Chapter 14
CAL
Seven days without a day off, and I can feel every single one of them sitting in my bones.
Back-to-back shifts. A call on Wednesday that nobody talked about on the drive back. Just all of us staring out our own windows like there was something worth seeing out there. There wasn't.
Thursday was four hours in every jewelry store within a thirty-mile radius because Zuri needed someone to help her pick a ring and apparently that someone was me. She couldn't bring Talia. Those two in a jewelry store together would've been a fight before they made it through the door.
I really hope no one else is getting married anytime soon because I am more than fed up with engagement rings.
Now it's Friday night. Everyone else is out and I am on my couch with the football on and seventeen tabs of engagement rings still open on my phone, closing them one by one slowly, like I'm putting them to sleep.
"You're quiet," Dad says from his chair, not looking up from his book.
"I'm always quiet."
He turns a page with that deliberate patience he has, the one that makes everything feel like a test. "Not like this."
I stretch my legs out on the coffee table as the TV drones on. I couldn't tell you the score if someone paid me.
"Your friends are out tonight."
Another page turn. His eyes aren't even moving across the lines, which means he's been waiting to have this conversation and the book is just a prop.
I cut my eyes to him, already suspicious. "How do you know that?"
"Ramsey called to check on me this afternoon." Page turn. "Said they were all going to the pub." He flattens the spine with his thumb, keeps going. "Poppy texted, asked if I needed anything from town." Another page. "Lily called, she's stopping by tomorrow."
Three separate people. My father, who hasn't left this house since Tuesday, has a better social life than I do. Cool. Great. Love that for him.
"I'm tired," I say, sinking deeper into the couch and letting my head fall back against the cushion like that settles it, like that's the end of the conversation.
It's not. Dad closes his book, sets it on the side table, taps his fingers once against the cover before folding his hands in his lap. When he finally turns to me, there's something in his expression that I recognize from every conversation I've ever tried to avoid with this man.
"Tired?"
"Long week."
I don't bother sitting up. Maybe if I look tired enough, he'll drop it.
"Cal, son..." He leans back in his chair, studying me now with that look he gets when he's about to say something I don't want to hear.
"You are a man in your prime."
Oh no.
"Dad." I sigh, heavy and exasperated. "Can we not have this conversation?"
"Past it even, if we're being generous."
"Wow." I drag the word out, shaking my head at the ceiling. "You sure are a treat tonight."
"And you have no business sitting on this couch on a Friday night with your old father when your friends are out in town." He folds his arms over his chest, chin lifted, eyebrows up, waiting for me to argue. "Go."
"I don't want to go."
I drop my head back against the cushion, and it's the truth. Also not the whole truth, but Dad doesn't need to know that.
"That," he says slowly, "is the most concerning thing you've said all week."
I grab the remote and turn the volume up. Players move across the screen in formations I'm not tracking, chasing a ball I couldn't care less about.
"Is there a problem?" Dad asks, trying to sound casual and failing completely. "With the ladies? You can tell me. No judgment."
"Good Lord. There is no problem with the ladies."
"Because it happens. Dry spells." He nods sagely, like he's imparting wisdom. "Perfectly normal."
"Dad, I'm begging you."
"I just want you to know you can talk to me. Man to man."
He's the picture of sincerity. Completely unbearable. I close my eyes, and consider the merits of moving out again.
"There is no dry spell. There is no problem. I am sitting on my couch because I am tired, and that is the entire story."
Dad hums, picks his book back up, and turns to a random page like he's already moved on, like he didn't just spend five minutes dismantling me for sport.
"Well. Can't be that, I suppose."
I glare at him. "What can't be what?"
"A problem scoring. Can't be that." He waves a hand at me, up and down my body, like I'm evidence.
"I hear girls these days are very keen on tall men like you. Broad ones, muscles everywhere." He circles his index finger toward my stomach, and I genuinely consider breaking it.
"Abs like yours are popular. Apparently there are videos about it."
I stare at him. Blink. Blink again.
"Videos?"
"Lily showed me. On her phone." He taps his chin, searching for the word like he doesn't already know exactly what he's doing. "Something about... thirst traps."
I have no response. None. I just stare at him while my brain tries and fails to process the phrase "thirst trap" coming out of my father's mouth.
Dad glances over, completely unmoved, and turns another page. "Very popular, apparently. Men like you do very well in those circles. The uniform doesn't hurt either, I'd imagine."
"I cannot believe this is my life."
I try to shut him out, try to find any thread of this conversation that makes sense, try to remember a time when my father wasn't the most exhausting person I know.
"I'm just saying," he continues mildly. "Options exist."
"Where are you even getting this? Why would you even say the word thirst trap to me?"
Dad grins. Wide and completely shameless, the same grin he's had since I was small, the one that means he's won and he knows it. "She's very educational, that girl."
I scoff, because of course that's where this is headed. Of course it is.
"She shows me videos on the short app, where people also dance," he adds.
"This is not happening."
"And we have very good conversations." He glances at me over the top of his book, eyes sharp, knowing. "She's good company. I miss her when she doesn't come around."
A whistle blows on the TV. I couldn't tell you who's playing or what the call was. I'm too busy picking at a thread on the couch cushion, not saying anything for long enough that I probably should have left it alone.
Don't say it. Don't give him the satisfaction.
"She'll be out tonight. With the group."
Damn it.
"Mm." Dad turns a page. "Shame you're so tired."
I drag my gaze back to the screen. "Forget it."
He doesn't look up. "I'm just noting the coincidence..."
"There's no coincidence," I snap. "I'm tired and she's out and those two things have nothing to do with each other."
Dad doesn't comment. He just tilts his head, brows up, eyes back on the page like the book is suddenly the most fascinating thing in the room.
"I worry," he says, and the grin is gone now. His voice is almost gentle in a way that catches me off guard. "About her being out in town without anyone looking out for her. Some of the men in this town have no sense, I tell ya."
He closes the book over his thumb, meets my eyes. "And you know she is just the prettiest girl this town has seen in a long time. I worry, that's all."
I can't tell if this is fatherly concern or just the next play. I keep my eyes on the screen, give him nothing.
"Rome will be there," I grunt, needing him to stop saying her name before I lose what's left of my patience.
"Rome. Yes. He will keep the obvious ones at bay." A pause, perfectly timed. I shake my head because here it comes. "Is that what's keeping you home tonight, you think? Rome keeping you at bay?"
I refuse to let this man rage bait me. I keep my eyes straight on the TV and refuse to entertain him.
"Because if it's nothing," he continues, turning another page with maddening calm, "then it shouldn't matter who's there. You'd just go and have a drink with your friends like any other Friday."
He picks up his book, opens it to a random page, starts reading again.
"It is nothing," I say through my teeth. "And put that goddamn book down. I know you're not reading it."
"Cal." He says it gently, and I roll my eyes because I outgrew this man when I was seventeen years old and he still knows how to make me feel like I'm six. "I see how you look at that girl."
I'm on my feet before I know I'm moving, my whole body coiled like something waiting to snap.
"Please, Dad. Let it go."
He stops talking, but doesn't look away. Neither do I.
"You're reading too much into things," I manage. "That's all."
"Again." He sets the book down slowly, deliberately. "You'd be out with your friends right now if it is nothing. Lily Moreland included."
Damn him. Damn him and his book and his knowing looks and his complete inability to leave well enough alone.
“I’m going to bed,” I mumble.
I hear his annoying chuckle until I close the door to my bedroom.