Dirty Thoughts - Megan Erickson Page 0,46

just head out and let you two . . . catch up.”

Cal frowned. “But I have to take you home—”

She waved a hand. “I’ll call Delilah.”

“You could take my truck. I still have my bike—”

Her smile was tight. “Cal, really, it’s fine. Delilah’s shop is closed by now. I’ll just head on out to the road and call her.”

This was it, and there’d be no embrace, no last-minute kiss, no nothing, because Asher was staring at them, and Cal’s stomach was cramping from nerves.

But this moment . . . this moment could be something. He could tell her to stay. He could wrap her in his arms and tell Asher that Jenna was his girlfriend. And Jenna was giving him this decision, her hands clenched at her sides, her face a little hopeful.

But the anxiety crept up his spine, telling him that he couldn’t get swept up in this temporary arrangement that was making him question everything he’d believed for the past ten years.

So he let the moment pass. And he nodded. And then he watched as Jenna’s face fell, just slightly, before she slipped out the door.

He didn’t have time to wallow, though, because he had a teenager in the house who probably needed to eat dinner.

He took a deep breath and began scrounging in his refrigerator for food.

CAL STARED AT his phone in his hands. The three cigarettes he’d sucked down before this phone call hadn’t done much to steady his hands. And it wasn’t even ten in the morning.

He’d slept like shit last night, and he didn’t think the kid fared much better, since he now sat at the kitchen table wearing a pair of cutoff sweatpants, his hair sticking up at all angles, and sporting dark circles under his eyes. A plate of half-eaten scrambled eggs sat in front of him. “What do you think she’ll say?” he asked, his voice way too tiny for a sixteen-year-old guy.

“It’ll be okay, kid,” Cal assured him, even though he didn’t feel it himself. He didn’t want to have to call his mother or hear her voice. He didn’t want to have to tell her that her husband was such a drunk that his kid had run away from home. Rather than delay any longer, Cal typed in his mother’s phone number that Asher had supplied and held the phone up to his ear as it rang.

Once.

Twice.

The third ring was cut off midtrill. “Hello?”

He hadn’t heard her voice in . . . hell, he wasn’t sure. She might have called him a couple of years ago, but he couldn’t remember exactly. He cleared his throat. “Hey, this is Cal.”

There was silence on the other end. It lasted so long that Cal thought she’d hung up. “C-Cal?”

“Yep.” You know, your firstborn son?

“Oh, well, how are you?”

They weren’t doing this dumb-ass small talk. No way in hell. He plunged right into the meat of his call. “Yeah, so I have Asher here in front of me.” More silence. It stretched on and on until Cal had had enough. “For God’s sake, you wanna act like you give a shit that your kid is in another state?”

“I do care!” she protested. “I’m just shocked. I thought he was with a friend—”

“He lied. He was on a bus to see his brothers—who didn’t even know he existed, by the way, so thanks for that—because your drunk of a husband got behind the wheel, impaired, with Asher in the car.”

“No one was hurt.”

“Excuse me?”

“My husband said there was just a lot of loose gravel on the road—”

“Oh, really? Then why did Asher tell me that wasn’t the first time?”

Silence. Just silence.

How in the hell was Cal going to be able to put this kid back on a bus to his hometown, knowing his dad drove drunk with him in the car and all his mom did was make excuses? How in the fuck was he going to live with that?

“Look, it wasn’t—”

Cal was vibrating with fury now. “He was drunk. Asher knew it, and he was scared shitless. So scared that he put himself on a goddamn bus to seek protection from grown men he’s never even met. Now what the fuck does that tell you?”

Silence. Then a small voice. “I can pay for his ticket home—”

“No, you fucking won’t!” Cal roared. Asher’s face was white as snow, his lips twisted in misery. “He’s staying here until you guys get your shit together. I’m not sending him back so his dad can put his