I shiver, the malicious tone in my dad’s voice something that I don’t often hear, but it never fails to cause me to tremble in fear. I’ve never had that tone directed at me either, and it’s still scary as hell.
“Excuse me, I misspoke,” Levi tries again. “We recently had a separation that I had been hoping to rectify.”
“Oh boy,” I hear coming from my mom, and I see her head pop in my line of sight, giving me a wink. She’s loving this. Which shouldn’t be a shock since she’s married to my father and has taken great pleasure my whole life in ‘throwing her sass’ to get a reaction from him.
I finally push from my dad and turn to look at Levi. “At the risk of embarrassing you by doing this in front of an audience, I’m going to go ahead and say what I need to in the hopes that you’ll hear me. I think it’s nice that you came when you heard the call, but as you can see, I have most of my support here already. That being said, I think it was shitty for you to even say that during this,” I stress and point behind his shoulder to where my house had been burning just minutes before. “But even if you had waited to do it somewhere else, the answer would be the same. I have no plan to rectify anything when it comes to us. Not now and not ever.”
He makes a move to step toward me, but stops with a glance behind our little huddle, his eyes getting hard. I’m sure my dad is about to come out of his skin right now.
“You’ve had a rough night,” Levi says, still not looking at me right away. “How about we talk about this in a week or so? Take all the time you want, but just promise we can talk. I miss you.” He looks back at me with a smile.
“Are you stupid, boy?” my father snaps.
“Stop, it Maddox,” my mom worries.
“I don’t want a week, Levi. I don’t want a day. Hell, I don’t want even a minute. I really was trying to be nice, but I don’t want you!”
“Damn fucking right you don’t,” I hear harshly barked and feel the instant rush of safety and relief rush over me at those words.
I turn to see that my father is still standing behind me with his arms now crossed over his chest, and I almost stumble with emotion when I look next to him and see the man mirroring his pose. Right down to the thin lips and narrowed eyes.
“Nate,” I whisper on a sob, afraid to move without losing my shit and crumpling onto the sidewalk.
His eyes leave Levi’s direction immediately, and he looks right at me. The anger that had been radiating from him dissipates the second he locks his eyes on mine. He takes a step forward and bends to pull me into his embrace. His head going to my neck and his mouth against the tender flesh as he lifts me with his hands on my ass until my legs wrap around his hips.
He doesn’t move for a second, giving me all of him while my body shakes. Now that he’s here, I finally let the enormity of tonight sink in; the fire could have been so much worse had Bam not woken me from my deep sleep. I feel the frame that I had been holding digging into our abdomens, but I don’t dare ease up on my hold.
Soft kisses against my neck are the only warning that I get before he lifts his head and starts talking. “I know who you are, but you don’t know who I am. This girl in my arms is mine, and buddy, you’re one stupid motherfucker for letting her go. But you did and I promise you I’m not going to be that damn dumb. She said it nicely, but you didn’t listen, so now hear it from me.” I tighten my arms around his neck and press my nose into his neck, smelling his familiar cologne mixed with the scent of cigarette smoke from Dirty. A combination that I’ve become addicted to and it instantly makes me feel like all is right in the world. “You have no place in her life, and as nice as you think it was to come rushing over to make sure she was fine, as you can see … she is. You can leave now knowing that she’s right where she needs to be. And, one more time, since you seem to need it really dumbed down—Ember is mine now and for the rest of our days on this earth, so you can fuck right off knowing that in no way will there ever be a break in that for the likes of you.”