Page 60 of Once Upon a Beast

I had been hiding for years. Not only from my feelings towards my father, but life. I avoided Layla because I didn’t think I deserved to have her in it. I had hidden from society because I didn’t want to hear them ridicule me. I had hidden from having the life that I wanted because I didn’t think I deserved it. The time for all of that had passed. The only way to do that was to talk to my father. Once I did, I could hopefully truly be my own man.

Layla hadn’t officially moved into my place yet but she was slowly moving more and things over. We had both been high on the idea of being around each other that we hadn’t really thought about the logistics of it all. I had become a bit of a packrat over the years and there wasn’t a lot of space for her stuff. I was working on finding her room but it was a work in progress.

She still had her place and until we figured out what to do with her furniture and some of mine, she would keep it. She had mentioned subletting it but I was trying to convince her not to. I just wanted her to sell her place. I didn’t want her to have an out. I was worried that we would get into a fight and she would leave. If she didn’t have a place to go, she would be stuck with me.

Layla was being a bit more pragmatic about the whole thing and teased me she was only keeping her place to keep me in line. “It’s how I can keep your inner ogre from coming out.”

“Ogre, I thought it was more of a beast?” I teased.

“Same thing, isn’t it?” she asked.

“I always thought beasts were a bit sexier than an ogre,” I countered.

“Sexy? Really?”

“You’ve called me a beast and you think I’m sexy.”

“Good point,” she said.

It was the witty batter and comments like that which made me love her more. I could understand her wanting to take things slow, but that didn’t mean that I agreed with it, or didn’t do everything I could to move our relationship along. I loved having her in my place, our place. I loved the thought of her coming home to me at the end of the day. To me this was just a test run for when we were married and so far, it had been going wonderfully.

We were honest about everything. Including how we liked to have our stuff arranged in the bathroom, to where she liked to sleep at night. It had taken some compromises and a few heated words, but it was all part of the process. A process I only wanted to do with Layla.

I might have been open about how I liked the toothpaste to be rolled but I hadn’t told her that I was going to see my father. I hadn’t wanted to worry her. I hadn’t known if it would be approved or how long it would take. I had put in the request to see him one day and had gotten the approval and time to see him the next day. By the time I knew I could go, Layla was already at work.

There were a lot of excuses I was giving as to why I hadn’t told her. I wasn’t sure how it was going to go; I didn’t know what my father was going to say, I wasn’t sure how I was going to feel when I saw him. Until I saw him and knew how I was going to handle it, I didn’t want her to know. She would only worry or she would have asked to come along. While I might have wanted her support, I wanted to keep her as far away from my father and the pain and problems he had caused as possible.

I was brought into a small room with windows that let very little light in and were covered in metal bars. The walls were painted a pale white that looked more sad than inviting. I hardly paid any attention to them as I looked over at my father as he sat on a round picnic table in the middle with cement benches around it. His hands weren’t in handcuffs but he was wearing a faded orange jumpsuit that hung over his body. His shoulders were slumped and he had a big bald spot on the back of his head. He hadn’t had that when he went in. Even with him sitting down I could tell he had lost weight and a wave of sadness came over me. I had always seen my father as a man who was bigger than life, who would never get old or weak, but I could tell he had done both.

“Nic, you came,” he said and stood up and moved towards me. He opened his arms as if he wanted to hug me.

My first instinct was to hug him. I wanted to feel his arms around me, I wanted to go back to how we had been when I was younger. I wanted to see if he was as frail as he looked but I couldn’t bring myself to move closer to him.

“The guards told me not to touch you,” I said.

They hadn’t but it made for a good excuse. If my father didn’t believe me, he didn’t show it. He gave a short nod as if he understood but there was some sadness in his eyes as he sat back down. He covered it up quickly and said, “It’s good to see you. You look good.”

“Thanks,” I replied as I sat down, for lack of anything better to say. I couldn’t say he looked good, he certainly didn’t. It wasn’t like I could say that prison seemed to be agreeing with him.

“I don’t get a lot of news here but I’ve been able to hear some things about you and your career. Real estate, huh?” he asked.

“It seemed like a good choice,” I admitted.

“You mean it was far enough away from my company and what I was accused of to get people to hopefully forget who you’re related to?”

My eyes locked on my father’s. I could see the hurt in his comment but also the honesty. He had been so tight-lipped about anything after he was arrested. It was almost refreshing to hear him be so forthcoming about what he had done.

“Do you blame me? I could never be a hedge fund manager after what you did.”

“You were never good at it. It wasn’t your passion. I’m glad to see you went your own way, even if you weren’t given a choice.”

“I’ve done well in spite of you. It shouldn’t have been that way. I trust you. Other people trusted you. You ruined everything for what? Some money you don’t even have?”

He was trying to make nice; he was trying to have a conversation with me. Part of me wanted to have it, but a bigger part of me wanted to tell him off.

“Nic, it wasn’t me. I didn’t do it. I can’t give back money if I don’t have it.”

“No one’s buying it. Least of all me. Why don’t you cut the crap and tell me why you wanted to see me,”