Billionaire in Rehab: The Complete Series

by Claire Adams

“I’m sure he’s not miserable because of his tattoos,” Ian says, and I can see this thing getting out of hand before the next exchange is over, so I stand up and move in front of my dad.

  “This is Ian, my partner for my final project in psychology,” I tell my dad. “If the two of you want to get together on your own time to discuss the perils of ink on skin, that’s up to you, but we’ve got work to do right now, okay?”

  Dad is a legend in the sport of child embarrassment, but he’ll usually calm down and listen to reason as long as he’s stopped before he’s done anything too left field. That’s usually.

  “So, how many tattoos do you have to get before they give you a free hepatitis vaccine?” dad asks and even I’m taken aback by that one.

  “Dad!” I scold.

  “Nah, tattoo shops are surprisingly clean these days,” Ian says.

  “Yeah,” dad scoffs, “they’re totally clean except for the people that walk in there.”

  “Have I done something to offend you?” Ian asks, doing a better job of handling his temper than I would have expected.

  “Not at all,” dad says, and I give him a gentle push on the shoulder to let him know it’s time for him to leave. “I’m just hoping you’re not going to drag my daughter down too far as you take the long way to figuring out that people like you aren’t meant for higher learning. People like you are evidence that our institutions of higher learning are fallible.”

  “You don’t even know me, but you seem to have made up your mind on exactly who I am,” Ian says.

  “Dad, could you please just let us do our schoolwork?” I ask. “We really don’t need to do this right now.”

  “Fine,” Dad says, but he’s not leaving. It’s good of him to have his mouth shut right now, but he’s not leaving the room.

  “You know, maybe it would be better if we got together another time,” Ian says. “I’ve got a lot of tattoos to plan out for when it’s time to apply to the fast food place.”

  “I’d like it if I didn’t see you in my house again,” dad says. “How do we work that one out?”

  “What’s gotten into you?” I ask my father.

  Given the balled fists and the pulsing vein in his forehead, I’m almost expecting Ian to take a swing at my dad, but he takes a deep breath through his clenched teeth and slowly relaxes his hands.

  “Mia, give me a call when you can find another time to get together and we’ll finish hammering this thing out, all right?” Ian asks.

  “Sounds good, Ian,” I tell him. “I’m sorry things went—”

  “Oh, you’re not actually apologizing for me, are you?” dad asks.

  “Ian, I’m sorry, but you should probably go if for no other reason than to give me the opportunity to kill my father without witnesses,” I say to Ian, but my eyes are still on my dad’s.

  The old man’s eyes catch the light a little as his crow’s feet stretch their toes with his smile. I’d love to be able to tell Ian that my dad’s not usually like this; that we’d just caught him by surprise and he thought he’d have a little fun with us, but nope. This is pretty much standard dad.

  Ian does the tactful thing and simply leaves, but as soon as Ian’s out the front door, my dad is laying right back into it.

  “I don’t know what kind of professor you have that would pair a sweet little girl like you with a waster like that, but I think it’s shameful,” he says.

  “What is with you today?” I ask.

  “He’s wearing the uniform of the scumbag and you’re asking what’s wrong with me?” he asks.

  “He’s not a scumbag, dad,” I tell him. “He’s just a guy from my psychology class.”

  “Yeah, well, you’re not having him over here unless I’m in the room with you, is that understood?” he asks.

  “What? That’s ridiculous,” I tell him. “You’re not always going to be home when we need to work. I guess we can go somewhere else, but—”

  “No,” he says, “I think you should do it all here.”

  “I’m not going to,” I tell him. “Not with the way you’re acting. I know you think you get some sort of weird sixth sense when guys are around and you think you can sniff out the dirt-bags, but have you considered the probability that you’re going to think every guy who wants to spend time with me at any time for any reason is a loser? It’s overprotectiveness,” I tell him. “It has nothing to do with anyone but you.”

  “Well, it’s my house and as long as you’re living in my house, you’ll abide by my rules,” he says.

  “I don’t suppose that means you’re offering me the opportunity to move out of here and actually start to live my own life, does it?” I ask.

  His mouth comes out with a bit of a gasp, and he swallows a couple of times before answering, “It has never been my intention to prevent you from starting your own life.”

  “Then why do you freak out to such a radical degree when I make any move that could potentially take me out of this house?” I ask.

  “Are you in love with him?” dad asks.

  “Don’t be stupid,” I tell him. “He’s just a skater guy from my—”

  “So he is a skater,” dad interrupts, smirking as he crosses his arms. “I knew it wasn’t just some project.”

  “No, dad,” I tell him. “It really is just some project. I didn’t choose my partner, Ian was assigned to me and even if he wasn’t, you’re still going to have to stop treating me like a child. I’m twenty years old!”

  “Yeah,” he says, “you’re twenty years old. That’s too old to be wasting your time on guys with tattoos and skateboards.”

  “You know, dad,” I argue, “someday, I’m going to move out of here no matter what you do, and it doesn’t really make sense to me how you keep trying to make sure I never come back when it’s that very fear of abandonment—”

  “My house, my rules,” dad says, tapping his foot as if to indicate punctuation.

