He laughs, but it’s not his real laugh. It’s this broken, jagged sound that doesn’t belong in his throat. “Oh,nowshe wants to talk to me. Now that I’ve ruined her perfect little?—”
“Inside,” I bite out. “Or I swear to God?—”
“Yeah, yeah.” He waves the bottle at me. “Let’s talk, princess. Let’s talk about all of it.”
I grab his arm—he’s unsteady enough that I can basically steer him—and drag him toward the shop office. The last thing I see is Bruiser’s confused, worried face peeking around Ximena’s waist.
That look is gonna haunt me.
But not as much as what’s about to come out of Z’s mouth, I’m guessing.
Once the last of the party guests have cleared out, I drag a still-stumbling Z into the office and slam the door behind us.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I shout. Because though sometimes I baby Z—he works long hours, and I more than anyone understand the way he was raised and the shit he went through—I’m officially at my limit of coddling him.
He tips the beer bottle up and downs another long swig, lighting up my fury even hotter.
How fucking dare he?
Didn’t he see the look of confusion and devastation on Bruiser’s face when he came in staggering and making such an obnoxious ass out of himself? Bruiser might only be seven, but he can tell when his dad isn’t acting normal. Just like I could with my mom when I was his age.
I smack the bottle out of Z’s hands while it’s still at his lips. It clatters to the tile, the rest of the liquid fizzing onto the floor.
“What the hell, Harp?” he asks like he’s the injured party. “I was thirsty.”
I get right up in his face but don’t let myself touch him—I’m shaking with such fury. “You better start fucking talking. What are you on and how dare you come in here like this?”
For a second his face shuts down in that familiar way like when he was a kid and I’d come over after Frank had beat him. Usually it gets me to back off, but not this fucking time.
“Tell me!” I scream an inch away from his face.
He jerks back from me, smacking the back of his skull right into the concrete wall. Which maybe cracks some sense into his head, or maybe he’s just still so fucked up from whatever he’s on, for once, he actually starts talking.
“Fine, you want me to tell you?” he shouts, taking a step forward to get back in my face, looking just as pissed off as I am. “I’ll tell you, princess. None of this is real! You live here, in your pretty little fairyland, but none of this is fuckingreal!”
I’m the one pulling back this time. “What does that mean?”
He lets out an ugly scoff. “I meanthis—” he reaches over and grabs a stack of papers off my desk, then flings them to the ground. “—isn’t real. And this—” he grabs another stack, throwing it against the wall. “—None of it’s real!”
“Stop it! You’re talking crazy.”
I reach out to try to stop him when he grabs for the laptop on my desk, but he’s too fast and manic. He yanks it out of the way before I can get it.
“Don’t you dare!” I glare him down, feeling murderous.
All my designs are on that machine. Yeah, most of them are backed up—I think—but I’m not sure. And besides, I love that fucking laptop. I bought it with my hard-earned money after I paid off the first year’s lease for the shop and finally got mycredit good enough that banks would actually approve me for real financing?—
“It was never real,” Z whispers before flinging the laptop, Frisbee-style, at the concrete wall.
“No!” I shout. “You bastard, you fucking bastard. What is fuckingwrongwith you?” I fly at him, and I don’t think I’m going to hit him, but I’m so furious?—
He snatches up my wrists anyway and tugs me against his chest. “I’m sorry, Harp. But it’s just you and me. None of this is real. They’ll take it all away.”
I struggle in his grasp even as he tries to close his arms around me.
“They’ll take it all away,” is all he keeps saying.
If this were mental illness, that’d be one thing. But I know it’s only because he’s fuckinghigh.It makes me so Goddamn furious, I knee him in the balls.