Under His Domain (11 page)

“Yup,” Sid said, spitting into the
dirt.
 
“They make teeny tiny cute
holes.”

“No thanks.
 
I’ll just watch.”
 
She tried to smile.

Billy turned away from her, and just from
the twitch of his eyes, she knew he didn’t like her—not one bit.

And then Kennedy realized—the feeling
was mutual.

***

How had she ended up here, in this place,
with these people?

Kennedy wasn’t sure.

Maybe
you’re just drunk.

Easton and Dean were slap boxing over by
the jukebox, seemingly having forgotten about the harsh words they’d exchanged
earlier, and their father, the mad conductor of this little orchestra, was
watching from the bar where he was collecting another pitcher of beer.

They were at some hole-in-the-wall dive
bar where Billy seemed to know most everyone, even though he apparently hadn’t
been there in a very long time.

Now Easton had Dean in a headlock and was
trying to grind his knuckles into Dean’s head, while Dean protested and tried
to push Easton’s hand away.

Kennedy sipped her warm, disgusting beer
and then wiped her lips with the back of her hand.

Billy returned to the table, placing the
pitcher down, and some of the contents sloshed onto the table, splattering her
hand.
 

Billy noticed but didn’t apologize.

“Look at my boys,” he said, grinning like
a proud papa.
 
“Can’t believe they
grew up so fast.”

“Yeah,” Kennedy agreed lamely.
 
She didn’t know how to talk to Easton’s
father.
 
She hadn’t grown up around
men like him—in fact, he was exactly the type of person her parents had
tried to keep her away from.

“And what about you, hon?” Billy asked,
turning those beady eyes in her direction, reflected from behind his glasses.
 
Although he’d been drinking like a fish,
there was nothing drunk or compromised in his gaze—he was sharp as a tack
still.
 

“What about me?” Kennedy asked, feeling
suddenly anxious.

“What’s your story?” Billy continued,
picking the pitcher up again and dumping a helping of beer into first his cup
and then hers, without asking if she needed more.
 
“Something tells me that you aint from
around here.”

“No, I’m from Boston,” Kennedy said,
suddenly wanting to be anywhere but where she was at that moment.

“Oh, you a Red Sox fan?”

“Not really.
 
I’m not a sports person.”

‘Well, we’re kind of a sports family,”
Billy replied casually, glancing up at the television over the bar.
 
“My kids are active, always have
been.
 
I got them into boxing at a
young age.”

“Easton mentioned that,” she said, trying
to hide the bitterness of her feelings about the brutal story Easton had told
her, where his father had tried to put him in the ring with the most dangerous
opponent he could find.

But Billy didn’t miss anything.
 
He glanced back at her with a cutting
look.
 
“I’m sure he did mention
it.
 
Easton always had hard feelings
about my ways, and didn’t agree with my parenting methods.
 
But they worked.
 
Look at him now.”

“True,” she muttered, wondering what
Billy would say if she brought up how Dean had turned out.
 
He’d become a compulsive gambler who
owed money all over town.
 
Was that
also a product of Billy’s amazing parenting methods?
 
But she kept her mouth shut.

“You don’t talk much, do you?” Billy
asked.

Kennedy shrugged.
 
“It depends.”

“So you didn’t do sports.
 
What was your thing?”

Kennedy looked over at the jukebox.
 
Easton and Dean were now fighting over
who got to choose songs.
 
She wished
desperately that Easton would come back to the table and save her from this
cross-examination.
 
“My thing was
academics,” she answered.

“Oh, you’re a bookworm.”

“I guess you could say that.”

“Book learning is pretty much useless,”
Billy
said, a pronouncement that sounded like fact coming
out of his mouth.
 
“I even told
Easton, when he was getting good grades, scholarships, all of it.
 
I told him that he needed to go to
college if he wanted to play the game, but none of that crap they teach you
amounts to a hill of beans in the real world.”

Kennedy felt her spine stiffen.
 
“That’s an interesting take on it.”

“It’s the truth.
 
All those eggheads, their noses in a
book—they go out on the street for five minutes and their wallet is gone,
they get conned, they don’t have a damned clue how to survive.
 
Then they cry for a guy like me to come
help them.”

For the first time, she gave Billy a hard
look.
 
“And what about everything
those so-called eggheads contribute?
 
You wouldn’t have your precious guns to shoot if someone hadn’t invented
them, understood the physics, the engineering,
designed
the machines that manufacture them.”

Billy grinned.
 
“I could tell you were one of those gun
control types the second I laid eyes on you.”

“This isn’t about gun control.”

“What’s it about then?” he pushed,
grinning.
 
“You eggheads don’t like
it when you can’t do things, ‘cuz you think you’re better than everyone
else.
 
But out there on the shooting
range today, you nearly peed your pants.”

“You’re arrogant.”

His smile faded.
 
“And you’re an uptight…” he didn’t
finish the sentence, but the unsaid word was almost louder than if he’d spoken
it.

Kennedy forced herself to drink more
beer.

Just then, Easton and Dean arrived back at
the table in good humor.
 

“Dad, he was insisting on playing all his
crappy hip hop rap music,” Dean complained, laughing.
 
“I tried to stop him.”

Billy straightened.
 
