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“Who says I wouldn’t make him proud?”
“Ethan would want his only son to take advantage of his opportunities rather than tearing through life as a walking punching bag.”
That’s all I need to hear. Micah shouldn’t have to endure these taunts about his dead father just because Stuart Ballerini is pouting that for once he doesn’t have complete control over every move I make.
“We’ll be leaving now.” I stand up and throw a furious glare at my father. “Come on, Micah.”
A wrinkle appears between my father’s brows. This isn’t his preferred outcome. I can feel his eyes on me as I stalk to the foot of the stairs and haul my packed overnight bag over my arm.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Dad.” A very pointed message that I’ll be spending the night elsewhere.
While my father’s face turns purple and Uncle Josh doesn’t know where to look, Micah rises with a smile.
“Here, let me carry that, Tessie Belle.” With one finger, he easily plucks the bag from my arm. Then before I take a step he slides his arm around my waist. He kisses me hard, with prolonged passion, insistently using his tongue and lifting me off the ground.
I don’t resist in the slightest. I kiss him back just as feverishly, as if we’re the only ones in the room, even wrapping my legs around his waist.
“GOD FUCKING DAMMIT!” For all his flaws, my father rarely loses his temper enough to erupt with obscenities.
“Stuart,” Uncle Josh warns.
When Micah finally sets me down, I confront the sight of both Ballerini brothers on their feet. My father’s face is contorted with wrath and for once he has no words to express himself. Uncle Josh, on the other hand, looks as if he’d like to crawl into the wine bottle and escape this scene.
But it’s Uncle Josh who tries to smooth things over. “Why don’t you both sit down? We’ll have a nice dinner, start the conversation over.”
“Thanks, Uncle Josh, but we’ll pass.” I close the lid of the nearest pizza box and pick it up. “And we’ll take the rest of the pepperoni to go.”
Micah keeps his hand possessively on my back as we leave through the front door. He chuckles softly once we’re on the other side.
I elbow him in the chest. “Didn’t think I had it in me, did you?”
He bends down and kisses the top of my head. “You have a way of surprising me.”
This is the first time I’ve ever defied my father so boldly. I’m unsure what the ramifications will be. Shockingly, I don’t care very much.
I love my father. I really do. But he’s wrong here.
Micah tosses my bag in the trunk while I lay the pizza box down on the backseat. I’m about to climb into the passenger side when he pulls me against his strong body. The pleasure of being in his arms is overpowering. I’d like to stay here as much as possible.
But Micah doesn’t kiss me like I expect him to. He just stares down and keeps me in place. I hook my arms around his neck and stare back at him. The carriage lights click on and a shadow appears at the front window.
“Let’s go.” I pull him down for a quick kiss and then duck into the car. It’s unlikely that my father would risk a loud confrontation in front of the entire neighborhood. Then again, I’ve never made him this angry before.
Micah obnoxiously revs the engine once he’s behind the wheel and snorts with laughter when I playfully smack his thigh. He drives slowly through the neighborhood and I stay quiet until we’re past the gates. Unsettling memory threads are knitting together in my mind; blurred images and half forgotten conversations that were mysterious to a child’s ears.
Ethan Lyonne waving from his front yard. Drinking a beer on our living room couch. Laughing at a Christmas party. Talking to my father downstairs in a voice that was loud enough to wake me up.
All separate events that somehow melt together to create a single confusing impression.
And then the sad day of his funeral.
For Micah, there’s never been any closure. The awful sound of his father’s murder lives in his head forever. One of the killers bragged to an ex-girlfriend, then was stabbed to death in a jailhouse riot days after his arrest. His accomplice was already dead, a drug overdose the day after Ethan’s murder.
And Micah was forced to live with the consequences. A lifetime of survivor’s guilt, the taunts of schoolyard bullies.“What are you gonna do, Lyonne? Go hide under a bed again? BWAHAHA!”
He always felt like he had to prove himself, again and again. He still does.
“You’ve never asked me,” he says suddenly as we pass the gaudy vision of the West Emerald Golf Club.
