Page 30 of Home Ice

“I didn’t realize insults were your love language,” I say, throwing a look over at him.

“I don’t have a love language. Just wasn’t expecting you to be a cunt.”

“Whoa.”

I feel his eyes meet the side of my face. “Gonna lecture me for swearing, Dad?”

“I don’t know.” I scratch my face, thinking about it. “There is no way Amelia lets you get away with that.”

“No, but she’d also never buy me a car, even if she had the money.” His lips twitch, reminding me of Carly all over again. “She is going to lose her shit.”

Apprehension clouds my borderline good mood. “She won’t approve?”

“No way. She’ll say you’re trying to buy my love and that it’s irresponsible to buy a child a brand-new car.”

Uh-oh. “Is it?”

“What?”

“Irresponsible to be buying you a brand-new car?”

Kasen shrugs and flicks his curls back from his forehead. “Well, I don’t think it is, and we both know that teenagers have a reputation for good decisions.”

“Fuck me.”

“Well, I guess we know where I get my potty mouth from,” he says with exaggerated affection.

All it’s taken is two conversations with Kasen for me to recognize that I’m in way over my head. Barrett said he was smart, but there’s a big difference between book smarts and being a smart-ass, but Kasen apparently excels at both. I thought fourteen-year-olds were supposed to be all awkward and speak in caveman-like grunts.

I’m getting the uncomfortable feeling that all those hits I’ve taken to the head have put me at a severe disadvantage here.

“What do you really think of me?” I get the balls to ask.

“That you’re an asshole.”

“And is there anything I can do to fix that?”

“Of course.” He turns back to picking at his nails. “Go back in time a few years, answer my message, and be active in my life. You know, before someone had to die for you to do that.”

The only thing that stops me from rolling my eyes is concentrating on leaning out the window for more air. “Now, is there anything I can do to fix this that’s actually achievable?”

He crosses his arms, but I’m so tuned in to his every move. Like I’m greedily trying to drink in as much about him as possible, and hopefully, it will give me answers to who this kid actually is. What he responds to. Picking out things that make him close off.

Like right now.

“Did the car at least get me points?” I ask, clutching at straws. “Since Amelia is going to hate me for it?”

“It proved you have ears and remember simple demands, so … A plus for basic human understanding?”

“You called me an asshole before.” I flick a look his way and copy his fake affectionate tone. “Guess we know where you get that too.”

“Please. Keep insulting me. It really helps the familial bond between us.”

“You speak like you’re eighty.”

“I speak like my mom.” The second his tone comes out, I know I’ve lost him. “Remember her? The woman you abandoned who took night classes, and raised me alone, and picked up extra shifts to pay for my hockey gear, and never, ever let me get complacent about life. All so what? She could fucking die? Driving home late from one of those extra shifts, that she never would have taken in the first place if you’d done your job and been a fucking father?”

“She didn’t let me!” I know it’s the wrong thing to say before it’s even left my mouth, but this isn’t all my fault. “I saw her after I left for college. Through the summers, we’d bump into each other, then again every now and then through the years. She didn’t say a goddamn thing. She hid you from me. My own fucking son!” Betrayal is burning through my veins, and I should absolutely not be having a meltdown about it here, but Kasen wanted to push me, and he’s succeeded. “That wasn’t fair!”