“But you,” I try to pull away.
“Next time.” He kisses the top of my head and I drift off immediately, cocooned in his scent.
Leaving her is hard but I don’t want to wake her, and she’s finally sleeping so soundly. I lick my lips, her taste still coating them, and curse softly when my cock begins to swell again.
I need to run one more errand today and this one is not going to be fucking easy. I’m going to see my father and talk to him about Charlotte. I’m ready to let her rest but I need to know what happened before I do that.
Nothing matters to me about how she spent her last few months, she’ll always be my sister, and I love her without question.
Ivy’s mother should be getting home in the next little bit and I would rather not be here when she does. I’m not ready to put a label on us and I don’t think Ivy is either. It took a lot of convincing for my father’s councillor to agree to let me see him and I had to explain it was a bit of an emergency.
The drive there is short, his facility is in Toronto, and I walk inside. There are two nurses at the desk and they both perk up when they see me. This would’ve been my time to flirt, wink a little, and grab both their numbers, hoping for a threesome. Now, I just want this done so I can go home and talk to Ivy.
I’m not stupid, I know what the fuck is happening here, and I’m nearly ready to tell her how I feel.
“I’m here to see Rodney Jones.” I tell them.
“Are you his son?” The blonde flutters her obviously fake eyelashes.
“Yes, ma’am.” She giggles and looks at the other nurse.
“Just call me Shantel.”
“It’s all good, can I please see my father?”
She doesn’t take my dismissal too well and her co-worker makes it worse by laughing.
“Straight down the hall, room twenty-three.” She doesn’t look back up at me.
“Thank you.” I politely nod and head to where she stated.
I’m nervous because talking to my father while he was drunk is what I’m used to, he’s sober now and I’m not sure what a sober Rodney is like. I knock on the door and I hear his voice call out to come in. He sounds clear, no slur, and when I open the door, his eyes widen in shock.
"Neil?" He stands from his chair and crosses the room to hug me. "Son, I can't believe you're here."
"Me either." I pull out of his embrace. "You look good."
He does look good, his eyes are focused, his skin looks healthier, and his voice is strong.
"I feel good." He looks at his desk of papers, "I have an assignment this week to write out all the wrongs I did while drinking and I think I'm going to need more paper."
"I feel sorry for all those trees." I mutter and he laughs.
"You're on a lot of these papers... and Charlotte, too." His eyes gather moisture, "I can't even tell her how sorry I am for all the things I messed up with her."
"Like what?"
"Charlotte was complicated, no ambition-not like you-and she was angry all the time." He sits at the desk and pulls out a paper. "She asked to come live with me and Shay because she said you and your mother were never around. I told her no."
A swift pang hits me in the chest, I wasn't around, I was hustling on the streets to make ends meet, and Mom was working two jobs. Child support was meager since Dad didn't have a great job at the time.
"Mom wouldn't have gone with that anyways," I tell him, it's the truth. There would've been a huge custody battle.
"There were some issues with her at school," he bows his head, "she was expelled that week before the... accident."
This is the first I’m hearing of her being expelled and if this was a few months ago, him saying the accident would've sent me into a rage. I always referred to Charlotte's death as a murder.
"Expelled? For what?"
"Selling drugs." He looks at me like I'm crazy. "Your mother said you knew."
"I didn't." I shake my head, why wouldn't Mom tell me? And why would she lie that I knew?
"She was caught with two bottles of Oxy in her locker and kids admitted that Charlotte was selling on school grounds. She was staying with me for two weeks because your mother had had enough."
This is all news to me. I was in my first year of University when Charlotte was starting her second year of high school and even though the workload was hefty, I was still at home. Well, except when I was working at the hotel and even then, I was only doing part time hours.
"This really makes no sense." I shake my head. "I actually came here to talk to you about Charlotte because Amelia has told me some terrible things."
"Yes," he nods. "She took her bullying to extremes with Amelia. I always thought it was jealousy but now I know it was due to her drug intake."
"Bullying Amelia about her sexuality wouldn't stem from drugs, Dad."
"No, but it would come from her anger towards her own situation. She wanted to live with us and go to school with Ivy, like Amelia. Sometimes, I felt like her interest in Ivy was borderline obsessive."
Borderline obsessive. Why though?
He sees the confused look on my face and his softens, "even through all of that, Charlotte was a good girl. She loved hard and she would've been better if the drugs weren't there. I don't think she was hateful."
No, I know she wasn’t hateful and I now know that Charlotte was having issues at home, I need to talk to Mom. I feel like I’m on a trail of breadcrumbs and chasing them down is tiring. I don’t know why Mom would hide this from me and
