Page 86 of Play for Power (Central Sparks #3)

“Fuck. ” I haven’t been this hungover in a long time. I swipe to answer my phone, if anything, to get it to stop its incessant ringing.

“What,” I croak out, coughing to clear my throat as I work on trying to open my eyes.

“Well hello to you, too, sunshine.”

“Dad. What do you want?” I really don’t care what he wants. I just want to fall back into the dreamless, heavy sleep he dragged me from.

“I, uh…I saw the news.” My eyes slowly peel open at his resigned words and I stare emptily at the ceiling.

“Okay,” is all I can bring myself to say.

“Son…” His words break off, which has my eyes stinging and I run a hand down my face, not sure if I’m imagining that shake in his voice. “I’m…I’m sorry, son.” The words make me sit up, probably too fast, given the way my stomach tumbles and nausea spikes from head to toe in a cold flush.

“Sorry?” I breathe the word. “For…what?” My dad, the sadist who I’m not sure even likes that he has a son, has never once spoken the word.

“For all the things I’ve said. How I made you feel like everything was your fault.

” It feels a little bit like the world is falling down around me as I move to standing, pacing the floor of the living room, and wiping the hangover sweat from my forehead.

My dad sounds…tired, his voice haggard as he takes a deep breath.

“I’ve been…sour, and I didn’t realize how much I’d put on you.

I really…look, son, I really hate how I’ve treated you over the years.

If I could go back and change things…I would.

” He seems to need another breath and I fall back to sitting on the couch, trying to piece it all together.

Perhaps I am still asleep, or maybe the alcohol has poisoned me to the point of hallucination.

Dad’s voice mumbles something like he’s speaking away from the phone’s mic.

I hear shuffling and then he’s there again.

“I know your mom didn’t leave because of you, Caleb.

She was going to leave and there was nothing either of us could have done to stop it.

It was never your fault, and I’m… Christ, I’m sorry I ever said that, or let you believe that.

I know things haven’t always been easy for us.

And I know that it’s my fault. But I saw the release, and, well…

how are you doing, son?” I can almost hear the anguish in his voice.

I can hear it because it feels like my own anguish responds.

And for all the years I’ve spent waiting for my father to say these words, to apologize, I can’t help but let them in.

The pained sob hits me out of nowhere as the crushing weight of Rosie not being mine breaks through my resolve. And I crumble.

I wipe absently at my face, walking to the bathroom and dropping the phone to splash myself with cold water. Taking in a deep breath, I bring the phone back to my ear.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I didn’t realize who she was when I said…

fuck, I’m sorry for that too.” He curses to himself and there are more mumbled words in the background I can’t make out.

I don’t know what else to say to the man though.

I hadn’t expected an apology, let alone to discuss with my dad how my heart was ripped from my chest. “Well, look…” Dad pauses and I imagine he’s pacing awkwardly, at a loss for words.

“She’s leagues above us ol’ Chicago folk. ”

“Yeah,” I agree, because she is. “But, for a while there it felt like we were on the same page, and fuck it was nice.” I fall back into the couch, wiping a hand down my face.

“Yeah, but her family, her wealth, it’s the kind of money that is unimaginable.

” I know those words aren’t entirely true, it’s her dad’s money.

She never wanted a part of it. Sure, she reveled in it a bit, I mean who wouldn’t?

But she was never the girl that lived off Dad’s money.

She was a force; she demanded the world see her as her own person.

She earned every bit of anything that she had for herself.

Perhaps this realization is what has guilt sinking my stomach to the pits.

That if she’d have fought against her family, she’d have lost everything, she’d have nothing.

Maybe I’m beginning to understand, and I hate it, but I am.

Either way, she loses. Either way, she has no control over her life.

Choosing her father meant a stable, comfortable life, even if she hated it. Choosing me meant she had no independence. Sure, I’d be there for her, I’d help her. But she’d have no job, nowhere to live, and no money of her own, save for the small amounts she’d saved on a minimum wage as an editor.

Yeah, she’d have me…but me? I am never going to be enough for her.

I don’t know how to give her the freedom she deserves.