“You tried to play that shit in my
house, I nearly threw you out on the street.”

Easton shrugged, seeming not to
care.
 
He downed the last of his
beer from one of the nearly empty cups.
 
His eyes were bloodshot and glassy.
 
“Let’s get out of here.
 
I’m
hammered.”

“If we’re heading home,” Billy said,
“I’ll crash with you, Easton.
 
I got
someone at my hotel room tonight that I don’t feel like seeing.”

Easton hesitated and looked at Dean, who
quickly shook his head no, as if to say that he wouldn’t allow his father to
come stay with him.

“You really need to stay with me?” Easton
asked.

“Hey, I don’t need to.
 
It’s not like I fed, clothed and housed
you for eighteen years or anything.”

And
tried to have him killed
,
Kennedy thought, but looked away before Billy could see the expression on her
face.

“Okay, Pop.
 
You can come with us.
 
Kennedy, you ready to leave?”

I’ve
never been more ready in my life.

She smiled the best she could.
 
“Yup.
 
Let’s go.”

They trooped out of the bar and grabbed a
cab to take them back to Easton’s townhouse.
 
He left his car parked near the bar,
deciding that he was too drunk to drive, and would get it in the morning.

On the cab ride home, Kennedy sat in the
middle, somehow.
 
Easton was on one
side of her and his father was on the other.
 
Just being pressed up against Billy,
feeling his body heat and his overbearing presence, made her vaguely nauseous.

She wished she could get away from
him—his shoulder touching hers was like a violation.

Billy talked the whole way back,
pontificating about all manner of things.
 
He had lots of opinions, and didn’t mind sharing them, daring you to
disagree.

By the time they arrived at the
townhouse, she’d had more than enough of the man, and was having trouble
keeping the scowl off her face.

Part of what troubled her was how little
Easton cared about how his dad acted and spoke, particularly around her.
 
Didn’t Easton see that the man’s
attitude and behavior were abrasive, insulting and disgusting?

Inside the town house, Easton made a
beeline for the bathroom.
 
“Dad,
make yourself at home.
 
I’ll be
right back.”
 
He headed up stairs,
leaving her alone with his father once again.

Kennedy watched after him, feeling
abandoned.
 
“Gosh, I’m pretty
tired,” she
fake
yawned.
 
“I think I’ll go upstairs to bed.”
 
She gave Billy a little wave.
 
“It was so nice meeting you…I’ll see you
in the morning…”

“Hey,” Billy said, standing over by the
couch, picking up a small paperweight from a nearby table.
 
“I want to say something about our
little discussion earlier.”

She turned around and waited
expectantly.
 
Easton’s father had a
look on his face, and she realized he was finally going to apologize for being
rude.
 
He looked sad, troubled, and
it was as though his guard had finally come down.

“I know that you and Easton care about
each other, I can see that.”
 
He
hefted the paperweight in his hand thoughtfully.

“We do,” she said.

His eyes locked onto hers now.
 
“But the thing is, you aint the right
girl for him.
 
You’re not from our
world.”
 
He saw her expression and
it made him grin slightly.
 
“I know
you think that Easton’s different from me.
 
Well he isn’t.
 
He’s my
blood, and no matter how much he pretends to be one of these Wall Street
finance jerkoffs, he’s never going to be.
 
I’m just giving you fair warning to save you a lot of heartache,
darling.”

“Don’t call me darling,” she said,
seething with rage.

“You wouldn’t like the other word that
came to mind.”

She wanted to tell him exactly what she
thought of his mind, and his personality and everything else he’d shown so
clearly about himself.
 
But Kennedy
didn’t want to sink to his level, because that’s exactly what he wanted.
 
“Well, thanks for giving your opinion,
Billy.
 
Goodnight.”
 

She turned and walked up the stairs.

It was only when she got into the bedroom
that she realized she was shaking.

***

Kennedy heard Easton and his father
murmuring downstairs, and then their footsteps on the floorboards and stairs,
climbing up to the second floor.

She went into the bathroom and got ready
for bed.

Her eyes were bloodshot too, and she felt
slightly sick from the alcohol and dizzy from everything that had happened to
her the last couple of days.

She climbed into bed wearing one of
Easton’s t-shirts and a pair of panties.
 
Kennedy was still shaking slightly, hearing the words of Easton’s father
still ringing in her ears.

Could he have been right about his
impression of her—that she was a sheltered egghead type who could never
fit into Easton’s world or understand his true nature?

She hated the fact that an idiot like
Billy could worm his way into her head and make her doubt
herself,
doubt her relationship with Easton.
 
But it was preying on her very worst fears—
that
this whole thing would vaporize in a cloud of smoke, quickly blowing away and
leaving her alone once more.

When Easton finally came into the
bedroom, he breathed a deep sigh of relief.
 
“Finally, we’re alone,” he said.
 
“Damn, but the old man’s as exhausting
as ever.”

Kennedy tried to smile.
 
“Are you coming to bed?”

She couldn’t wait for him to hold
her.
 
She wanted to feel his body
against hers, comforting her, telling her everything would be okay.

But Easton was staring at her with hungry
eyes, and his nostrils flared.
 
“I
didn’t tell you it was time for bed yet,” he said.