Sweet Dreams-20 … In the Main House.

Chapter 20

He walked back outside after he had handed her off to his son. Adam only paused to grab the pint of Johnny Walker red label out of his golf bag and up capped it and took a swig and lit up another cigarette and paced in the driveway still keyed up and on edge from the heated exchange that the had just had.

He took a sip of the scotch and let it burn slide down his throat as he did he followed it up with a drag of his smoke and another and another until when he exhaled it was vaguely dragon like.

Hunter Williams. His son had brought her into his life from out of the blue and apparently out of nowhere. If she’d been rural or something like that he might get the homebirth and stuff and even maybe in the district where she’d gone to school at was a really shitty neighborhood.

That meant usually a record. Something but Hunter Williams had barely existed and had been raised to stay off the radar. She trashed the spyware he had set up she had found the tail that the private eyes had put on her….and she’s been cocky, kind of smug about the whole thing right back in his face when he tried to intimidate her out of his son’s life.

“It’s like he fucking brought home Veronica flipping Mars.” He said scowling at the upstairs garage apartment.

He sat on one of the large chunks of granite his landscaper had charged him a thousand dollars for and smoked. He stared at the apartment and remembered the night.

He really tried, he pressured some people he had owing him favors and stuff to help make up a dinner party from hell that’s send her packing.

But she didn’t, she fought back.

More than that she had somehow gotten into his Wife’s good graces and that hadn’t happened before with any other of Alex’s girls.

Even at the dinner she was charming, nice and she’d gotten past his guard.

He hated that.

He hated the way that she got right in his face as they had a screaming match right here in the driveway.

Adam took a drag off his smoke and looked at Teddy Wilson who just happened to take the dogs out for a walk about this time. It was one of the times he missed the old neighborhood and the old days when some asshole neighbor would be sent away with a “What the fuck are you looking at huh!?”

It was out of his mouth before he could stop it.

Fucking girl…

His wife had told her stuff and she had tossed his lower middle classed upbringing and the stuff with his family and well….it just got his Irish up.

Wilson hurried out of there and back home likely so he could spread the gossip to his fugly wife. He killed the rest of the pint and started walking inside only stopping at the door remembering just how raw she had sounded at the end when she broke and cried.

He hated the on the edge of despair he heard in her voice. It scared the hell out of him for his son.

He hated how even though he wasn’t in great shape compared to some Hunter weighed next to nothing in his arms and that close, that close he saw the few scars he could see. He saw the burns left behind on her skin of someone using you for an ashtray.

He went inside the house and it was dark and he leaned on the wall and struggled a bit with his shoes. Drunk the first one is easy, but a shiny leather shoe tends to keep slipping off of dress socks when you’ve had a bit too much.

He sat on the carpeted steps to go to the upstairs of the house and closed his eyes and just breathed until he felt lips on his for the fourth or fifth time tonight and the smell of her perfume and the feeling of her hair cascading down. He opened his eyes and looked at her.

April gave him a smile and she sat down on the carpets despite the cost of her dress and everything. He looked at her as she took his arm and wrapped it in a hug and leaned on him.

“You lost tonight.” She said.

“Yeah, I’m just really hoping that me losing doesn’t mean that Alex is going to lose even more.”

“Alex is seventeen Adam you can’t tell him who to love.”

“No, I can’t and that’s the fucking problem, Hunter is broken, she’s all fucked up inside even if she means well this could end really badly.”

“Hunter’s not Liz, she’s been through hell yes but she’ll make it through just like you did. You know you and her have a lot in common?”

He looked at her snorted and rolled his eyes at her or away from her… “Oh she’s like me; well that’s a great fucking endorsement isn’t it?”

“Hey Mister Listen!” April held him by the chin and made Adam look at him. “I happen to love you okay? You don’t get to go there, not with me around.”

“Why…?” He looked at her and some tears ran down his cheeks in the near dark. “Why the hell would you love someone like me?”

“Love doesn’t need a reason, it just doesn’t that’s why there all these WTF couples out there that just don’t make sense.”

“Liz killed herself because of me…”

“Liz was suffering from post partum and you weren’t there to get her through it so she reached for the thing that you guys grew up with, the bottle.”

“I treated her like shit.”

“Yeah you did and you were working a hundred plus hours a week back then and you’d come home and she’d be high or smashed and who knows what she’d done with Alex or where she left him.”

“I’ve been a shitty father.”

“Yeah, you have.”

“I thought you loved me and you’re agreeing with me about this?” it was a bit of a loud drunken whine.

“Yes, I do love you Adam but you’ve been a shitty father, and yeah you could have done better but look at your own family it’s not like they gave you the tools to be a good dad.”

“Yeah….Dad’s idea of quality time was sending us kids for another beer and telling us how we’d either never amount to anything or what part of the force we’d be good at doing.”

“Yes like I said you and Hunter both have stuff in common, you both had to climb through a mountain of shit to get out of there but you both fought to get out, well she’s still fighting.”

“I hate it when you’re right you know that?” He leaned in and kissed her tiredly.

April kissed him back and put her forehead to his and smiled at him as she looked him in the eyes. “You’re having a bad day, this is twice you’ve lost today.” She kissed him again and Adam fell back against the carpeted stairs.

“Three times, the shoe even beat me.” He held his foot up and wiggled it.

“Poor baby here.” She grabbed his foot and pulled off the offending shoe and then took his hands and pulled him up to his feet. She kissed him and helped him upstairs with a “C’mon.”

They got to their room and he fell onto their bed and slowly fought with his closes while April messed with the stereo.

“Honey, it’s not too late you know.” She said as she slowly started to sway to the music.

“For what?”

“To try and be a good father.”

“No, that ship sailed when he was a kid and everything…he needs direction, he want’s to be an artist for christsakes.”

“You wanted to be some fancy pants lawyer, some ambulance chaser?”

“That’s different.”

“Not one bit and you know it.”

“He could be so much more than some damned hippy.”

“Honey it’s 2010 nobody really calls people damned hippies.”

“An artist, I mean really April an artist…”

“Should I buy you a cheap old lazyboy chair there Mr. Bunker.”

“What…? Oh funny Edith, funny.” April giggled and did a half dance turn and let the strap fall off of her right shoulder with the dress.

“He’ll be fine, he might just want to express the stuff he never talks about it could be healthy y’know.”

“I know but…”

“How about this butt.” She turned away from him and let the rest of the dress fall.

“Oh that’s cheating.” He said as he sat up and grabbed her around the waist and pulled her down onto the bed with him.

April giggled and squealed out in imitation. “Ooooh Archie!”