If Summer Never Ends

Chapter 17

Chapter 17:

"What the hell is he doing here?" Luke asked through his clenched teeth, his hands angrily by his side instead of around me.

A part of me was glad that he didn't hear what I was going to say to him; it was a spur of the moment thing, and I fortunately snapped out of it before I did something incredibly stupid.

Luke's dad looked different than before. Instead of being a plump drunkard who lacked everything but trashiness, he was cleaned up quite well. He lost weight, was wearing a nice suit and tie, and walked with a confident stride.

The last time I saw Ian McCree was ten years ago when he yelled at the two of us for being loud when he watching a football game with a beer in his hand. He wasn't a good father: he drank, yelled, got angry, and went out a lot. When I asked my mom why Luke's dad was gone so much, she said that he liked "to be outside a lot". Later, I discovered that that meant he liked to spend his time a strip clubs with incredulous amounts of alcohol in his system.

"Cool it. Look," I said, trying to get him to focus on me. His eyes darted back and forth between his father and I, but they finally landed on me. I put my hands on his shoulders.

"Breathe," I commanded attempting to calm down his nerves. "So your asshole father did show up, unfortunately. What are you going to do about it?"

"Punch him in the mouth," he replied bitterly, his fists clenching into balls at his sides.

"No!" I exclaimed. "You're going to go through it like a man without violence. Think of how much it would hurt your mom and Peter if you had a brawl with your dad."

His eyes turned from having fire-filled anger to guilt and contentment. "You're right. It would ruin her."

"Of course I'm right. Didn't we establish this from day one?" I replied, giving him a flirtacious look.

My heart skipped a beat as he made one of his irresistible sexy half smiles. God, why was he so perfect?

Luke glanced over towards where his father was and stiffened once again. "He's coming over here."

"You shouldn't have made eye contact with him then! That's like, rule number one in the philosophy of facing dead-beat fathers," I replied, watching as Ian slowly made his way through the crowd and over towards us.

"Gabby, I can't do this," Luke murmured, looking down at me with a glossy stare of anxiety.

I took his hand and wrapped mine around it. "Yes, you can. I'm here for you." His gaze softened momentarily, but the worry returned as Ian finally reached us.

Ian looked just as worried as Luke did, and that made me worry too. He didn't look like the same drunkard that remained in my memory, but rather more like an actual civilized human being. Some wrinkles settled in the skin around his eyes and mouth but other than that, he looked younger than he did before; he lost weight, his hair combed, he was wearing cologne. It was all very strange and shocking.

"Luke," Ian greeted, slightly bowing his head and held out his hand. Luke just looked down at it with a cold, hard stare and then looked at his father.

I stomped on Luke's foot, which must've hurt like hell, for I was wearing heels. He sighed and shook his hand.

"Dad," he replied sternly. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Luke tense up and I tightly squeezed his hand to let him know that everything was okay. He looked down at me and relaxed a little bit.