Outburst

Chapter 20 - From Mercer to Mercer

When I got home, Grant’s car was already parked in the garage. I froze at the gate as the security guard opened it for me.

Holy shit. I immediately checked my phone—but there weren’t any calls from Una. There was a chance that she might forget about covering me and telling me if Uncle Luke arrived at home.

I tried to control my inconstant breath while walking to the front door. Just when I opened it, Grant was walking downstairs with his grey suit on his shoulder. He was a little surprised and his eyes were glancing back to the upstairs.

“I don’t even want to know what you were doing outside,” he said as he wore his suit. He didn’t know that I wasn’t in my room all this time.

“I was only jogging around.”

“I said I don’t want to know.” He walked past me to the door, but then he turned around. “How did you jog while carrying a strap bag?”

Oh, damn. I looked at my blue bag hatefully. It wasn’t its fault, but I felt like throwing it for destroying a possible good reason why I was outside. Grant’s face looked like he wanted to say, No wonder your own uncle called you a liar—but he just chuckled away.

“Uh, Cal?” Just when I was about to take the stairs, Grant stopped me. “That Easton boy came to the office.”

My eyes bugged out and my mouth formed a perfect ‘O’. “Chad? What... What was he doing?” He’s not going to the school? Oh, that master of rebel.

Grant shrugged. “He said he wanted to speak with your uncle, but I didn’t let him.”

“Why?”

“He was at the meeting.”

“No, I mean—why would Chad want to speak with Uncle Luke?”

Grant squinted. “I don’t know, he’s your boyfriend. Ask him for yourself.”

“He’s not my—” I grumbled in aggravation, but then I sighed. “Why are you telling me this?”

“So you can tell him not to do that again,” he replied. “Keeping your uncle’s mind away from the things that can trigger his fury is one of my jobs, and I think it wasn’t a good thing for him to meet that Easton boy after what happened.”

“You have to stop calling him ‘that Easton Boy’, it sounds tiring,” I scoffed, and he just smirked. “Oh, by the way, you were not doing a very good job last night.”

Grant was quiet. I guessed I succeeded to ‘checkmate’ him, something that I thought I would never do because he was just good in turning the fact around.

“Yeah, you were right,” he said, “But you were wrong about one thing.”

I raised my eyebrows.

“He’d been mad at me,” Grant lowered his voice.

I knew my surprised face was unnecessary, but I really was. “He had?”

Grant nodded. “He just didn’t realize it,” he said while smiling thinly and finally got out of the house.

***

As usual, I came to the dining room early. This would be the first time I met Uncle Luke after his outburst last night—well, if he decided to have dinner with us. I went downstairs with light steps, knowing that Uncle Luke would come exactly at the dining time he decided, so I had about 10 minutes to prepare myself not to be groggy and awkward, or even cry.

Except, he was already there.

I stopped when I saw his back, sitting on his usual chair. Grant wasn’t there and the food hadn’t been served. It was basically just me and him in the room. I could have ran back to my room, but that was the thing a coward would do. Besides, I hadn’t done anything wrong. I was the one whose hand was wrapped in a bandage. But that wasn’t the thing that kept stumbling on my mind.