“Yeah, well, I know what you’re thinking,” I snap.
“What am I thinking, Beau? Because if it’s anything other than how relieved I am that you’re alive and healthy, you’re wrong.”
I scoff. “You’re thinking what a disappointment I am. Or maybe you’re pissed that I’m a hypocrite and gave you shit for years, but ended up in your club anyway, which makes me fucking stupid.”
“Stop it,” he barks, but I don’t listen. Not to him.
“Are you? Disappointed? That I’m not more like you.”
“What does that even mean?” he replies with his brows pinched together in confusion.
“That I can’t just be a real man. I know you know the truth now. Maggie is my Domme. I’m her sub.”
“Your relationship with Maggie is your business,” he replies calmly.
He’s being passive and agreeable, and it just pisses me off more. I want him to fight with me. I wish, for once, my father would just say the things to me that I see him thinking.
“Bullshit,” I bark at him. “It bugs you, doesn’t it? To find out I’m not as masculine as you thought.”
“Beau, stop it,” he bellows, loud enough to send his voice echoing through the room. My mouth shuts in a tight clench as I glare at him. “The only thing that bugs me is you thinking that my love and support for you has anything to do with masculinity. You think I care about how submissive you are to your partner? You think a real man can’t be submissive? Then I’ve failed you as a father, and that bugs me.”
I don’t have a quippy response to that, but I’m still heated, still angry for no fucking reason. My nostrils flare as I stare ahead, replaying his words because, even though everything he said should make me feel better, it doesn’t. He’s being too fucking nice to me.
Why do I hate that so much?
I’ve been nothing but an asshole to him. I’ve spewed resentment and bitter jealousy at my father like poison for so long, I forget where it even started or why.
When he finally takes a seat in the chair by the window, I see the way his shoulders sag, his large frame starting to crumble, and for the first time I see Emerson Grant for what he really is.
Just a man.
He looks as lost and frustrated and confused as I feel all the fucking time.
“I just wish you’d be honest with me. Tell me what a fuck-up I am,” I mutter, already knowing what he’s about to say.
“You’re not a fuck-up, Beau. You think I had my shit figured out at twenty-two? No. I had a shitty job and a loveless marriage. But I also had you, so don’t tell me about feeling like a fuck-up, because, trust me, I know.”
As my eyes shift up to his face, all of the anger and frustration and desperation I was feeling suddenly congregates right in my throat, and not even the painkillers can make that shit not hurt.
“You weren’t a fuck-up,” I say quietly as I search my memory for any reminder of what Emerson, the twenty-two-year-old mess of a dad, looked like, but I can’t place a single instance. He’s always seemed put together, controlled, confident. He’s had it all figured out my entire life. I’ve never seen him struggle with anything.
At that, he laughs. Leaning back in his chair, he smiles. “Do you remember when you were six and we went on that last-minute road trip, just me and you, and we stayed at that motel by the ocean? We dumped our coin jars on the bed and rolled quarters all night while watching movies until the middle of the night?”
“Yeah…” I say, remembering that trip very well. He picked me up from school before I caught the bus and surprised me with a road trip. “We went surfing at the ass crack of dawn.”