I received a letter from my lawyer that she’d refused to sign the offer to fund her publishing endeavor, and I have nothing else to give her.

My heart had already belonged to her, and she didn’t even want that.

“Do you really want to be the stay-at-home husband, to be a kept man?” My dad huffs on the other end of the line and I think he believes he’s making it better, like he’s cracking the wisest joke to make me feel better. All it does is harden my grip on the phone.

“Pops, I’d have done anything. I’d happily be labeled a kept man.

As long as it was Rosie that was keeping me.

” My ego isn’t fragile enough to care if she outearned me.

Hell, I’d quit my job and follow her around the globe if she asked me to, if that was what she wanted.

I just wanted her to pick me. I wanted us to decide it all together.

I wanted to matter. And I was afraid…that I really didn’t.

“She was it, huh?” he presses with a resigned sigh.

“Nah, Pops. She is it. There isn’t anyone else.” And there never would be.

I stare up at the overindulgent log cabin.

The house that used to belong to the Jenkins family and now belonged to me.

I’d called and canceled the rest of the Airbnb bookings, reimbursing and adding additional compensation for the inconvenience so I could get out here and find some semblance of peace.

And though the idea was to escape the city and all the places that make me think of Rosie, I hadn’t imagined my mind being creative enough to still picture her here.

She’d come with Addy as a kid, she’d told me.

So naturally, all I can see is her laughing and smiling with Addison.

I imagine what she’d be like now. I don’t believe she’d be much of a fan of the zip line, and her hiking would be something I’d pay to see.

But I imagine her on some big pool floaty, in the middle of the lake, a cocktail in one hand and a book in another as she bathed in the sun and smiled at whatever dirty shit she was reading.

I stand at the edge of the pier, picturing just that, and of course the ache is back.

“This is bullshit.” I came here to forget about her, not think up imaginary situations involving her.

But that’s what I end up doing anyway. Especially when I head upstairs and take a shower.

I can’t get her smooth, silky skin out of my head.

The pout of her lips when she presses them to my skin, the feel of her tits pressed up against my chest, and the way she grips me when she comes.

The images are practically burned into my brain, and I curse myself a million times as I grip my cock and stroke to the images of the prettiest girl in the world falling apart around me.

The shower does a solid number on my mental resolve, and I happen to find another bottle of whiskey in the kitchen, again desperate to put myself out of the misery I created.

It’s not a Macallan, but it does its job, and once again I’m drowning in a swirling haze.

The bottle disappears a lot faster when I sit it down in front of me and see the caramel dark swirls within the whiskey that make me think of big almond eyes.

Ones that usually gleam with mischief. Except for the last time I saw them.

I finish the whole bottle.

Sometime during my determination to remove Rosie from my mind, I received a text from Noah confirming the party this coming weekend that’s meant to celebrate their engagement. I didn’t respond to his text, or the few after that asking if I was okay.

At some point though I passed out into a blissful deep sleep, my phone once again tucked around my neck like I’d made some late-night call, when the soft throb of an oncoming headache started to make itself known.

I don’t know the time or the day, or really how long I had been asleep, but I know I can’t keep doing this.

Reluctantly, I peel myself off the couch in a hungover haze for the second time.

Stewing over the news article and the look of pain in her eyes.

I force myself on a morning swim and then an afternoon hike.

Staying out longer at the lookouts and breathing in the fresh mountain air as I try to piece myself together.

Try, and completely fail, because every time I try to imagine what life is meant to be like, what being whole feels like, it starts and ends with her.

And though the throbbing pain and the hollowness of being alone don’t go away, the intensity starts to fade. Or perhaps I’m getting better at denial.

I’m in the middle of attempting an empanada recipe when there is a knock at the door. Confused, I don’t really give myself a moment to think, but I head for the door and freeze a little.

“Addison?”

“You’re a fucking moron, you know that?” She scowls, shoving at my chest as she pushes her way through the door and storms into the kitchen.

“You own this place?” I toss my head back in an exaggerated sigh, closing the door and following behind her back to the stove. I busy myself while she wanders around.