I lick my lips, looking to my hands a moment. “I ...”

“Come on, Demi.”

Our eyes meet again.

“She’s been giving me pills again, here and there, so not like before, but I don’t need them, so I told her so.” I hesitate. “I also might have threatened to move in with you if she tried to push me.”

My dad laughs loudly this time, thanking the waitress for his drink as she sets it down. “That will definitely do the trick.”

“Yeah, she’s... something else.”

“And the extra spending, your savings...” He eases into the big issue, an expression that says he knows the truth, but expects I won’t share it.

I won’t.

I don’t want to deal with my mom when her world crashes around her.

My eyes fall to the table, my knee bouncing beneath it. “I’m sorry, I...” I look to him. “I’ll try to do better.”

He gives a sad smile, not outing my lie, but nodding as he finishes off his drink and sets down the empty glass.

He leans forward. “I was thinking, what do you think about having the firm set you up with a new, separate account that will be inaccessible and unconnected? I can take a percentage from what you currently get and put it into the new one. An out of sight, out of mind type of account. I can have them play with some numbers, see what needs to be moved to get you where you want to be by the end of the year and then you can adjust. What do you say?”

Yeah, he knows exactly who is spending the money.

“That would be awesome, Dad.” I nod, trying to keep the moisture from my eyes. I hate to lie to him, but to completely throw my mom under the bus isn’t easy.

He understands, so he doesn’t ever really push. I’m pretty sure it’s because he has guilt for being so absent, but I don’t hold it against him as much as I do my mom. He has a company to run in another town and he still manages to call or text me a few times a week where I live with my mother and speak to her less. He tries where she no longer seems interested.

We spend the rest of dinner talking about school and the work he’s currently doing, safe topics that don’t cause too much thought.

Within an hour, I’m saying goodnight to my dad, climbing back in my car and heading home.

I text Nico, but get no response, so after a shower, I decide to call it a night and head for bed earlier than normal.

The next day, when I still don’t hear from Nico and he doesn’t show up at school, I figure it’s another one of his random miss days he used to have more often, but when the final bell rings and it’s time for his practice to begin and he’s still not here, I grow concerned.

I try calling, but it goes to voicemail after a single ring and I force myself not to dwell on it, going about my normal routine instead.

On Tuesday, when it happens again, I decide I’m as angry as I am concerned. I consider talking to Trent, to see if he heard from him, but I have no idea if he and Nico have talked yet and I don’t want to step on anyone’s toes, so I throw out the thought as soon as it comes.

As soon as the bell rings, I head home, and walk around to his front door. His truck isn’t in the driveway, but it could be in the garage, so I knock.

I’m about to walk back home when the silvery voice of a woman floats from the other side.

His mom. Shit.

I take two backward steps, turn to leave, and bump right into Nico.

I stumble, and the bags in his hands fly to the ground as he swiftly jerks forward to catch me.

He’s slow to let go, heavy creases paved across his forehead, his under-eye heavy from a clear lack of sleep.

Concern pulls at my brows, and I step back, smoothing my hands over my shorts. “Hey.”

“One second,” comes from inside, and his glare intensifies, snaps to the door and back to me.

“What are you doing here?” he asks quickly, a sense of urgency and something I can’t quite place in his tone.

Not necessarily anger but a deep frustration I’m not sure is for me.

“You’ve been gone.”

He sighs, brushes his hand across my jaw swiftly as he bends to pick up the medication bottles that slipped from the bags, so I get down to help him.

“You didn’t answer, so I figured I’d come by and make sure everything was okay.” My eyes lift to find his narrowed on me.

I know what he’s doing, and it saddens me he still feels so guarded.

Not only had I overheard a bit when he argued with his dad before, but Nico himself shared his mom’s troubles with me already.

He can stand here and search all he wants, he’ll find no judgment from me.

The door clicks and his glower snaps over my head.

Slowly, I look over my shoulder to find his mom, thinner than I remember, but still just as beautiful, standing there in a nightgown.

Her eyes, as dark and captivating as her son’s, fall to mine, and then shift to the pill bottles in my hands. She gives a faint smile.

I push to my feet, bringing my hands together. “Ms. Sykes. Hi.”

She tucks her long hair behind her ear. “My husband must have sent you,” she guesses and my smile grows stiffer by the second.

Does she not recognize me?

And did she say husband?

“You brought my medicine,” she says. “Thank you.”

Her eyes slide to her son then, and I force mine to follow.

Nico glares at the ground.

“I told you he’d keep taking care of us, Nikoli.”

Our eyes meet a moment, but he quickly glances away.

He gently tugs the bottles from my hands and stands. “Guess you were right, Ma,” he says tenderly, stepping inside and closing the door.

He leaves me there without a word.

It takes me a moment to turn to leave, but as I take a few steps down the path I spot another small pill bottle that rolled into the dirt. I pick it up, turning around to knock on the door once more to give it to them, but the prescribing doctor’s name catches my attention and I freeze.

Dr. Avery Hammons.

Hammons. As in...

Alex’s mom?

I set the bottle close to the door, and walk back home, my mind spinning more and more with each stride.

When I step inside my door, I don’t get a foot farther before my mom is in my face, a smile far too wide for my liking.

“What?” I ask hesitantly.

“I just got off of a very promising phone call.”

I slowly close the door behind me. “What phone call?”

Her smile spreads impossibly wider.

This can’t be good.

Never once has my father ever reached out to me with the intention of asking me to come to his new house for a visit, the house he bought with the money he seduced my mother into giving him, money left to her from her family.

The shitty part is he doesn’t even need it. His new wife is worth even more, but he’s a greedy prick, and nothing is ever enough for Nikole Sykes.

The fact that he pulled some shit on my mom and still called me to come here is fucking with my head and bad.

I’ve been driving up and down his neighborhood for a half hour now, my leg bouncing against the seat, fingers tapping against the steering wheel, I’m so stressed the fuck out, and I hate myself for it.

I hate how he still has a way of getting under my skin when I do my best to pretend his existence and all that goes with it means nothing.