boiling as I walk toward my car. I want to go back in there and give them another piece of my mind. I want to tear them to pieces until there is nothing left of them. Instead, I get in my car and head home.
It has been a long day and with Deja out for the night at her best friend’s house, I finally have some time to relax.
Chapter Eighteen
Liam
Twoweeks have passed since Tracey walked out of my life.I’ve wanted to call her every single day since, but each timeI’ve willed myself to put the damn phone down.I’ve eventhoughtabout driving by her placeto see if I could get a glimpse of her beautiful face.Butthat would be borderline stalking, and I'm not thatguy.
Butyesterday I buckled under the pressure of needing and wanting to buildsomething solid and meaningful with Tracey,and I left a message on her phone. All I said was thatI loved and missed both her and Deja.I’m notsure Tracey willeverlisten to the message, but at leastI’ve putmy feelings for both of themoutintothe universe.
When my dad called and asked to talk, it felt as if my world had tipped upside down. It wasn’t often that he wanted to talk. For my entire life, he’d been a man of very few words. The only times he had ever asked to speak with me were both times Mom had been diagnosed with cancer.
Still, even though talking was rare for us, I do want to know what he deems important enough to meet and talk about.
That is why I invite him down to one of my bars, something I’ve never done.
When I walk into the nearly empty bar late in the afternoon, he’s sitting at a table nursing a beer. He looks up as I walk over and for the first time in a long time, I see pride etched on his face.
“You’ve done well for yourself,” he says as I sit down in the booth across from him. “I would never have thought when you said you were going to start opening bars, they would look like this.”
We are at the same bar where I’d met Tracey. I try not to focus on the fact that the table she and I sat at is only a few feet away.
“I worked hard for years to get to this point with them.”
