Consolation Prize (Forbidden Men #9)(112)

My jaw sagged. “Dad? What…what’re you doing here?”

“What? Like I need a reason to visit my Juli Bug?” He walked past me into the apartment before I could invite him inside, shedding his gloves and trench coat as he went.

I opened my mouth to say something along the lines of not having any warning, but he stopped dead, staring at the sofa where Tyla, Colton, and Chad sat in a line, each of them frantically operating the Nintendo controls in their hands with their gazes fixed on the television. A second later, Colton shouted his triumph as he sprang to his feet, while Chad and Tyla on either side of him cried out their dismay and flung down their controls, disgusted.

Colton was still grinning over his win—or whatever he’d done to best the other two—when he caught sight of me standing slightly behind my father as Dad stood stonily staring at him with his coat folded over one arm.

I could tell the moment Colton realized who he was. His grin faltered and he darted a quick glance at me before pushing another smile onto his face, this one a little bit leery.

“Hey,” he said, sounding completely polite and welcoming.

Dad’s glower intensified before he glanced at me. “Is he the one Shaun told me about, then? The boy you’ve been seeing behind my back?”

“Oh…shit,” I heard Chad’s quiet curse. A second later, he and Tyla scrambled past Colton to escape the room and hustle into the kitchen, making excuses about things they had to do.

Five seconds later, only Colton, my dad and I remained.

Colton made the first move. “Hey, um, hi.” When my father veered his hard stare back to Colton, Colton winced but cleared his throat and kept striding forward. His black and blue eye suddenly stood out horribly. “You must be Juli’s dad. I’m Colton. It’s nice to meet you.” He respectfully held out his hand, but of course, my dad only narrowed his eyes.

Colton slowed to a stop and shifted his attention to me, his gaze clearly asking me what I wanted him to do.

Unable to leave him hanging like that, I moved to his side and took his hand—the same one my father had refused to shake—and squeezed his fingers as we faced my dad together. “I don’t know what Shaun told you, or thinks he knows about me, but yes, this is my boyfriend, Colton. I wasn’t hiding him or doing anything behind your back.”

He arched an eyebrow. “Oh, weren’t you?”

I lifted my chin. “No. I wasn’t.” Okay, maybe just a little, but I wasn’t going to tell him that.

“Well…I forbid it.”

“Wait, what?” Colton shook his head. “Just like that? Don’t you even want to quiz me first, find out how totally awesome I am, check out my teeth? Something?”

My dad sent me a dry glance. “I don’t like him. He’s disrespectful.”

Colton gulped audibly and sank closer to me. I lifted our entwined hands to my chest and scowled stubbornly at my father.

“Is this the only reason you came all the way up here? Because you heard I was dating a white boy?”

Dad’s jaw tensed at that. “This relationship, or whatever it is you two have going on, is over. The color of his skin has nothing to do with it.”

Yeah, right. I snorted. “How can you say that? You don’t even know him.”

“Little girl,” he boomed. “Do you really think I came all this way without checking him out first? The kid came from the poorest neighborhood in Pennsylvania. He’s trash who grew up in a trailer house with his three siblings, who all had different fathers, by the way. And his mother was a drunk, drug-addicted crack whore, who had sex with men for her next hit.”

When Colton flinched, I stepped closer to him. “He can’t help who his parents were, Dad. That was a low blow. Did your research lead you to the fact he hasn’t lived with his mom since he was eight and he went on to graduate as the second smartest student in his high school class?”

“Sure, but he enrolled into college with his degree as undecided. He has no plans whatsoever for the future. Hell no one’s ever even turned in a W2 for him, meaning he doesn’t have a job either.”

I was about to argue that he made a very lucrative career out of making Vines—where I’m guessing his sister took care of the money matters—but my father would probably turn his nose up at that too and call it frivolous and irrelevant or something.

“You’re not being fair,” I muttered. “He’s only eighteen. What do you expect, he’ll have a complete resume on hand, with a detailed blueprint planned for the rest of his life?”

“And he’s only eighteen years old!” My father jabbed out his arm as if making a point. “Which is four years too young for you. Child, what are you thinking?”

“Actually, uh, it’s three years and four months,” Colton said. All this time, he hadn’t said one word in defense of himself. But he spoke up now? For that?

My father and I both turned to look at him as if he were insane. He just shrugged. “Well, it sounds better than straight-up four.”

Dad shook his head and focused on me. “He’s not one of us. He will never respect you.”

“Respect me?” I barked out a laugh and set my hand against my throat. “Colton has done nothing but respect me, something I can’t say for Shaun.” That tattletaling sack of shit. “And he’s always made me feel like I fit into his life. It breaks my heart that you don’t even want to give him a chance. And I hate not having your approval, but honestly, Dad, this isn’t your decision to make. I am with Colton now, whether you like it or not.”