Under the Lights (The Field Party #2) - Abbi Glines Page 0,72
He hated my father because, like me, he was a bastard. My father isn’t his child. I’m his only blood.”
Oh God. My stomach twisted, and I sat down on the wooden bench behind me. How sick could the Lawtons get? Could this get worse? Just when I thought it was bad enough, it got more deranged.
“The mansion my grandmother lives in is mine. She’s never said a kind word to me in my life. Yet she lives on my money. I want to donate the whole damn estate to children’s cancer research and leave. Let this town forget there was a Lawton family that founded it. Because they are all crazy.”
I understood being hurt by your family. I also understood not feeling loved by your family. However, I did have Nonna. He hadn’t even had that. My heart broke for him. If I could run away with him, I would. But that wasn’t going to fix anything. Running from your problems never worked. They wouldn’t disappear, and they’d follow you. I’d tried that, and it hadn’t been my cure. Facing it and dealing with it was how I learned to survive.
“We only have six months left of senior year. Then we leave this place. You can go and not look back. Donate all you want. Make your life outside of Lawton. But don’t run. Face this and conquer it. I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere.”
He sat on the bench across from me and dropped his head into his hands. “I hate that place. That house. I hate it.”
“Nonna’s sofa is always open.”
He didn’t say anything for a few moments, and we sat in silence. I let him get his emotions together. He was raw, and I wished I could go to his house and coldcock every person in there. But that would only get me back in a correctional center.
“Next month I turn eighteen. It’ll all be mine then.”
Wow. I hadn’t realized it was so soon that it became his. There was a lot of pressure riding on him now. It was just going to get worse.
“I’m kicking them all out. Starting with the man I’ve called Father all my life. I considered letting Mom stay, but she wanted to abort me. Not sure I can forgive that. She doesn’t love or want me. Why should I love or want her? The little boy that once sought her affection is long gone.”
“It’s a fair decision,” I agreed, but I wondered if it was really what would make him happy. Sometimes the revenge we seek doesn’t meet our expectations. It only hurts us.
“Marry me—move in with me,” Gunner said in that insane tone again he’d used when he had asked me to run away.
“Marry you? Gunner we are seventeen. We can’t marry.” He needed to go to bed. He was getting delirious.
“I’m a multimillionaire. We can do whatever the fuck I want.”
This wasn’t what he really wanted. Right now he wanted to act out and hurt his family because all they’d done was hurt him. I wasn’t going to help him with his plotting. I loved him. It was real. Not a toy or a game.
Standing up, I knew I had to leave. He needed to go home and get some sleep, and I was about to act like a complete girl and cry. He was using my love as a tool like he was using his money. I didn’t want to be a weapon to hurt anyone. That wasn’t what love was about.
“Loving someone doesn’t mean allowing them to use you for their benefit. It just means they have a place in your heart. A place that they earned. I’m going to leave now before you hurt me any more with words you don’t mean. Good night, Gunner.”
He didn’t run after me. He let me go.
I ran toward the house as the tears welled up in my eyes. Loving Gunner Lawton would never be easy. I wasn’t sure he could love me in return. Didn’t matter. I loved him. I just couldn’t bend to his demands. I didn’t owe him anything. He needed to learn that it wasn’t all about that.
With my mind on Gunner’s words and tears blurring my vision, I didn’t see Nonna standing on the front porch until it was too late.
Please Do, Father Dear
CHAPTER 44
GUNNER
Rhett’s bedroom was next to mine. When we had been kids, we’d liked it. But this morning, when I had gotten practically no sleep, I hated it. Him slamming drawers and