Page 23 of Something Like Sugar (Pine Forest Something #2)

“People will let you where it counts down the road if you do what I say, Son! You think I’m this bad guy, but I wish my father had paved the way for me a fraction of the bricks I’ve laid by fuckin’ hand for you.

I’m giving you the entire ladder, shined and polished, Dustin.

The fuck is wrong with you? Fuckin’ climb it! ”

Shana’s eyes find mine, the weight of his words affecting us both.

“I’m sorry,” I mouth, but she just smiles sympathetically, unsurprised with the drama that is my father, something I’m not used to.

I don’t have to pretend, not for Shay.

She already knows who I am.

I snort when she rolls her eyes and puffs out her naked chest, wagging her finger at me in mockery of my father.

Her breasts jiggle, and we both laugh as she cups them.

“Is something funny?” Dad sneers.

Shana eyes me, cute as fuck with her cheeks puffed, trying not to laugh. But when my nostrils flare, we both lose it, and our combined laughter spills into the phone.

“Dustin, do you have a woman with you? Christ, I thought I raised you with more couth than that! To answer the goddamned phone! You know what? Figure out Mullins on your own. Helping you is a waste of an investment.”

“Dad, it’s not like that. It’s—”

“It is exactly like that!” His chest heaves with air. “Don’t play games with me, Son. If you’d rather spend your days with frozen custard and cheap tarts, be my guest. Just don’t come crawling to me when the cream isn’t as sweet with penniless pockets.”

Cheap tart?

My hands fist the sheets. He’s the only man on Earth who could make me go from laughter just now to the hate I feel in his eyes, a reciprocal cycle of goddamned madness, brought on by his father and the one before him.

And still, I want to rage, throw my phone against the wall until it shatters. Never in my life has anyone been so disappointed in my past and confident of my future all at the same time. Nobody except him.

And until now, nobody has ever told him off before, either.

Shana untightens my fist. I didn’t even know I’d been clenching the sheets, and before I can register anything more than the feel of her skin on mine, of how safe I feel with her, she transforms into the confident dancer from the window.

“Cheap tart?! Mr. Campbell, you should be ashamed!”

“Shana Holiday?” His eyes widen.

She ignores him, and I shove my hand over my mouth to keep from laughing at the look of disbelief on my father’s face as she does.

“And this coming from the man who only bought a program-level sponsorship from the Pine Forest Athletics Club this season? Ironic, to say the least. You know Perkins Global gave us thrice your donation.”

Dad’s eyes widen. Guess he didn’t know she was on the board, and Shana rubs the salt right in his wound with a raise of her brow.

“The thousand-dollar uptick to platinum-level was too costly for your profits this quarter, huh?” She flips her hair back.

“It’s okay, though. Nothing wrong with being cheap . ”

Dad presses his lips together, but I can see the proud smile just before he grunts, a warm, confusingly familiar sound he uses with my sister, not a laugh, but the closest thing he gets to endearing.

“Shana Holiday.” He shoves back his chair, giving us a wide view of his office, adorned in awards and blueprints and a stupid fucking stuffed bobcat that’ll be the first fucker I burn when he dies, and it becomes my shit in that box he calls life.

“Does Devyn know about this coupling?”

“No,” Shana’s voice softens, a genuine display of concern for my sister, “she has too much going on right now with the new job and…”

“Hunter.” Dad groans. “Yes, I’m already aware of their little game of house.”

“I don’t want her to run again, Mr. Campbell. She needs to know she’s got people she can count on here.”

“People who keep secrets from her? I’m curious. Did either of you ever tell Devyn what happened the night she left you at that field party? Your best friend .”

“Dad, that’s enough!” I growl, reaching for the phone, but Shana shakes her head, keeping it angled on her.

“She would have blamed herself. Don’t you get that I’m protecting her? That we are protecting her? The fact you’re still trying to pin one sibling against the other is abhorrent. “Don’t you care?”

Dad’s silence stretches to anxiety inducing lengths as he and Shana have a stare off. Will he tell Devyn about us?

I’m not entirely sure, but he meets Shana’s worried stare and breaks the silence. “I agree she’s in over her head,” he finally says. “Enough secrets for her to learn in that trailer town as it is.”

I just wish he’d have stopped there, but of course not. Not when there’s an opportunity to leverage his power.

“I’ll keep my lips sealed.” He leans back. “As long as my son is polished and ready to network at the Business Elite the end of this month and actively scouting properties for the company like the rest of the interns.”

