Chapter 112 One Hundred And Twelve
I watched from across the parking lot as Lena's mom dragged her to the car by her ear.
A smirk tugged at my lips despite the throbbing pain in my head from when that bastard Noah had hit me.
Lena was hopping along on one foot, trying to keep up in those ridiculous heels, that pretty mouth of hers moving rapidly, probably trying to explain or apologize or bargain her way out of trouble.
A perfectly innocent, goody-two-shoes getting bailed out of jail. It was fucking hilarious.
I pulled out my phone and took a photo, grinning widely. The image was perfect, Lena's mom in her cleaning uniform, looking like an avenging angel while Lena stumbled along behind her like a scolded child.
I'd text it to her later as an icebreaker to get us talking again.
Maybe with a caption like Busted or Should’ve stayed in jail. Then from there I would see just how many nude photos of that tight little body I could get her to send me over text.
Damn, it had been so long since I fucked someone—
The sound of a phone ringing somewhere nearby broke me out of my thoughts, but I ignored it, zooming in on the photo to get a better look at Lena's hilarious expression.
The ringing continued.
"Are you going to answer that or should I?"
I blinked, finally remembering that my mother was standing directly in front of me, one hand on her hip, her expression tight with disapproval.
Right. She had bailed me out; somehow, she had found out I’d gotten arrested long before Marcus did, even though he was the one I had called.
She'd been standing there making phone calls for the last, what, thirty minutes? Forty?, while I'd been spacing out, too distracted watching Lena.
Her phone was still ringing, and she was holding it out to me to answer whoever was on the other end.
"Who the hell is that?" I asked, not taking it.
"Why don't you answer and find out?" She responded coldly.
Something in my stomach twisted at that look on her face. It had been a long, long time since I had last seen it, and it usually meant she was well and truly furious.
Furious enough to take drastic measures.
I took the phone slowly, bringing it to my ear but staying stubbornly silent so whoever it was would have to speak first.
"Jason."
I heard his voice and nearly dropped the phone, my entire body went rigid with shock. My hands started shaking, with rage and confusion.
It had been years. Maybe four, five years since I'd heard that voice directed at me myself about not through my mother as a messenger.
It had been so long ago, I had nearly forgotten what he’d sounded like. What the hell?
"Jason, I know you can hear me. Answer me immediately."
"What the fuck do you want?" I asked harshly, my voice bitter with venom.
"Is that how you talk to your father?" Mom hissed quietly beside me.
I raised a finger at her to show “Not now, not fucking now” and she pressed her lips together in a thin line, glaring daggers at me
"Let me handle this, angel." My father’s voice always went softer when he addressed his wife, to him no one else on planet earth was deserving of that same affection.
Not even his own son.
Soon his turned back to steel. "Jason, are you listening?"
"Damn. I haven't heard from you in ages," I bit out. "If I'd known getting arrested was all it would take to get a father to actually speak to his son, I probably would've had a much bigger criminal record by now."
For a second there was angry silence on the other end.
Then: "Go home and pack your things. You're leaving."
The bottom dropped out of my stomach.
"The fuck do you just say?! Leaving? What do you mean leaving? Where?"
"I've been keeping track of your activities, Jason. Very close track." Dad's voice was calm and clinical.
I heard the sound of papers being flipped in the background, as though he hadn’t even thought it fit to take a break off work while ruining my life.
"I know all about the bribes you have been making to the Woodview Plaza hotel to keep quiet about your different extracurricular activities with high school girls.”
“Did your private investigator only find one hotel? That’s a fucking shame, he must not be doing his job very well.”
There was another angry silence before his father responded, his voice going slightly higher, “Do you know how much I have had to pay in settlements to all the families of people you nearly killed with your reckless driving? Three cars totaled in less than a year."
My hands clenched around the phone. “Shit.”
“It is the very height of irresponsibility that you would believe that your insignificant teenage worries and foolish meaningless angst give you the right to run down innocent people on the street in the name of relieving stress.”
“I tried to take pills for stress, they gave me antidepressants but they all knocked me out too often. I couldn’t play football in that condition—"
“There are also lawsuits from the parents of students that you have assaulted. The mountain of fines that we have had to pay to the local police department to make sure all your DUIs and noise complaints disappear.”
“That was one time, and I wasn’t even fucking drunk—"
“In addition to getting more and more careless with each passing day, you’re also growing more stupid.”
“The fuck did you just all me?” I spat “Mom, are you hearing this fucking guy?”
“Despite having access to the best tutors money can buy, your grades continue to drop!” My father yelled over the phone.
“They got better!”
“Only for a brief period, after which they continued to plummet. Now they are worse than when you started!”
“Fuck that! What’s the big deal anyway?” I cursed.
“You foolish child,” My father said, his voice dark with rage and disappointment “You do realise that if your grades aren’t good enough to get you into college, football is the only thing you have left going for you?”
He continued, “And you can’t even do that, because of your injury. You complete idiot, breaking your leg like some amateur when you've had professional coaching since freshman year!"
Each word was a precision strike that hit exactly where it was meant to land. I could barely find the words to respond, completely blindsided by his attack.
"And most recently," Dad continued, his voice dropping even colder, "your involvement in the near-drowning of Miss Lena Hartwell. The hospital bills we paid to keep that incident quiet when a nurse tried to talk to a reporter about it.”
“The fucking doctor said… I thought I took care of that!”
“Then stop thinking, Jason, because you clearly aren’t very good at it!”
My father took a deep long breath to calm himself, “Do you know how difficult it is to get a flat broke contract worker nurse who can barely afford rent not to sue the company to kingdom come and sign an NDA instead?”
His voice shook with fury, “I had to hire nearly a dozen thugs to persuade her to sign, if you catch my drift. More money wasted on you just to make sure no one finds out you nearly murdered your classmate.”
My vision went red with rage. "That wasn't… I saved her—"
"You created the situation that put her in danger in the first place." Dad's voice cut through my protests. "Your party. Your friends. Your negligence. You. So here's what's going to happen..."