Page 437 of Tease Me


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For being an addict.

For leaving you with Mrs. Simmons.

For making you believe your mother still thinks about you.

He didn’t say it, but his thoughts were loud.

“I had to go. To rehab. Never knowing if I was ever going to have another chance at life…” He breathed a saddened laugh when he focused on his boots. “I don’t remember much about that night. I could’ve pounced on you, and I wouldn’t have remembered. I was that intoxicated. Not just with drugs, but as much as with anger. I had to go,” he repeated, as if he needed to recognize the decision he made was for the best.

Cemented to the floor, I was looking at our dad in another light. A vulnerable man underneath that tatted, tough, thick-skinned exterior.

“My veins, my skin… It started to itch.” He flexed his fingers and balled it into a fist to run it over his chest. “My heart rate spiked, anticipating the adrenaline. Like it did every time it needed a hit. I didn’t trust myself anymore. Mrs. Simmons…” Cary sucked in a shaky breath, “Misha’s mother was the right option at the time. She took good care of you.”

My chest hurt.

She was a good Mom, Danica Simmons. Just not ours.

I wanted to reach out to him. Let the broken little boy inside me hug him. Pick up the pieces and glue them back together. But I was twenty-two, and had been a stubborn motherfucker equally long.

“I’m sorry, Ares,” he uttered, streaking a hand through his long hair.” For being a shitty, absent dad. For loving the wrong women.”

First thing I insinuated was the regret of having two boys. But the way he was looking at me now, a sad sack of a man, made the pang in my stomach expand.

“Plural,” I registered. “You said women.”

“He grabbed his glass and downed in one swallow. “There was that groupie, remember? And well, she made me nuts, that girl of yours.”

“Mia was never really mine.” Not if she was dabbling between father and son. “I broke up with her that day.”

Cary shook his head. “Does it matter?”

“It sure didn’t.” Mia had smiled at me when I caught them. “Seeing your fifty-one-year-old ass thrusting into my ex-girlfriend… Yeah, nice touch.”

He coughed. “And there’s not a car in the world that makes you forget that?”

“None. Absolutely none,” I said, bumping his shoulder with mine. “Wanna help me stay sane tonight?”

He fingered the rim of his glass. “You really like her, don’t you?”

I sighed, gulping down the last of my glass. “Yeah, Dad. I really do.”

He banded one arm around my waist. His cheek buried against my shoulder, and I wondered for second what the cause of his affection was.

“I’d like to hear that more.”

Oh, right.

Dad.

“Don’t get used to it.” I cleared my throat. It had been an awful long time since we had been this close, and I’d called him anything but Dad.

Cary’s hand ruffled through my hair. “Sure, sure. But, uh, you okay with me crashing here tonight?”

I eyed the almost full bottle of booze on the kitchen counter. “You gonna keep me from ringing her doorbell?”

“Even if I have to wrestle you like a bear.”

“Then be my guest, old man.”

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