“I’m not an intern, for the fiftieth fucking time.” I massage my temples, but it’s inevitable. He won’t drop it until I’m under his thumb doing exactly what he thinks will make me worthy again. Someone he can brag to his buddies about over cigars and shrimp cocktails.

“I won’t tell Devyn,” he reiterates, his office chair squeaking over the line as he leans forward, “but you should. And soon. Blood has always run thick between you girls, and I’d hate to see my dumbass son ruin that friendship. You should know by now he’s not worth all that.”

He says it as if he’s joking.

All three of us know he’s not.

Shana tenses, and I can tell she’s torn. A daddy’s girl herself, she wants to play the role of my sister’s best friend; laugh, joke, make him proud.

But she’s called to stick up for me, more. I’ve seen this exact look ghost across my sister’s face my entire life. Every Christmas, every birthday, every B that I brought home on a report card or bronze medal at a rodeo.

And my chest tightens the same way it always has when I spiral over expectations I’ll never meet.

Is he right?

I’m not worth all that.

“I beg to differ.” Shana’s voice cuts my headspace, bringing me back to the grumbling man on the other end of the phone and the scribbles of his pen.

“Will you be joining us at the gala, Miss Holiday? I think it best we reconsider the accommodation, if so. Can’t have you flying economy just because my son’s less than competent. Your father’s always been a friend, you know. I hope he’s—”

“He’s dying.”

Nothing is said for several moments, just heartbeats and thoughts. Nobody dares to speak, until he scribbles his pen across a pad.

“My deepest condolences. I’m going to send his nursing staff a donation for whatever they need to keep him comfortable.

Let me know if anything more is needed and it’s done.

” He slams his desk drawer shut, the familiar sounds of his haste to throw money at everyone’s problems so he won’t have to feel for them, prickles my senses.

Shana looks at me, biting her lip, probably still torn about the sister’s best friend-brother’s lover debacle, but she says nothing, and dad graciously fills in the silence. At least that’s one good thing he’s done for me.

“I’ll bump you both to first class.” He says it like it’s already been done. It probably has, knowing him. Money is power, after all. Just the thought of that churns my gut inside out, and I want to take his checks and scribbles and shove them right up his—

“I can’t do much about the hotel arrangements since my offspring refuse to network with the right sort of people, but perhaps I could pull some strings for a suite on the tenth floor. You’ll get a decent oceanfront view and access to the private happy hour at the very least, but—”

“Dad, stop! She’s not going.” The words stick in my throat, but somehow, I manage, grabbing Shana’s hand and using the power I feel in her light to tell my father how it’s going to be, once and for all.

“I-I’m not going.” My stupid fucking stutter rears back in his presence, words tripping over my thoughts, but it gets out. And it seems to be clear enough.

“What did you just say?” His voice is low.

Laced with something I’d call pain if I weren’t certain he lacked a heart to feel it.

“I said I’m not going. I-I—”

I’m not you.

I’m not you.

I’m not you.

“I’M NOT YOU!”

He’s silent.

Until he’s not.

And as the opposite of silent whirlpools in my gut, I spin with it, his thoughts and words and judgement binding to me.

“Of all the fuckin’ sons, I got the one with the thickest fuckin’ skull!

You know that, Dustin? Do you have any idea the sacrifices I’ve made for our family?

I have paid thousands in legal fees to ensure you become something, Son , and I’ll be damned if you throw it away to open a goddamned Hobby Lobby when you could take what I’ve built and grow upon one of the most profitable businesses in the tri-state area. ”

I don’t reply. He said plenty.

And he fumes in my silence.

Good.

Even if I can’t see his face from where I threw my phone during the word sacrifice , I can close my eyes and feel the backhanded slap across my jaw. Funny how it still stings even after all these years.

“Do you hear me, Son!?”

“ I do,” Shana interjects, disgust plastered across her knitted brow as she grabs the phone. But there’s something else there too. A match lit, ready to burn.

“Dustin’s going to the gala.”

I open my mouth to protest, but she throws me a look, tossing her hair back before she narrows her eyes at the phone, and then she does something I’ve never dared to do in all my life.

She looks my father in the fucking eyes until she’s ready to speak.

I’m pretty sure in this moment, I’ll marry this woman.

This knight, who sits in a butterfly stretch, draped under plain white sheets, using nothing but virtue to fight my battles.

I love her.

Even before she puts the cherry on top.