Page 33 of Something Like Sugar (Pine Forest Something #2)

DUSTIN

G od plays puzzling games with my integrity. Always has. So, it’s He who will be at fault for whatever happens to the man across from me at the gala table.

Lawrence Lawson, in the flesh.

My background check on the asshole hasn’t come back yet, but I don’t need a cop with a computer to tell me what my instincts already have.

He smiles widely, beaming a sinister light at my girl, a woman who squeezes my fingers so tightly they tingle.

“I’ll get us seated somewhere else. We can leave altogether if you want, just say the word, Shay.”

“It’s okay,” she whispers, reaching up to pull at the hair she’s used to hiding behind, but it’s not there.

It’s high atop her head in a poised ballet bun, two thick braids twisting through it.

The bright red dress she chose tonight is elegant and racy all at once, a long-sleeved bodice made of transparent lace roses and a slit so far up the side of her leg, my mouth waters.

“Did you wear this color for me?” I ask, aiming to ease the tension that coils around us.

Because not only is this a table with the very man who plans to ruin Shana’s chances of salvaging her studio, and all the tenants of Pine Forest who run their businesses out of that strip, but also because aside from Lawrence here, I’m the only one who knows that.

Shana just knows her strip is being sold to a mysterious buyer. Dad only knows there’s a property his random new buddy intends to help him buy, and this fucker Lawrence is the attorney ready to settle it all. I’d bet my left nut he’s the entire reason for the sale.

He stares me down like a puzzle of his own.

Try it, buddy. Nobody can piece my shit together.

But I can see right through him the longer he sits here, a defense one picks up behind bars, to read people.

And even though his face says he’s all but ready to attack, his fingers tightly clenched around his water glass, white at the tips from the force of his grip, tell me this predator is more like a snake than a wolf.

It’s not a hunt. He’s only paying attention to me, because I’m starting to pay closer attention to him.

And I will wreck his chances of fucking Shana over and doing any dealings with my father or his associates, if he so much as tries to make a move against any of the people at this table I love.

Yes. I breathe a deep sigh, squeezing Shana’s hand as I think. Even my father.

Because she was right about what she said in the car.

I do hate who he was. But he isn’t that man anymore.

He may have moved on and divorced my mother—they had their shit, and he wasn’t always there for me, but when times have required the type of support he knows, legally, monetarily… he’s given it.

Does it excuse the man he was all those years ago? The one who saw a fighting boy and turned his back on the grounds of reputation? The one who pushed too hard?

No.

And it doesn’t excuse his abrasive conditions now.

But I notice the crow’s feet around his eyes, the grey streaks in his hair, and suddenly realize how long it’s been since I last saw him in person.

Since I wanted to.

“Hey, Dad.”

“Son.” He nods cordially before easing into his chair like an old man, older than I thought he was.

He grunts as he scoots into the table and folds a linen napkin over his lap ceremoniously.

I marvel at that for a second, impressed really.

I’ve always let my distaste for him run so thick that I never noticed how well he fits into this upper-class world, despite knowing he scraped bottles by the train tracks as a child for lunch money.

I’m proud of that, and I don’t know how that’s supposed to sit.

I’ve always seen him as soulless, a Scrooge, blinded by profits and the rise to be more…but he was a father in an unhappy marriage to an alcoholic.

He wound up living hours away from his teenage children, one of which ended up behind bars and…well, my sister had her own set of issues, didn’t she?

Was he simply doing his best by staying away, sending money and securing us a future?

I notice a folder on the table beneath his hand labeled 1602 Mullins Road-Settlement Documents , and I know he didn’t do that for him. It’s for me. Like I would for my own children, if ever given the chance.

In the same breath that I measure my father’s trespasses against me, I begin to think over my own. I have also hurt others in the name of justice.

Shana squeezes my hand back, and I lean into her support, the support she gave me yesterday and the continuation today.

She’s right. Maybe it’s time to get to know my father.

This dinner has been surprising. Instead of fighting and grimacing, holding back words against my father like usual, I’ve been smiling and exchanging pleasantries.

Shana, who was nervous about her acceptance speech up till now, has been relaxed into his company, as if this were a real thing between us.

How we might be at a family get together or… wedding, even.

I watch my father and the woman I love laugh across from one another, recanting old stories from our childhood, and I like that thought. Marrying Shana Holiday and making her an official part of our family.