  For a moment, I just glare at him as my fingernails bite into my palm, but it’s no use trying to reason with him. Once he’s got an irrational idea in his head, it’s impossible to get it out, so finally, I push past him and hole myself up in my room.

  “I hate this place!” I scream as I slam the door, but the vitriol of my teenage years has grown weaker. I’m getting sick of fighting.

  I don’t hate my dad, but I hate what he’s doing.

  It seems like every time, there’s the slightest indication that I might be starting down a path that could lead me out of here, though I’d say he’s overblown things between me and Ian to a pretty stupid level, he puts me on lockdown.

  There’s nothing really keeping me in my room but the ever-building tension in my neck and shoulders, but dad long ago trained me that the place for me to go when I’m upset is my room. I don’t know how it is that I never learned to storm out of a house, or at least have that in my mind as an option, but at a time like this, I only feel better in this stupid room with the door closed behind me.

  Ian’s performance with my dad was actually pretty impressive. He snapped back at my dad, but he did it in a way that was still moderately respectful and he didn’t devolve into shouted curses.

  Ian just kind of had a smirk on his face the whole time like he was amused by that my father would dare to argue with him, but he kept his tongue pretty well in line. The whole thing kind of seemed to be beneath him, though I’m having a little trouble picking out exactly what it was about what he said and the way he said it that’s giving me that impression.

  I look behind me to make sure that the door’s locked before I walk forward and fall on my bed.

  This is so stupid.

  I’m twenty years old. It’s not that I think I’ve got everything in the world figured out or anything, but I’m not some precious gem that needs to be protected from everything, either.

  It’s all about mom.

  I remember my dad being a lot different when I was younger. My dad was—until mom left, at least—the one that encouraged me
to see if there was a sport I was interested, and even when it turned out that sport was skating, dad was all about it.

  He even bought me my first board.

  I never really got along with my mom. It seemed like she was always in a bad mood.

  That said, she’s still my mom, and even though I don’t actually have any measurable amount of respect for the woman, there’s still a part of me that just wishes she’d come home already.

  That day I came home from school and found dad sobbing on the front step, though: That’s when everything changed.

  It was obvious something bad had happened, but I had no idea it was what it was. Mom had been a little extra withdrawn, but there was no clear indication that she was going to up and move.

  I didn’t even know about the boyfriend until I got ahold of the note she left a few days later. It wasn’t long, but it pretty much covered all the necessary bases.

  “Alan, I’m leaving you. I’ve been seeing someone else. Tell Mya I’m sorry.”

  Yeah, she misspelled my name in the last communiqué I’d ever see from her.

  That was mom, though. Even as a kid, I wasn’t all that surprised.

  Let’s just say she was a less than inspiring person.

  What was inspiring, though, is the way that Ian stood up to my dad without managing to cross any serious lines.

  I saw something new in him today. It was restraint.

  Before now, I just thought he was one of those people for whom patience and tact were not understandable concepts, but he really surprised me today. I half expected fists to start flying, but he was decent.

  Still, though, there was that look of danger in his eyes, a warning not to push his kindness too far.

  The motion is so instinctual that I don’t even realize I’m doing it until my hand is slipping under the top of my pants.

  What am I doing?

  Oh, who cares?

  When my fingers touch my center, I’m already wet. Maybe what I’ve been finding so distasteful about Ian isn’t that he’s so different from what I’m looking for, but that he’s so nearly it.

  The first major criterion, some palpable interest in skating, is more than met. I haven’t seen him skate since that competition a month ago, but the replay has been branded inside my brain.

  He’s smart, although he tries really hard to avoid letting it show most of the time. Yeah, he’s immature, but that skater’s build of his, lean, but firm…

  The pad of my middle finger circles my clit and I’m okay choosing the fantasy of Ian over the reality of him for right now. Not that the reality is all that bad.

  In my closed-eye theater, I’m at the skate park with Ian. It’s dark and there’s nobody around.

  His board is off in the background somewhere, but we’re not there to skate, and his lips are eagerly moving over the skin of my neck and he feels my breasts through my shirt.

  A few times, I try to imagine taking off the ever-present beanie of his, but for whatever reason, my brain doesn’t allow it. It doesn’t seem to have any issue imagining the firm ridges of his upper body, though.

  My mind doesn’t seem to have any trouble whatsoever imagining him without his shirt, pressing against my body as he removes my own top in a single, passionate motion.

  I’m slipping the first knuckle of my middle finger into me, and the fantasy dissipates for a brief moment as I take a hot, gasped breath.

  When the tape starts rolling again, we’re on the ground naked as he puts himself inside me, kissing my mouth. I look up at him and I can almost see those dark eyes against the phantom backdrop of the night sky.

  My hand moves over my pussy and I’m back to focusing on my clit as my mind flashes images of Ian on top of me and beneath me and behind me, and I have to hold a pillow over my own mouth as I quiver with ecstasy.

  My heart is beating so hard it almost hurts, and I’m still breathing into the pillow as the jolt of endorphins settles throughout my body.

  Well, that’s new.

