Page 27 of Badd Daddy

Roman waved my protest away. “Best way to cut fat is to lift heavy. You could run around for fuckin’ days without stopping and you’d never really make much progress. Lift heavy, keep the rest times short, and eat right. You’ll be back in peak shape in no time.”

“You make it sound easy.”

He laughed. “Easy, no. Simple, yes.” He jutted his chin at my coffee. “Drink up, old man. We start now. I’m taking you grocery shopping.”

“If you fill my fridge with lettuce, I’m disowning you.”

Roman just cackled. “Do I look like a fuckin’ bunny rabbit to you, Dad?” He gestured at the massive, impressively muscled shoulders and arms. “You don’t get a body like this eating lettuce. Although, more salad is a good idea. But, no, not all salad. Just…better food. Real food. Lean meat like turkey and chicken, brown rice, salmon, sweet potatoes, stuff like that. Cut out the chips, fries, doughnuts, soda, all that garbage.”

I nodded. “I mean, that’s simple enough. Like you said, maybe noteasy, ’cause you know damn well I love that shit.”

He nodded. “Oh, I know. I run a bar, Dad—I serve bacon cheeseburgers and chili fries and tater tots and Shepherd’s Pie and shit like that all day long. You think it’s easy staying on the healthy nutrition wagon when I serve up all that delicious crap all day long? I love that shit as much as you do. But my desire to stay shredded like a motherfuckin’ Adonis is stronger, so I keep my diet clean.” He glanced at me. “You may think about getting cleaned up. Haircut, beard trim. Make you look less like a hobo and more like…well, me, ” he said with a wink at me.

I rolled my eyes at him. “Humble, you ain’t.”

He just grinned, a wicked, shit-eating grin he learned from me. “No kidding, Pops. But look who my role model is.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “The fuck you say. I ain’t nobody’s role model.”

Roman groaned, rubbing his face with both hands. “Dad, can you just get over yourself, already? Yeah, you were a drunk ass piece of shit for most of my life. Yeah, I spent a few years being pissed at you. But you know what? I’m here. I’m strong. I’m healthy, I’m happy, I’ve got a place I love, a woman I love, and work I enjoy, and my brothers are around me. And so are you. And you’ve been sober—what, a year, now?”

I dug into my pocket, hauled out my wallet, and removed a bronze coin about the size of a poker chip; I set it spinning on the table, and Roman snatched it, examined it.

“One year, one month, two weeks, and three days,” I said.

Roman flipped the coin over a finger, his expression difficult to read. “I’m really proud of you, Dad.”

I choked. “Hearing my fuckin’ son tell me he’s proud of me is…” I blinked hard, cleared my throat with a gruff growl. “Bittersweet.” I stood up, slammed the last of my coffee, burning my tongue and throat in the process. “Let’s go shopping for rabbit food.”

6

Liv

“Charlie—listen,no—hold on, please, listen—”Charlie was on a tirade the likes of which I’d never heard from my eldest daughter.

“—And he told me, can you believe this? He told me it wasmyfault! My fault! I’ve spent five years with the bastard, paying the lion’s share of our rent, buying most of the food, doing his laundry and my own, going to school full-time and then interning full-time and now working full-time, and all I ever asked of him was fidelity and affection. And did I get either one? NO! He was boinking my boss! You wanna know the funniest part of all this? My boss is fifty-five, she’s married with grandchildren, and hasn’t seen the underside of two hundred pounds since the nineties, and that’s being generous, considering she’s barely five feet tall.” She was silent a while. “I don’t know what to do, Mom.”

“I’m sorry you’re going through this, Charlie,” I said. “What are your options?”

She hummed a musing sound. “Well, I could stay here in Boston and continue working at Denoyer and Whitcomb. I’d need a new apartment because we’re both on the lease and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let him stick me with a four thousand dollar a month lease. I’ve loved working at the firm, but Vera Denoyer is now public enemy number one and I’ll be damned and double damned if I’ll work for her for another minute, the dirty old cuckolding slut.”

“Charlie!” I snapped.

“Mom, you know what—”

I cut in. “Be very careful how you finish that, Charlotte Grace.” I kept my voice quiet and calm, but my tone was one she knew very well meant business.

She restarted. “I don’t take it back. She’s a dirty old cuckolding slut. But I will apologize for my language.” Another huff. “Anyway, staying at the firm would mean requesting that I work for Isaac Whitcomb and, from what I know and what I’ve heard, he’s pretty aggressively handsy, but he’s old money and basically untouchable, and one of the most in-demand real estate attorneys on the entire East Coast.”

“You wouldn’t last five minutes working for him, Charlie. He’d get handsy one time, you’d slap him so hard his dentures would fly out, and then you’d be firedandjailed for assault.”

She sighed. “Exactly. So then my option becomes finding a new jobanda new apartment. But I only moved to this city because this is where Glen wanted to be. I had great offers in DC and L.A. I only took the job in Boston because Glen wanted to get involved with the DNC here.”

“Charlie, I don’t want to say it, but…”

She groaned. “I know, I know, you warned me about taking a job because of Glen.” A heavy pause. “You warned me, and you were right.”

“I didn’t want to be.”