Life, Love & A Little Coffee

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Conflicted Confrontation

Tom looked at the hole he put in the wall as he wrapped his hand up in gauze. His blood stained the wall where he'd punched it a second time.

The look of betrayal on her face before she left pushed him over the edge, and if Nate had been there, it would have been his face instead of the wall.

Nate wasn't wrong, but Tom still wished he would have kept his fucking mouth shut. Kissing Ada gave him a high he'd never felt before. He'd thought her being so much younger and so off limits would have made him feel like shit afterwards, but awaiting the next kiss only took him higher. Nate's words caused the plunge down to earth he wasn't ready for.

He shook his head and looked away from the hole in his wall before going into the kitchen and grabbing a beer. The sound it made when it opened reminded him of the night Ada had to drink wine coolers before admitting she wanted to kiss him.

She was beautiful that night. Nervousness of being alone with him during that kind of conversation lit up her skin and created that perfect, embarrassed smile that he loved so much. He wanted to kiss her then, but at that point he was still trying to wait until he wasn't her teacher anymore.

A fist slamming against the door made Tom question if he'd locked the apartment after Ada left to be alone. Nate left a good hour ago, long enough to have paced the town a few times and stop to have a drink before becoming too bored to stay away.

But the door wasn't locked, and a second after he opened it to see it wasn't Nate on the other side, Jeff's fist made contact with Tom's stomach, causing him to stumble before doubling over onto the floor. Tom gasped for air before choking on it and going into a hacking fit.

Jeff stepped on his body when going over him to get into the apartment. "You're a real grade A fucking prick, you know that?"

Tom wasn't about to argue that statement. Not only because it was true but also because he wouldn't have been able to speak if he tried.

"My little girl came home tonight shaking. You could tell she'd been crying. Heard I got you to thank for that." Jeff's voice was calm, like a serial killer toying with their victim.

Tom coughed again before he leaned against the wall just below the hole he left in it. "She told you what happened?"

"She told her momma, and I eavesdropped."

That he could believe. Tom couldn't imagine handing over everything that happened between them to her father, but could see her admitting the truth to her mom.

"I didn't-"

"You wanna know how hard she'd been crying?"

There it was; the anger flickering in Jeff's eyes as he maintained control of his tone.

Jeff grasped the armrest of his lying chair and Tom could hear the buckling of the leather. "While I was driving here to kick your ass, I passed my daughter's car in a ditch on the wrong side of the road. If she hadn't swerved on time, she would have driven her car right into a fucking pole. Was she crying that hard when she left here? Cause if she was, you and I are going to have a whole other mess of problems."

Tom could swear he felt his heart stop for a second. Guilt weighed down on him and took his breath away. No, she hadn't been crying that hard when she walked out the door. She was more pissed off than anything when she left.

He had no clue what to say, what to think or how to feel. "She's-"

"She's fine," Jeff told him. "Now you're gunna tell me what the fuck has been happening between you and my daughter, then you're gunna tell me what happened tonight. Then you're gunna get up so I can beat the livin' shit out of you. Or you could stay down there. Don't matter much to me."