Chapter 3 #2
Honestly, I didn’t want anything at the moment. Or maybe just a hole to crawl into because literally everyone in the lobby was staring at me now. All five of them. Who hung out at the Four Seasons’ lobby at ten AM on a Tuesday? “Uh, let’s go up.”
He nodded and stepped toward me with an outreached hand like he was going to…I don’t know what—hug me, put an arm around my shoulders—shake my hand?—before he jerked it back and ran it through his long, wavy hair. “Right. This way.”
“Thank you again, Mr. Benoit!” Hotel Barbie shouted as we walked to the elevators.
My eyes widened at her desperation, but I studiously studied my Converse and didn’t say a word.
A few minutes later we arrived at the top floor—a floor that required a cardkey to reach—and Maybe-Bio-Dad opened one of only two doors on the floor.
“Right. Are you hungry? Thirsty?” He tossed the keycard down on a hall table then crossed to the bar, and I don’t mean like a simple hotel minibar.
This place had a mirrored barback with ten bottles and twice as many glasses displayed, shakers, and food splayed out.
A charcuterie board, ice bucket with champagne, and three kinds of potato chips littered the rear countertop.
I crossed the room hesitantly and took a seat on one of the tall barstools. “Do you have any soda? It’s a little early for the hard stuff.”
“Not for rock stars, kid.” He cracked open a bottle of beer and took a swig before ducking under the bar and opening the mini fridge. “We got Coke, Sprite, and three kinds of water.”
“Coke, please.”
He slid the can across the bar to me, and I grabbed it with a shaky smile. I cracked it open and took a sip. He drank his beer across from me, and we studiously avoided looking at each other.
I took in the room.
There was a separate dining room, a living room with sofas, and a hallway.
From here, I could see at least one bedroom and a bathroom, but there were more doors beyond.
The place was huge. And classy. From the gleaming wood floors and accent walls to the marble counters to the modern chandelier with its glass balls and gold fixtures.
Intimidation was an understatement.
This kinda room wasn’t me.
When we’d gone on vacations, we’d stayed at places with Holiday or Best in their names. Places that had free breakfast as a perk. Not places that had freaking chandeliers.
“So I guess you have questions…” Maybe-Bio-Dad drawled after setting his beer down with a clink.
I turned back to him. “Yeah, and I’m hoping you have some answers.”
He groaned and rubbed his hand against his brow. “Fuck, there’s no way to do this where I don’t come out as a tool.”
That made me feel a bit better about my mom’s lie. But I still wanted to hear the story. “I mean, no judgement. You’re here now, right?”
“Right.” He sighed. “Come on, kid, let’s at least get comfortable if I’m going to list all the ways I fucked up my life.”
A smile tugged my lips as I followed him to the slick living room. He took a seat in the deep brown leather chair with the nail head detail, and I sat on the tan suede sofa opposite. Grabbing one of the throw pillows, I clutched it to my chest like it was a shield that could protect me.
Maybe-Bio-Dad, meanwhile, was studiously staring at the label on his beer like it held all the answers.
I didn’t say anything. I’d been around enough men to know that eventually the silence would get to them.
Finally he sighed. “I met Katrina her senior year at UCLA. She was…gorgeous. Effervescent. Fucking one of a kind. I’ve never met another woman like her since, honestly.”
I smiled slightly. I would’ve described my mom the same way. There had just been something about her that made you want to be in her orbit. She had been amazing.
Tears burned my eyes at the past tense reminder. Past. Dead.
Fuck, this was hard. Was still hard.
Would it ever get easier?
“And I was a punk trying to get our band off the ground. We were playing any dive bar in LA that would have us. And then one day your mom walked in with some friends, and that was it. I fell so fucking hard.” He smiled softly at some memory of my mom, and I gotta be honest, I softened a little toward him.
“So we started dating. Had the talk and everything. Katrina was up front—she wouldn’t be hookup, we had to be exclusive or we couldn’t be together. And I agreed.”
Uh oh. A blind person could see where this story was headed.
“I loved her. I really, really did.” He leaned forward in his chair, his eyes intent on mine now. And I saw the sincerity in his eyes. “We were together for months. I’d never done that with a woman, not even in high school. Katrina was every-fucking-thing to me.”
I nodded. I believed him, I really did.
But I also knew what was coming.
He sighed and looked away. “And then we got a meeting with Pinnacle.” He fidgeted in his seat.
“They wanted to sign us. It’s kind of a blur after that.
I remember calling your mom, telling her the news, and inviting her to party.
There was a lot of drinking. A lot of celebrating. And so many women.”
He pushed out of his chair and stalked over to the bar. Judging from the clink of glass, he was getting a refill. Then he finished the story as he stood behind me like he couldn’t bear to look me in the eyes. “Katrina walked in as I was mid-thrust in a woman while snorting a line off her ass.”
My eyes widened. I’d expected the cheating, but I hadn’t anticipated the naked honesty. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I don’t want to damage your memory of your mom. She was an amazing woman who I screwed over.” He stomped around the sofa and collapsed into his chair in a sprawl of over long limbs and wild hair. “She was fucking everything, and I fucked her over. I deserved everything that happened.”
“Yeah, well, maybe I didn’t. Maybe I deserved to know who my father was—at the bare minimum. Maybe I deserved to know the man who loved my mom despite being a philandering ass.”
His lips quirked like he was fighting a smile. “Kiddo, you were better off not knowing me. I was an ass. Have been an ass for the last twenty-five years—longer really.”
“So you’re saying you’re still an ass?” Considering I was twenty-three, the math wasn’t mathing. “Because from where I’m sitting, you seem like a guy who shows up. Someone who gives a damn when it really matters.”
He sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face. “Trust me, this is a new development. Hearing that the one who got away fucking died and you have a kid kinda puts things in perspective.”
“And you don’t think that could’ve happened at any point in the last twenty-three years?
” I really don’t think he got the gaping wound his absence had left me with.
The hole in my life that he could’ve filled.
The questions he could’ve answered. I’d always thought my dad was dead, and anytime I brought it up, my mom didn’t want to talk about him.
Now I knew why.
Still didn’t make it right.
Still made me so goddamn angry.
And I didn’t know what to do with that.
“I think obsessing about could’ve-beens is a stupid waste of time. We’re here now, and I’d really like to get to know you.”
“I’d like that too.” I laughed incredulously. “I don’t think you get what this means to me. I-I-I thought I was alone. My mom’s parents are long gone. She was an only child. And I thought you were dead. I don’t have anyone in life aside from friends. This is…everything.”
He audibly swallowed, only his beer was still sitting on the little end table next to him. After a beat, he shook his head and looked at the dangling chandelier above us. “No pressure, right?”
That earlier kernel of unease in my stomach tightened and then doubled.
Yeah, no pressure.