Fire Inside (Chaos, #2)(54)

But I was thirty-nine and I didn’t need my father’s approval in regards to who I spent time with.

So I straightened my shoulders and declared, “Hop and I have known each other for a long time. Recently, we got together. His kids don’t know yet.”

He shook his head and took two steps toward me before he stopped and asked, “Lanie? Seriously?”

“Seriously what?” I asked back.

“Seriously, you didn’t learn a lesson that it was impossible to miss when your last choice got you in Critical Care for six days?”

That was a blow he meant to land viciously, and he succeeded brilliantly.

“Dad—”

“And this one, this… this… man is worse. By far. My God, when was the last time he cut his hair?”

“I’m not sure when Hop does or does not cut his hair is the measure of a man, Dad,” I replied.

“You would be very wrong, Lanie, and I’ll point out again, not for the first time,” Dad shot back.

Blow two. Direct hit.

“You don’t know him,” I returned.

“I don’t need to know him. One look at him and I know the kind of man he is.”

God, I hated that from anyone, but especially my father.

“Sorry, but unless you have clairvoyance, something like that is impossible,” I bit out.

“I don’t need clairvoyance when I have age and wisdom, Elaine Heron. The first of those are creeping up on you without you seeming to realize it, your life wasting away, and the second seems to have escaped you.”

“I’ve known Hopper for eight years and you’ve known him less than a day and you think you can stand there and tell me you know him better than me?” I asked.

“We can start with that. What kind of name is Hopper for what kind of man?”

I had to admit, unlike all the other guys, Hop didn’t have a nickname that the brothers used almost exclusively to refer to him and I’d always been curious about that. One of the many inconsequential (but I found fascinating) facts I’d learned about Hop before I was with him was that his name actually was Hopper Kincaid. Seeing as he already had a name that fit, the boys didn’t bother giving him another one.

And I liked it.

But I wondered at it.

“I don’t know,” I answered Dad. “The name his parents gave him?”

“That’s ridiculous,” he bit out.

“I like his name,” I returned sharply. “I like pretty much everything about him.”

Dad took two more steps toward me, stopped again and hissed, “Lanie, wake up. Do it now before you waste your life. No children, no decent man to look after you, no future. Before you’re dragged into yet another world that is not good for you in any way, by a weak man who takes the easy path of life, and you find yourself paying for his choices.”

His words, each one…

No.

Each syllable slammed into me, breaking something I was holding together by a miracle.

And when it broke, there was no way to hold back what it was keeping at bay.

So I let it rip.

“Would that Papaw took the time before he died to warn Mom of that very thing,” I clipped and Dad’s head jerked. “You gave her children but you took away everything else, being a weak man who chose his own selfish needs over his family. You cannot stand there and say Hop is not decent, at the same time sinking in the mud you stepped in your own damned self. All that while Mom’s passed out cold upstairs, losing herself in a bottle because she can’t cope with the fact she lost her husband three decades ago. But he didn’t have the courage to cut ties and walk away so he tortures her with his selfishness every single day.”

His face turned to stone before he made an attempt to do something he couldn’t do. That was, putting the lid back on his boiling over pot of deceptions.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes, you,” I leaned toward him, “f*cking do.”

“Remember who you’re speaking to and who you are, Elaine. That language—”

“Go f*ck yourself, Dad,” I snapped and his head jerked again.

“I cannot believe you would dare—”

I took a step toward him and hissed, “Believe it!” I leaned back and threw out both my hands. “You know, when you go to her, you don’t just f*ck over Mom. You f*ck over Lis and me. Every time. Every time you go to her, it says, straight up, you do not give one single,” I leaned into him again, “shit about any of us.”

“This, this right here is the effect of spending time with that Tyra friend of yours and the kind of people her husband and your friend Hopper are.”

“Yes,” I agreed, nodding my head. “Yes, Dad. This right here is the effect of being around people who are loyal, decent, and honest. This right here is the effect of being around people who do not let other people mess with their heads or screw them over. This right here is the effect of exactly that. And, in about five seconds, there’ll be another effect. The effect of me walking upstairs and packing my bag. After that, the effect will be me walking out of here. After that, the effect will be you having to explain to Mom tomorrow where I’ve gone. And after that will be the effect of me explaining to Mom that I’ll speak to her if she doesn’t call me drunk off her ass but I am never again speaking to you.”