I nodded and waited for the timeline to click in his head. All of a sudden his face went red, boiling crimson as his eyes shot daggers at me.
“It took you two fucking years to come here and tell me my wife is dead and my daughter almost met her maker too?”
All I could do was nod and grumble, “Ex-wife.”
He jumped to his feet and screamed, “Guard!”
I yelled into the phone, “Nice seeing you, Pop. See you at your parole hearing next month.”
I slammed the receiver down and walked away from my father as his cuffs were put on and he was escorted back to his cell.
Chapter 7
Myla
Burrowing through my closet, I finally found the dress I had been looking for. I knew I needed a showstopper for Simon’s birthday party to finally make him shut up about my usual attire.
After taking a shower and shaving my legs for the first time in weeks, I dug my makeup bag out and turned on my curling iron. Usually, I let my long blonde hair air dry into its normal straight layers, but that night I was going to pull out every trick in the book that I could flipping think of.
Doing my makeup and curling my hair, I finally started to feel like a girl again for the first time in years. I had been overly girly growing up, making sure not even one eyelash was out of place, but once my life changed, so did how much I cared about my appearance.
In my full-length mirror, I did a onceover. My curls were tight and holding well, super bouncy and cute. My makeup was simple and natural; I didn’t want to go overboard. Since I hadn’t really worn much makeup in over two years, the process called for baby steps for sure. My long dark blue chiffon dress was strapless and formfitting in all the right places. I topped it off with a really high pair of taupe pumps and a clutch to match.
This is going to be a really good night.
It was like a sigh of relief was coming over me. I saw the old me shining through just a little and it was a comforting feeling, like getting home after a long trip away and crawling into your own bed again.
The sound of the front door slamming startled me. “Brayden?” I called through my open bedroom door.
From down the stairs I heard a slurred, “Yeah, it’s me.”
Brayden’s heavy footsteps thumped on each creaky step of our old home, making their way up to my room. I yanked the zipper to my dress up and smoothed it out right as his big, muscular figure filled my doorway.
“Going somewhere, sis?”
I looked at my brother in the reflection of the mirror over my dresser. “Uh huh.” I mumbled, pulling my lips tight over my teeth, smearing on lip gloss. “It’s Simon’s birthday, so I’m going to meet him at a club on the Upper East Side. A cab will be here pretty soon. Wanna tag along?”
I could smell the copious amounts of alcohol Brayden had obviously just consumed from across my room and was silently hoping he would decline my offer. Slowly he made his way from leaning on my doorframe to sitting on my bed.
This cannot be good.
“Bray?”
He looked up at me, his normally bright amber eyes glossed over and a few days of stubble lining his jaw. He looked like a freaking train wreck. “Yeah sis?”
“Is everything okay? I thought practice was going to be running late. Shouldn’t you still be at the rink?”
“Nope. Not this guy.” He lazily tried to point at himself before his hand fell back into his lap.
I took a seat next to him on my bed. “What the hell happened this time?”
“I got sent home early.” His words started to completely slur together.
“Ugh! Brayden! How badly did you hurt the other guy?”
“He hooked me right into the boards, so I tried to break his eye socket.” As the words slowly slipped from his lips, he began to look more and more upset. His left eye started to close, just enough to show how fucking wasted he really was.
“It happens, man. You know that. Remember in high school when that guy broke your nose for blocking his shot?”