Page 3 of Ignition

A head of messy, curly brown hair that I’d recognize anywhere leaned back against the front of a car, irritation lining his brows as he looked at the camera.

Nick.

‘Fucking thing still won’t run,’ the caption read, and before I could get caught up on who’d liked or commented—or on the way the long cuts in the alpha’s tank top revealed his muscular torso—I closed the app, putting my phone face down on the table to focus on my meal.

My dad plunked down in front of me, andsuddenly, the bubbles floating in my soda were the most interesting thing in the room.

“Where’ve you been?” he asked, a little too close to concerned for my taste. “It feels like we haven’t seen you in days.”

The‘we’in the question pissed me off before the conversation could even get going.

“Out,” I clipped, taking a vicious bite of my sandwich that I barely even tasted, wiping a bit of mustard from my lip with the back of my hand.

“Out where?”

“With my friends. And does it matter? I’m twenty-three, not thirteen.”

It was clear from the look in his eye that he didn’t appreciate my tone, but I didn’t give a fuck. What I did give a fuck about, though, was the way he tempered his reply.

Typical. This wasn’t a casual catch-up because he wanted to chat and see what I was up to after all. He wanted something.

Healwaysfucking wanted something.

“Right, well…” Dad said, clearing his throat. “Since you haven’t been home, I don’t think you’ve gotten a chance to get to know Sadie much, right?”

“So? Do I really need to play fifty questions with your rebound?”

His jaw flexed, and the warning bells got louder when he didn’t rise to me for a second time.

“Because she’sfamily, Caleb,” he said sternly. “And we care about our family. All of it. Did you know she has a daughter? Ivy, she’s around your age, actually.”

No, I didn’t know that.

I knewnothingabout her, because she was still a fucking stranger.

And that was exactly how I wanted it to stay.

He could take this family bullshit and shove it up his ass.

“I fail to see what her ability to reproduce has to do with me,” I said blandly. “Unless you’re telling me that you’ve knocked her up. Aren’t you both a little old for that?”

The idea made me lose my appetite, and I tossed my sandwich onto the plate, pushing it away.

The last thing this trainwreck of a household needed was a fuckingbabyadded to the mix.

My dad laughed, the sound forced. “No, no! Nothing like that… Ivy lives in LA, but she’s hit some hard times recently. Something about some alpha pack involved with a gang—anyway, she needs somewhere to stay.”

“Is that why you decided to move your girlfriend in? Because she can’t handle her own affairs?”

“Watch it,” Dad warned with a quiet growl that likely would’ve been more effective if he’d been an alpha. “You’ll address Sadie with respect under my roof. And Ivy. I’ve told them that she can live with us until she’s back on her feet. Ithought it’d be a good opportunity for you to get to know each other while you’re on break.”

That was enough to drag my eyes away from the glass and into my father’s face. It was a bit like having a glimpse into my future, though I hoped that the whisper of thinning hair around his temples would skip me. We had the same pale skin, dark eyes and hair, though his was beginning to go gray. Everyone said I had my mom’s nose, which was supposed to make someone’s face, but every time I looked in the mirror, it felt like I was looking at my dad.

Ihatedit.

“So you’re moving her in here?” I asked incredulously. “Just like that?”

He nodded. “She seems like a nice girl. Sadie said she’s really into cars too?—”