Telling my sister we share a best friend.

“You’ve been quiet. Dusty , was it?” Lawrence chimes from across the table, leaning back in his chair, spread eagle like he owns the place. Little does he know, Lemon owns the place.

Her father does at least. Every little venue or hotel on Boardwalk Avenue, including the snow cone stands are properties of Perkins Global Enterprises, and I’d like to wipe the smug elitist look off his face and tell him I could have him kicked from the premises with one text.

But I won’t.

I grit my teeth while I look him over. I can’t wait to get him alone with Dad and see the way his face drops when he learns nobody at the Campbell Firm will be contracting him again.

Borderline stalker , that’s what he is, and he wasn’t even nice to Shana on that date, just wanted to take her to stupid Swan Lake to get under her skirt. I know, because I legitimately was stalking her, as fucked as that is.

“Nothing wrong with being quiet,” I say flatly.

“I prefer to watch and listen. How about you?” I take a swig of my drink and down it all in one sip, clanking my glass on the table only a tad too hard.

“You watch any, Lawrence?” I cock my head toward the surgery scar, three inches thick along the thumb of his left hand, put there because of me.

“Doesn’t look like you do much listening. ”

“You fucker!” Lawrence growls, slamming his good hand down, nearly knocking my father’s glass from his station.

“Dustin, what is the meaning of this?!” Dad rumbles.

Shana’s eyes bounce between the three of us, looking every bit like my little sister caught between one of our old throes.

“You’re causing a scene.” Dad cuts his eyes to Lawrence. “Both of you.”

Shana begins to speak for me. Dad knows nothing about her history with Lawrence, or that he’s targeting her, because shit, she doesn’t even know he’s still targeting her. And I don’t know to what extent, either.

I fucked up.

I should have told her about all of it. I should have phoned Dad before today, too. I am a fuck up.

“You don’t get it,” I try to tell them, “he’s—”

Shana cuts me off, exhausted and hard to read, but she doesn’t seem mad. Not at me. Maybe, just disappointed I provoked Lawrence.

She knows who he is, she just doesn’t know what I know. And before I can even tell her, she’s hushing me. “I need a moment.”

Dad grumbles, the disappointment I’m all too familiar with radiating from his body, ready to fire like a bomb if I say or do the wrong thing, like always.

“I would love to share a dance, Miss Holiday.” Dad offers her an arm. “Congratulations on your accomplishment with the Business Elite.”

She smiles, exhaling her worry and nodding politely back. “I’d love to. Thanks, Mr. Campbell.”

Lawrence and I are left across from one another, locked in a stare-off that seems to intensify by the second.

Neither of us blink.

Until we do, simultaneously.

Lawrence smirks, crossing one puny leg over the other in a smug sort of prodding, but I tell myself to let it slide. Shana will be back here soon, and I can control myself around this shit long enough to figure what he’s playing at.

I think I can, at least, until he speaks again.

“She’s elegant for a dancer , if you know what I mean.”

I immediately want to break his other hand.

I know what he’s trying to do, and I loathe that it’s fucking working. “If I remember clearly, you were the one with the boring job. Not her.”

“I knew you were listening on that date. I could practically smell your pathetic stench watching her from across the bar.”

“Fuck off, Nemo.” I crack my knuckles just to show him what working ones look like. “I can make the right fin just as lucky as the left.”

“I could sue you for even saying that!” He spits, but he scoots his chair back all the same.

“Got proof I said it, do you?”

His nose scrunches in and he clicks his irritated tongue, dismissing me, I guess. What the fuck ever.

All I care about is apologizing to Shana. Making sure she’s okay before they announce the speakers.

She dazzles, laughing and shimmying with my father as he twirls her around the floor. I beam back at them, waving as she teaches him a tricky step to a popular country song. Never did I think I’d see that side of him.

I want to snap a pic for evidence and send it to Devyn. He can have fun and be free, see. But my chest pings in a melancholy fashion when I remember I can’t tell her. She doesn’t know about us yet.

Our father, the grump in question, and Shana come skipping back to me, linking arms and using faux British accents to describe the taste of the fancy scones, and I grin at the possibility of the future playing out before me.

I want Devyn to know.

I’m ready if Shana is, for all of it.

Forever.