Alex Kava Bundle - Alex Kava [375]
He glared at her, but she didn’t flinch from her appropriately adoring attention on Father. Maybe she liked what the guy did to her last night. Maybe she had really gotten off on it, and what Justin thought was a grimace had actually been her expression of orgasm. Shit! He was just tired. He needed to stop thinking about last night. He sat up straight and folded his hands into his lap.
Tonight Father was going off on the government again, a favorite topic of his. Justin had to admit that some of the stuff the man said did make sense. He remembered his grandfather telling Eric and him stories about government conspiracies. How the government had murdered JFK. How the United Nations was really a conspiracy to take over the world.
Justin’s dad had said, “The old man had a couple of loose screws,” but Justin loved and admired his grandfather. He had been a war hero, getting the Congressional Medal of Honor for saving his whole squad in Vietnam. Justin had seen the medal, as well as the photos and letters, one from President Lyndon Johnson. It was pretty cool. But it was all stuff Justin knew his dad despised. Probably another reason Justin loved the old man—they had something in common: neither of them had ever been able to please Justin’s dad. Then his grandfather up and died last year. Justin still felt pissed at him for leaving him. He knew that was a fucked-up attitude. It wasn’t his granddad’s fault, but he missed the old man. He didn’t have anyone to talk to, especially after Eric left.
He knew Eric missed Granddad, too, even if he was too much of a macho-shithead to admit it. Less than three weeks after the funeral, Eric dropped out of Brown University. That was when all hell broke loose at home.
“Excuse me, am I boring you?” Father’s voice boomed across the room.
Justin sat up, but he was already sitting about as straight as he could. He felt Alice gripping his ankle, so tight her fingernails dug into his sock and skin.
Shit! He was in trouble now. Alice had warned him that daydreaming during Father’s talks could lead to punishment. Oh, what the hell. So what if he sent him out into the woods again. Maybe this time he’d just take off. He didn’t need this shit. Maybe he could meet up with Eric somewhere else.
“Answer me,” Father demanded as the room grew quiet. No one dared turn to look at the guilty one. “Do you find what I say so boring you’d rather sleep?”
Justin looked up, ready to take his punishment, but Father’s eyes were staring off to Justin’s left. And now the old man sitting next to Justin began to fidget restlessly. Justin could see the man’s callused hands wringing the hem of his blue work shirt. He recognized him from the building crew. No wonder the poor guy was dozing. The building crew had been working around the clock to remodel Father’s living quarters before winter, which was ridiculous if all of them were to be moving to some paradise soon. Surely others on the crew would speak up and remind Father of the long hours they’d been working. But instead, everyone remained silent, waiting.
“Martin, what do you have to say for yourself?”
“I guess I—”
“Stand up when you address me.”
The members all sat on the floor during the meetings. Justin couldn’t figure out why the hell Father was the only one who got a chair. Alice had tried to explain that no one’s head should be higher than Father’s when Father spoke. Justin would have laughed out loud at that had it not been for the somber, almost reverent look on her face.
“We have traitors in our midst,” Father bellowed. “We have a reporter trying to destroy us with ugly lies. This is no time for any of us to be caught sleeping. I