“Dad –” he started in a warning tone.

Cob cut him off to say softly, “Get a new truck, Slim.”

Crackling electricity started invading the room and I got tense.

Cob felt it, he had to but he thought he was dying so his next words showed he felt he had nothing to lose.

“You need to deal with that woman,” he announced.

Brock’s body went solid. “We are not –” he started.

“No,” Cob interrupted again. “That bitch is… a… bitch. I heard her shoutin’ all the way

‘round the parkin’ lot. Tellin’ my boy to go f**k himself in front of my grandsons? ” He shook his head, clipped out, “No.” Then he sucked back beer.

“I’ll deal with it,” Brock growled.

“When, in a decade?” Cob shot back.

Uh-oh.

The voltage of the room ratcheted up to the red zone and Brock took his feet off the coffee table, leaning slightly forward, taking me with him, saying low, “Careful, Dad.”

“Look at me, son, feel what you’re feelin’ right now and look at me, the man who’s makin’ you feel it,” Cob invited, leaning toward Brock. “I spent my whole life puttin’ off tomorrow what I shoulda done today and you, ” he gestured with his bottle of beer, “felt the worst of it. Learn from me, do not make your sons feel what you’re feelin’ right now. I do not know what’s happening in that bitch’s house. What I do know is that seven years ago, I had two grandsons who felt just fine in their skin and now they look like they’re about ready any second to jump out of it. It’s either her or that man she married but it’s somethin’ and that somethin’ is not you. You’re done with that other job, you’re available, your life is steady and now you got no excuses.”

“I cannot believe you got the balls to sit on my couch and coach me on raisin’ my boys,”

Brock ground out.

To that, Cob sucked back a huge swallow of beer as he stood then he bent and slammed his bottle on the table and looked down at his son.

“No, what I got is not enough time to hope you do not f**k up like your old man and instead do right by your family.”

The air turned harsh, scratching at my skin and Cob’s eyes came to me.

“Nice dinner, Tess, beautiful cake. And honored you talked to me, sweetheart, swear that to my soul.” At these words Brock’s solid body grew rock-hard and Cob looked to him. “I’m okay with you bein’ pissed at me because I deserve it but, Slim, once you stop bein’ pissed you’ll see I’m not wrong. You don’t have to tell me, you just gotta get your shit sorted.” Then he jerked up his chin, started to the door and mumbled, “I’ll see myself out.”

Then he saw himself out.

I sat immobile and silent, still curled around an infuriated Brock and I stayed this way because I didn’t want to do anything to tip the edge on that fury.

I should have moved away.

“Honored you talked to him about what?”

I pulled away, removing my arm, tipped my head back and looked at him. “Sorry?”

“Honored you talked to him about what?”

“We, uh…” I started cautiously, too cautiously.

“Spit it out, Tess. What did you and Father of the Year talk about?”

Oh man.

Seriously, the Lucas family needed to work through these issues and soon.

“He was worried that I was like Olivia and showing you what you wanted to see but was something else underneath,” I said softly and Brock fell back against the couch.

He lifted both hands and rubbed his face but under them he bit out, “Jesus Christ.”

“I wasn’t offended,” I told him, his hands dropped and his eyes cut to me.

“Well, babe, that’s good but I am.”

“Brock –”

“That it?”

“Uh…”

“Tess,” he growled.

“He knows what happened to me,” I whispered.

Brock scowled at me in a very scary way then he snarled, “Fucking, f**king, f**king, ” he stood, swiping his father’s beer bottle off the table and sidearm throwing it across the room so it exploded against the wall, beer splattering everywhere and he finished, “Hell! ”

At these actions, I crawled back into the corner of the sofa and curled my legs tight against my chest, wrapping my arms around them. I watched him standing there, shaking his head and tearing his fingers through his hair all the way to the back of his neck where he left them curved around still shaking his head.

Then he dropped his hand and turned to me. “Which one?” he demanded to know.

“Which one what?” I asked quietly.

“Which sister? Jill or Laura?”

“Brock, I don’t really mind,” I told him cautiously.

“Bullshit,” he fired back and I had to admit he was right. It was. “That man has no business knowin’ that happened to you.”

“Your family knows,” I pointed out.

“Precisely,” he clipped, “and that man isn’t family.”

“Brock,” I whispered, “he’s your Dad.”

“He is?” he asked sarcastically and I decided that was a good time to quit talking.

Even furious, Brock didn’t miss much; he saw me close down, decided to aim at a new target and thus yanked his phone out of back pocket, opened it up, hit some buttons and put it to his ear.

Then he started pacing.

Then he said, “Yeah, Jill it’s me and, head’s up, I’m f**kin’ pissed.”

Oh man.

He guessed.

He kept going. “Why? I’ll tell you why. Because Tess didn’t tell her f**kin’ best friend she’d been raped, not for six f**kin’ years. Martha found out a month ago. Her own goddamned mother and sister don’t know but you know who does? Dad. ”

He paused maybe to listen but not for long before he continued.

“Do not pretend you know by association what that shit feels like. Laura knows. That’s why Laura didn’t f**kin’ share. You had no f**kin’ business spewing that shit to Dad. I left the house to take my boys home, left her with Dad and he f**kin’ talked to her about it. She’s alone here with a man she barely f**kin’ knows and, bein’ Dad, he thinks it’s his place to have a conversation with my f**kin’ woman about her bein’ violated. ”