Page 50 of Alfie: Part One
Dad always had one glass of milk and one glass of light beer. If he could, he’d probably eat the same meal for lunch every day as well. Steak and potatoes. It was Mom who enforced the variety.
“So what’s on your mind?” he asked, forking up more pasta.
No need to beat around the bush.
“Alfie implied you told him something about his heritage the first time you met,” I said. “We’ve been arguing more lately, and?—”
“I did,” he said gruffly. And bluntly. “I didn’t want my son with a criminal, so I gave him a simple warning.”
I stiffened. “What did you tell him?”
He weighed his answer as he chewed, and he was completely unbothered by the situation.
“He told me about his biological father, for the record,” I said.
“Hm. I see.” He reached for his beer. “Then I’m sure you can guess what I told him. His father was the boss of the Sons of Munster. I know how they operate. How they recruit family members. I wanted to make sure Alfie wasn’t one of them.”
Alfie appeared to be one of themnow.
“How has this become an issue two years after the divorce?” Dad questioned. “You’re not trying to work things out, I hope. You two never made sense.”
I frowned. “I’m not done with the previous topic. Why would you keep this from me?”
“That’s a stretch. I assumed Alfie would tell you. When he didn’t, he gained an ounce of respect from me.”
So he didn’t keep the secret, but he respected Alfie for doing so? What the fresh fuck.
“It was between him and me,” he added. “I was a concerned father. He swore I had nothing to worry about—that he wasn’t involved with the crime syndicate. And I advised him to keep it that way, to be the partner you deserved.”
The partner I deserved.
“And who’s that, Dad?” I pressed.
I couldn’t believe this. He was being so casual about something that had caused the first rift between Alfie and me. This was clearly the reason Alfie had felt the need to overcompensate.
He’d been much younger back then too. Not to mention already apprehensive about meeting my family.
Fuck. The thought of him hiding this… I wanted to claim I knew Alfie well enough to know this must’ve knocked him down. To come here with the hope of making a good impression, and then to have my father warn him like that? Alfie hadn’t chosen his damn parents.
Dad didn’t respond to me. Instead, his gaze caught something behind me, so I assumed it was my mother returning.
If he thought I was going to let this go just because Mom was back, he was sorely mistaken.
“Here you go, darling.” Sure enough, Mom set a tray in front of me, complete with a plate of food, one glass of ice water, and one glass of housekeeper-made lemonade.
“Thanks, Mom.” I cleared my throat and unwrapped the utensils from the napkin. “You didn’t answer me, Dad.”
“Oh, don’t overreact,” he replied. “This was years ago—and you’re divorced, for God’s sake. It’s time to move on.”
“What on earth? Are you fighting?” Mom demanded.
I kept my stare fixed on Dad as impatience and anger rose closer to the surface. Had everyone fucking lied to me? What kind of idiot was I?
Mom wouldn’t let it go without an explanation, so Dad waved me off and used as few words as possible to minimize the problem. A problem that just grew once Mom understood, because one look at her let me know she was aware of this so-called warning from back in the day.
“Oh, I don’t want you to worry about that, West,” she assured me. “Your father and I were just concerned, considering… I mean, Alfie wasn’t really…you know.”
Un-fucking-believable.