Page 2 of Ignition

He’s ugly then,I thought with a vicious kind of smugness.

This whole soft launch bullshit was only for partners you were ashamed of. Why wouldn’t you want to shove your new alpha into your ex’s face?

Right, because the hottest thing about him was his (barely there) abs.

The photo didn’t make me jealous; it just made her look desperate.

I couldn’t lie, though; she looked good. Dressed in a tight blue wrap dress that hugged every curve, dark hair in wavesdown her back, and white teeth shining alongside a familiar plastic smile.

Maybe Ishouldcall her.

“Caleb!” Dad said again, more sharply when I didn’t respond.

It took me a moment to realize he’d left his bizarre, loved-up bubble toactuallytalk to me. I paid him the same amount of respect that he did me, not looking up from my phone as I double-tapped the photo, commenting ‘cute!’

Surely that would make her textmethis time.

“What?” I asked, scrolling past to look through my friends’ vacation photos, sprawled out poolside or on beaches, snaps from clubs and house parties, and faux-inspirational yoga retreat bullshit. I’d been invited, of course, but it didn’t feel right fucking off to Aruba without the boys, and I couldn’t exactly just call Nick up these days.

Especially not aboutvacation.

“I’m glad you’re home, actually. We have something that we need to talk to you about.”

Fuck me, when did the old man go from anIto awe?

And couldn’t any of these people take a hint?

I just wanted to eat my damn lunch and disappear somewhere into the house where I wouldn’t be bothered. A task that was easier said than done when all of my usual haunts—the pool, the games room, and even my own bedroom—were full of memories that made it impossible to ignore that I wasalone.

Even Leo’s replacement, Torrin, had taken up spending time in the billiards room when he wasn’t carting the reality TV reject on luxury shopping trips and Botox appointments.

I was sick of it.

“Do‘we?’” I asked with a roll of my eyes. “I didn’t realize you’d even noticed I was home. We talk about as much now as when I was at school.”

It was probably what pissed me off the most about this whole thing. We’d barely said more than a couple of words to each other since I’d come back for the summer holidays. But hey, I was an adult; it wasn’t like I needed to ask my Daddy’s permission to leave the house. And I would’ve been homewaymore often if his talking fleshlight wasn’t haunting the place, trying to trap me into conversation at every turn like the world's least helpful therapist.

The dad I knew before I’d left for school would’ve noticed I was sitting here alone, that Nick hadn’t been around since I’d gotten home two weeks ago.

But this man?

He was as much of a fucking stranger as the just-shy-of-middle-aged fuck toy he was pretending meant anything to him.

“I’ll leave you boys to talk,” the stranger said, and I looked up from my phone just in time to watch her wrap her arms around my father’s neck. “I was just finishing up anyway.”

“Alright, sugarbear.”

They kissed, way too passionately for me to be sitting right-god-damn-fucking-there, and she tapped my father’s nose with her fingertip before she disappeared away through the house with a bounce of her chestnut bob.

I couldn’t help but notice that she didn’tactuallyfinish up, several dishes haphazardly piled in the sink still awaiting their turn to find their way into the dishwasher. An upper cabinet left hanging open like she’d been raised in a barn or some other backwoods Nowhereville that didn’t value order.

Finishing up my ass.

It shouldn’t have bothered me so much, but after a semester of living with a bunch of guys in a frat house, I’d been looking forward to coming back to the near-militant cleanliness of a home maintained by Meredith.

Just another thing that was clearly too much to ask for around here. Right beside my mom giving up her ridiculous fucking affair, and my dad remembering that I exist.

I dragged my finger along the glass of my phone, the next photo to fill the screen making my stomach twist.