The Corruption ✔️

Chapter II

Dinner Tables Are Not My Scene

Tyler Foley

I threw myself on the bed. It screeched with age. Well, I thought, there goes any plans of bringing girls over unnoticed. It wasn't as soft or big as mine back home. Springs stabbed my back with every movement I made. The room was not big enough either. I stayed staring at the ceiling. The beginnings of mould were creeping at the far corner of the room.

How nice.

Luckily, we wouldn't be staying here for long. My father had told me not to unpack as we would move to his holiday home in a small mountain village in Alaska. Lucy didn't know this yet and I highly doubted that she knew of my father's wealth either. And judging from the looks of my room, Lucy was far from my father and I's world. She was also far from my father's usual type. Single women. Women with children just meant more emotional baggage.

A knock came at the door.

I pushed myself off the bed an heard another ominous creak come from it. I pulled the door open to reveal the devil herself.

Her hair had been washed so it tumbled down her back. And her lips...

'Dinner's ready.' She spoke, snapping me out of my momentary trance.

What the hell was my problem!?

Tyler Foley likes confident, easy, city girls. I chimed this in my head like a mantra with gritted teeth

'Do you want to come downstairs with me?' She had a permanent smile on her face and her eyes didn't hold any trace of the anger from before.

I surveyed her. Cocking my head to the side and looking her up and down. Her face was fresh and her eyes bright. What would happen, I thought, if I pulled her into my room and gave my bed something to really creak about. Maybe I would make her scream my name loud enough for both our parents to hear and ruin my father's fresh new life he was trying to build. That wouldn't be so bad. If all else fails...

'Sure. Ands.' I managed to spit out harshly.

She raised an eyebrow subtly at my tone of voice but didn't comment on it.

'Andrea.' She corrected sternly, reminding me of a teacher telling off a misbehaving child.

'Do you prefer kitten then, Andy?'

It was supposed to sound teasing and light. But it came out hard, angry and taunting.

She shot me an annoyed look but it was laced with pain. Was it the nickname Andy that had hurt her feelings? Wait. It doesn't matter how she feels or whether she was hurt. It definitely didn't matter how her doll-like curls bounced with her every movement.

I don't even like curly hair

'Oh, hey Tyler!' Lucy cried beaming, 'I don't think I got the chance to introduce myself properly.'

She walked around the dinner table to stand in front of me, she had the same shining eyes as Andrea. But her hair was lighter and her features sharper and more defined than her daughter's. She smiled welcomingly but I wanted nothing to do with her. I could tell that my charming young boy façade was slipping and the spoiled brat was showing when I looked at my father. If it was possible, his lips were set in a line even straighter and grimmer than mine. Lucy turned around to smile at him and suddenly he was smiling brightly with no trace of the austere man he really was. I plastered on my fakest smile to please my father.