Total pages in book: 136
Estimated words: 135847 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 679(@200wpm)___ 543(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135847 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 679(@200wpm)___ 543(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
The first part was about the fact his dad had mentioned he was going to Thailand, and Hale had asked to go with him. For once, Corey hadn’t hesitated. He’d looked him in the eye and said, “I’d like that.”
Hale wasn’t close to his dad. He’d given up on that forever ago (and the official date on that was when Corey had barely made it to Hale’s championship baseball game, a hugely important game for Hale, and Corey showed up in the final innings—that day he was done with his dad, and he was done with baseball because it reminded him he was done with his dad).
But he was excited about the idea of going to Thailand.
So, it might be stupid, but it felt good when his dad had said, “I’d like that.”
The second part was, he wanted to go so he could surf. It’d be freaking amazing to surf in Thailand.
Third, he was sixteen years old, practically a man, and his mother didn’t ask him what he wanted. She just saw an opportunity to deny his father something he wanted, and she jumped at the chance, not giving that first shit what Hale would like to do.
At least that was something his dad gave him. Corey started to treat him like a man when he was twelve.
But she’d pulled this crap just last month, when Marilyn and Robert were in town, and they wanted to see him.
Genny’s parents were the only grandparents he’d had, since his mom was so twisted, even her folks didn’t like being around her much. But it had been his mom’s time with him, and when he asked if he could go with his dad to Genny and Tom’s to spend a Saturday with Marilyn and Robert, she’d said no.
She knew he loved them and would want to see them when they were in town. She knew they loved him like he was their own grandchild.
So that had hurt.
A lot.
Which meant, last, he was so fed up with this crap, he couldn’t even.
“Mom, I asked Dad if I could go with him,” he shared.
She was banging around with utensils and pots, loudly, like she cooked. She didn’t do much but work, spend the massive wad of cash his father gave her every month, go out with her girlfriends and bitch about men, and watch TV. He’d started cooking when he was around ten, and the only reason he knew how was because Genny taught him.
“You should have asked me,” she returned. “I get you for spring break this year.”
“All right,” he retorted. “What are we gonna do then?”
She turned squinty eyes at him. “Are you talking back to me?”
“No,” he lied. “I asked you a question.” And that was the truth.
“I haven’t decided yet.”
She’d had him…he didn’t know how many spring breaks.
They never did dick.
“I wanna surf in Thailand, Mom.”
“Well, lucky for you, your father has more money than God, so you’ll get your chance. Just not this spring break.”
“If we don’t have anything planned—”
“Don’t talk back to me!” she shrieked.
Hale fell silent.
He always did when she got like this.
“Christ, I have to put up with his shit and yours?” she demanded.
Yours?
Yours?
Meaning his?
That was it.
He’d had enough.
He stood. “During spring break, I’m gonna sit around here doing diddly squat, except when I take off myself to go to beaches I’ve been to a hundred times, to surf by myself, when all my friends are going to Mexico or Aspen or somewhere because their parents give a shit about them.”
“Don’t you cuss at me, Hale,” she snapped.
It wasn’t lost on him that she didn’t get ticked about him saying she didn’t give a shit about him.
“I’m not him. I didn’t do…whatever it is he did to you. I’m me. Your son. And I’m sick and tired of you treating me like I did something to you when I didn’t.”
“You’re cruising straight to being grounded for spring break, Hale, if you don’t shut your mouth right now.”
“I don’t really care. You’re not gonna make an effort. So what do I care? There won’t be anything to do or anybody to do it with anyway.”
She threw an arm toward the vast picture windows that showed a view of the sprawl of LA. “You have an entire city to do cool things in.”
“Yeah, but I want to do cool things with my dad. That’s your beef. That’s your problem. That’s your damage. It’s always your damage.”
“Your father is a piece of shit.”
“And have a look at this fun discussion, Mom, and tell me what my mother is?”
She gasped.
He stormed off.
He was grounded that spring break.
But it didn’t matter.
There was nothing to do and no one around to do it with anyway.
Now…
The front desk called to tell him his guest had arrived and was heading up in the elevator.
So Hale was walking that way when the doors opened and Elsa came out wearing a sweater dress that did things to his dick, a coat over it, boots with four-inch heels that he also felt in his dick, and carrying a bag in her hand, the promise of which did even more things to his dick.