I stepped back, giving him a quick shove. We’d had this argument a few times already and each time it got a little more irritating. “Did you give up on what you always wanted to do?”
“No. Doesn’t mean I have to like the idea of you working your ass off.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “You won’t even quit working so that all you have to worry about is school.”
It had to be the most frustrating conversation in the world. Why he couldn’t let it go was beyond me. I’d tried to explain to him that I’d been doing this for the last two and a half, almost three years. Working at the bar was the least amount of time I’d spent at a job while going to school.
“We’ve talked about this before. I’m not quitting or giving up school.”
“We’re going back to my office now and you’re going to explain this fucking ridiculous notion that I can’t help you.”
“I’m not sure I even know where to begin with that.”
“In my office. Now,” he snapped, low and under his breath.
I curled my hand into a fist, ready to punch him, until I noticed a few of the employees watching the whole conversation, which would only give them more fuel for their gossip mill.
“Fine, but only because this is no one else’s business.”
Miller glanced around. Immediately, everyone went back to work. Without another word, he stormed down the hall to his office.
What reason did he have to be pissed? I wasn’t the one flaunting my money. I stepped over the threshold and slammed the door so hard it rattled in the frame.
“Why the hell are you pissed?” I snapped.
My irritation from earlier with Ray came back in full force, feeding the anger that was starting to consume me.
“I’m trying to help you and you keep throwing it back in my fucking face. I want to make things easier, but you seem intent on making them hard as hell.”
He grabbed a glass off his desk and splashed some liquor into the glass. He lifted it to his lips and threw the contents back. A slight grimace marred his features as he swallowed and slammed the glass back down onto the desk. “Have I not proven to you over the last few weeks how much you mean to me? Goddamn it, I shared how my family handles the money with you, something you could turn around and tell the police and get my ass thrown in jail, yet you act like I’m the bad guy by trying to ease your load. All I want to do is help.”
“I won’t be indebted to anyone. That’s how I ended up out here on my own in the first place,” I yelled.
He didn’t get it. Maybe he never would. He grabbed the glass again and hurled it across the room, shattering it. “Then fucking explain it to me, because all I see right now is you pushing me away.”
I tried to keep my cool. I really did. But the pressure coming at me from all angles was just too much. Juggling work, school, and a relationship was hard enough, but throw in a bank balance that was skating dangerously close to empty, and an ex-boyfriend who had convinced himself I was his property and I was surprised I’d held on this long. I supposed I would have eventually shared my past with Miller, but probably in a more controlled and calm manner. But he wanted it so he was going to get it. All of it.
“You want to know all my dirty secrets? Fine, here you go. My stepfather showed up when I was about five. He thought my mom was who he wanted. When they started dating, he’d been perfect—taking her out places, showing her off to his friends, even pretended to be happy about having me around.
“Things were great until my sixteenth birthday, or at least I thought it was. I came home from school and found him with another woman bent over the couch, plowing into her while she begged him to fill her deep, screaming that she wanted a baby. It took him until he finished with her to realize that I was there. He forced the woman to leave and tried to make me promise not to tell my mom. But that wasn’t going to happen. Until Rex came along it had been just me and Mom, and I wasn’t about to let her stay married to a cheater. I told her what I saw, and guess what?”
He uncrossed his arms and dropped them to his sides.
“She took his side. After years of being the one person I could count on, she took his side. Said I must have not understood what I saw.” I hadn’t realized I’d started pacing until I tried to focus on the floor and saw my feet moving. “Kinda hard to make that kind of mistake. But I was only sixteen, where the hell was I going to go? I spent the next year avoiding my stepfather at all costs and only having limited conversations with my mother. She was still my legal guardian and if I needed anything the only one who could get it would be her. So I stayed and kept my mouth shut.”