on his summer reading, and gulped down some kind of disgusting and healthy smoothie consisting of raw eggs and wheatgrass, with no ill effects. Unlike me, where the mere thought of raw anything… My stomach turned over on itself, and I shuddered, trying to think of something else.
I silently begged the toaster to hurry up so I could take my mangled breakfast to the porch and wait for Trey, who would, please God, show up. I could tell it was going to be one of those mornings with my dad, where he wouldn’t leave off.
“Did you get dressed in the dark?” he asked a second later.
See? Though, in this instance, his assumption was partially correct; I’d had my eyes half closed against the too-bright sun.
“…at the Salvation Army?”
Son of a bitch. He was in a mood this morning. I was wearing…something. I was fairly certain it even matched. I had a vague recollection of a blue T-shirt and then something with a collar—maybe one of Quinn’s stretched-out button-downs that had made its way to my drawer when it wasn’t tight enough for him anymore. I don’t know how he could stand to have something pressed against him like that, pulling at his neck. And I was pretty sure I’d grabbed my favorite jeans from the floor, the ones with the ragged hems that made my dad crazy. That would probably explain the Salvation Army comment.
But what the hell, dude. My clothes were my clothes—well, except for Quinn’s hand-me-downs—and how I looked was my business.
I knew better than to engage, but my head hurt, the toaster was giving off a disgusting smell of burned crumbs and hot metal without relinquishing my toast, and my dad was pissing me off.
I turned my head carefully in his direction and cracked my eyelids open. “What about you, Dad? Is there a parade stand somewhere missing you?” He was wearing his formal dress uniform—white Oxford shirt and dark blue tie under a jacket with gold braid on the sleeves, patches on the shoulders, and all manner of shiny (oh, too shiny today) buttons, collar brass, lapel pins, and badge. His hat, with more gold braid and another shiny badge, lay on the island next to his paper.
Wait, was it a Wednesday? I had to think about it for a second. Yeah. It was. That explained both his mood and his uniform choice. On the third Wednesday of every month he had meetings over at GTX. In theory, these meetings were with the GTX Community Outreach department, giving updates on the anti-drug program GTX sponsored for the elementary school, or presenting the need for more bulletproof vests or new computers in the squad cars. But I think my dad probably saw it as a foot in the door. Except he’d been attending these meetings for a few years now, and, as far as I knew, he’d never managed to wedge additional body parts through.
My dad glared at me. “You think you’re so smart.” He set his coffee mug down with a sharp crack that reverberated through my head. “But people are judging you based on how you look, whether you like it or not. And if you want to be taken seriously, you have to dress the part.”
I rolled my eyes, though it kind of hurt. My dad was forever trying to get in good with GTX—they were the only game in town when it came to power, money, and influence—and it irritated him to no end that they had their own expensive and well-trained security force, experts who avoided interacting with him and his guys except when absolutely necessary.
It was a snub of the first order, to my dad’s way of thinking, as good as declaring to the world that GTX thought the Wingate police were local yokels, barely able to handle cow tipping, mailboxes on fire, and old Mrs. McCarty shoplifting candy bars again. But my dad was Jay Bradshaw, hometown favorite, football hero of legend, man who’d pulled himself up from a trailer park existence to be the bright shining star of this craphole town.
Wingate threw him a parade when he left for college, and then again when he came back to
I silently begged the toaster to hurry up so I could take my mangled breakfast to the porch and wait for Trey, who would, please God, show up. I could tell it was going to be one of those mornings with my dad, where he wouldn’t leave off.
“Did you get dressed in the dark?” he asked a second later.
See? Though, in this instance, his assumption was partially correct; I’d had my eyes half closed against the too-bright sun.
“…at the Salvation Army?”
Son of a bitch. He was in a mood this morning. I was wearing…something. I was fairly certain it even matched. I had a vague recollection of a blue T-shirt and then something with a collar—maybe one of Quinn’s stretched-out button-downs that had made its way to my drawer when it wasn’t tight enough for him anymore. I don’t know how he could stand to have something pressed against him like that, pulling at his neck. And I was pretty sure I’d grabbed my favorite jeans from the floor, the ones with the ragged hems that made my dad crazy. That would probably explain the Salvation Army comment.
But what the hell, dude. My clothes were my clothes—well, except for Quinn’s hand-me-downs—and how I looked was my business.
I knew better than to engage, but my head hurt, the toaster was giving off a disgusting smell of burned crumbs and hot metal without relinquishing my toast, and my dad was pissing me off.
I turned my head carefully in his direction and cracked my eyelids open. “What about you, Dad? Is there a parade stand somewhere missing you?” He was wearing his formal dress uniform—white Oxford shirt and dark blue tie under a jacket with gold braid on the sleeves, patches on the shoulders, and all manner of shiny (oh, too shiny today) buttons, collar brass, lapel pins, and badge. His hat, with more gold braid and another shiny badge, lay on the island next to his paper.
Wait, was it a Wednesday? I had to think about it for a second. Yeah. It was. That explained both his mood and his uniform choice. On the third Wednesday of every month he had meetings over at GTX. In theory, these meetings were with the GTX Community Outreach department, giving updates on the anti-drug program GTX sponsored for the elementary school, or presenting the need for more bulletproof vests or new computers in the squad cars. But I think my dad probably saw it as a foot in the door. Except he’d been attending these meetings for a few years now, and, as far as I knew, he’d never managed to wedge additional body parts through.
My dad glared at me. “You think you’re so smart.” He set his coffee mug down with a sharp crack that reverberated through my head. “But people are judging you based on how you look, whether you like it or not. And if you want to be taken seriously, you have to dress the part.”
I rolled my eyes, though it kind of hurt. My dad was forever trying to get in good with GTX—they were the only game in town when it came to power, money, and influence—and it irritated him to no end that they had their own expensive and well-trained security force, experts who avoided interacting with him and his guys except when absolutely necessary.
It was a snub of the first order, to my dad’s way of thinking, as good as declaring to the world that GTX thought the Wingate police were local yokels, barely able to handle cow tipping, mailboxes on fire, and old Mrs. McCarty shoplifting candy bars again. But my dad was Jay Bradshaw, hometown favorite, football hero of legend, man who’d pulled himself up from a trailer park existence to be the bright shining star of this craphole town.
Wingate threw him a parade when he left for college, and then again when he came back to
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