As I near the top of the stairs and catch sight of my father's staff, I realize … that I don't give a shit. So I keep the ring on my finger and stride forward and guess what? The world doesn't end. In fact, nobody even notices. Maybe this thing that I thought was such a big deal … isn't.
I love Royal.
I take another breath and step into the office, closing the door behind me.
“Your brother,” he begins as he glares daggers at me. “Has informed me this morning that he wants to speak with the FBI. Again. I hope you know what this could mean for us, for our family, our careers.” A pause, a harsh laugh that tears from his throat like gravel. “Although you don't seem to give a shit about that considering,” a rude wave at my left hand, “that. With that man for a husband, you can kiss your future good-bye.”
“Royal is my future,” I tell him and watch as he shakes his head at me. “I'm not going to spend every single second of my life giving a crap what everyone else thinks, what everyone else wants. Newsflash: I've been that girl my entire life and guess what? It didn't make me happy.”
“So you need a man to make you happy? That's not the daughter that I raised, Lyric.”
No, you raised a personal slave, a yes-woman to follow you around and do what needed to be done. But I don't say that. I close my eyes, count to ten, open them again.
“Dad, I don't need a man to make me happy. I don't need anyone but me and my own strength, don't need to do anything but trust my own judgment. And you know what all those things are saying to me? They're saying I love Royal, and I want to be with him, and you know what? Maybe I can't be a part of congress or run for president someday, but you know what I can do? I can use this degree I earned, the degree that's rotting in my back pocket like old fruit. I can take it and I can be something and I can love the person I want to love without trying to justify it or hide it or pretend it isn't real.”
Deep breath. Long breath. I stare at my dad and hope he'll give me something, anything, some inkling of approval. But he doesn't, and in that moment, I realize that maybe he never will. He never will and that is okay.
I don't need his approval or anybody else's.
“When Sully speaks with the FBI, he'll give them the truth.”
“Except for the fact that it was your fiancé that beat him with a hammer.” My dad's calmed down now, his blue eyes seeming gray in the wane light of his office, like gravel, like fog, like gravestones. I shiver.
“It's the price Sully had to pay for his greed. I don't agree with it, but I also know what happened to Sully was a blessing compared to what could've happened to him, what actually happened to Brent. This doesn't have to change the world, Dad. Sometimes, it feels like every little decision we make will, but that's not true. Sometimes, life is just life and it simply is, nothing more.”
“Email the editor at the Times-Standard and see if that proof for our article about the Wolves is ready. I'd like to read it before it goes to print.”
I stare back at him and all I really want to do is flip him off. I make myself nod instead, turn and leave the office.
Either he'll come to accept Royal and me or … he'll fire me and never speak to me again.
I feel a sense of peace realizing I can't do anything else at this point to change that. My dad has to make that decision on his own.
Hope he makes the right one.
I can do this, I tell myself as I comb my fingers through my hair and run my hands down the front of the Wolf Cycle Service and Repair tank top I'm wearing. And before you ask, yes, the club has those. Sells 'em in the café, too. Nobody ever said Royal McBride wasn't a brilliant business man. Hopefully his sense of fashion works in my favor here also. He was the one that picked out the black cotton tank, the jeans, encouraged me to wear the riding boots he got me.
Before I let myself get too worked up about this, I climb out. Once again, politics. And this can't get nearly as brutal as that awful dinner, right? I refuse to think about last night or my awkward day at work, the way my dad's eyes burned into me every time he strode by my desk. Couldn't have helped that Sully had mom bring him by the office, so he could spend an hour in private with Philip. When they came out, tempers were flaring. Sully said he'd called Heather Shelley and set up an appointment for tomorrow. Please let that go the way I think it will.
I shrug my purse and the cluster of reusable bags stuffed into it, up my shoulder as I make my way across the glossy surface of the wet pavement toward the front door of Sea Salt, one of a few new local grocers that have popped up to take advantage of Trinidad's population boom.
Inside the wall of windows on the front of the store, I can already spot Janae, standing with Glinda and Fauna next to the bistro tables that are lined in front of the glass. There's a small café inside that serves local seafood for lunch and fresh coffee in the mornings—although admittedly the mochas aren't nearly as good as the ones at the compound.