  Chapter Six

  Turn on, Tune in, Drop In

  Ian

  “You’re mindfucking yourself out of it, man,” Rob says as we stand at the top of the wall. That’s what it is, it’s a fucking wall with a tiny little curve at the bottom that’s supposed to make everything magically better.

  Maybe I am mindfucking myself out of it. I wasn’t exactly sure what he means by the phrase, but whatever it is, I think I’m doing it now.

  “Yeah, man, just drop in and let your body react the way it’s going to react. If you have any problems after one run, you can address them on the next. You’ll have this thing down in no time, man,” Nick says.

  I take a deep breath and look over at my friends, my skating partners, my comrades in arms. “I really wasn’t expecting you guys to be so cool about this,” I tell them. “It’s kind of nice to know I can come to you when I need help, you know. Thanks.”

  “Whatever, shit brick, now let’s get you comfortable dropping in so the third-graders stop making fun of you,” Rob says.

  “Oh man, third-graders are mean as shit,” Nick adds.

  “Really, the two of you are just spectacular,” I tell them, rolling my eyes.

  “All right, so you know where you went wrong last time?” Rob asks.

  “Yeah,” I answer. “I panicked as soon as the board started going down the side and I curled into a little ball to lessen the impact.”

  “I think you curled into a ball before your second foot was even on the board,” Nick says. “So, what are you going to do this time?”

  “I’m going to pretend like I have a pair of balls and I’m going to stop being such a little bitch about it,” I answer.

  They’ve made that my personal mantra.

  “That’s right,” Nick says. “Now put your front foot on the board and guide your weight forward onto the board. You don’t have to fight gravity, just work with it. You’ve rolled up higher banks than this. Just try to remember what your body does when you’re coming down from that. It’s the same thing, just with a lip at the top. It’s half the work, really.”

  “All right,” I answer and I look down.

  I don’t know why I ever look down. I’m actually starting to create a fear of heights where none existed before.

  “Don’t think about it, just go,” Rob says, and I try to separate my mind from itself long enough to focus attention on what I’m doing as I put my front foot on the board.

  I’m putting more weight on the board and it’s tipping downward. So far, I’m doing all right, but as the front wheels slap against the concrete, I’m back in my head, trying to remember whether I’m supposed to crouch down for the curve or whether I was supposed to have already been doing that, so I end up somewhere in between.

  My front wheels come to the curve at the bottom and it looks like I might just pull this—and I’m on my ass.

  “You know,” I call up to Rob and Nick, “you don’t have to laugh every single time.”

  It takes them a full minute to respond.

  “It looked better that time,” Rob wheezes when he can finally manage some modicum of control over himself.

  “Yeah,” Nick says. “It was like a building being demolished in slow motion.”

  “Do you actually have anything useful to add?” I ask, getting to my feet and stomping the tail of my board, catching the nose in my hand.

  I really wish we had the park to ourselves, but I’m doing my best to ignore all of the people getting a bonus to their entertainment by watching me humiliate myself.

  I’m clenching my teeth as I climb back up to the top of the wall.

  “It’s not a question of skill,” Nick says, still fighting random bursts of chuckling. “You know what you’re supposed to do, you just freeze up when it comes time to do it. You’re in your head, man. You need to get out of it.”

  “Yeah,” Rob says, “have you ever considered taking up hard drugs? From what I hear, if you get the right stuff, it’ll take you
out of your head and put you in a different reality altogether. Now that I think about it, I don’t know if that would really help you drop in, but you’ve got to try something. The competition’s not that far off and you’re not even to the point of putting together some ideas of what you want to do, you’re still worried about being able to start the fucking round.”

  “Thanks,” I tell Rob. “I was in my head before, but I have a feeling that’s going to do wonders for my confidence. Really, you’re a humanitarian,” I tell him.

  “Yeah, whatever,” he says. “I’m just trying to get you mad. When you get mad, you get determined, and when you get determined, you stop being such a little bitch about everything. That’s when you get work done.”

  “So the only time I’m not a bitch is when I’m mad?” I ask.

  “Yeah,” Rob says. “Now go prove me wrong, bitch!”

  Not being much for pads or, well, playing with inflatable balls—let that phrase sink in for a second—I’ve never had the big inspirational locker room speech. I still haven’t. At the same time, though, I am feeling a renewed sense of purpose.

  I have to get this down, but I’m not going to think about that right now. Right now, I’m just going to see myself doing it in my head.

  I visualize putting my front foot on the board and leaning in. I see the board coming down onto the concrete and rolling down the side of the incline. I see the board coming to the curve and, right where I usually bail, I see myself hurtling toward the cement, unable to do anything to stop the impact and my imagination goes dark.

  “Well, that’s disturbing,” I mutter.

  “What was that?” Rob asks.

  I don’t answer. I just focus on the sound of my own breath, controlled, purposeful.

  I’m out of my head.

  It doesn’t even bother me when Nick nudges my arm and whispers in my ear, “You know, I’ve seen Hawk dropping into a halfpipe with his kid standing on the board between his feet.”

  I am my foot coming down on the front half of the board, and I am the board as it tilts downward once more. The wheels roll between the wood and the hard surface beneath it, and I am all of these as I come up to the curve at the bottom.