Chapter 28 #3
I grab his face and look into his blue eyes. “I hear you. Please just let me get through my season, and then we’ll do this together. I promise.”
His shoulders fall. Disappointment is written all over his handsome face.
“I’ll go over there and talk to them by myself,” I offer. “I won’t mention you or the baby. It will just be about their relationship and my relationship with both of them. You’re right. I should confront this head on instead of letting it fester and making up stories in my head.”
He places my feet on the ground and mumbles, “Fine,” before walking away from me.
I know he’s disappointed, but I only have the mental energy for one issue at a time. Daylen is an inherently honest person, but I know my dad. He’s not going to take the news of Daylen and me very well. I don’t want any more drama than I already have in my life right now.
I find him a few minutes later back in the nursery, working on the crib. Poking my head in the doorway, I say, “I love it, by the way. It’s beautiful. And perfect. And I still hope it’s a boy so you have to redo everything.”
He basically just grunts. He’s still pissed at me.
“I’m going to head over to Dad’s,” I continue, but he’s still giving me the silent treatment.
I wrack my brain for a way to get a response from him.
I don’t want to leave with him pissed at me.
“I want to wait ten more minutes to make sure they finish whatever they were about to do. It’s Sunday.
I know your favorite weekly holiday falls on this day.
How about I suck your big dick while I wait? ”
His head pops up immediately. “Tell me more about this plan.”
After giving Daylen the blowjob of his life, I’m driving back over to my dad’s house.
This is so unlike me. I’d rather be pissed and stew in my anger than confront anything head on, but Daylen’s right.
I need to hear them out. My intent this evening was to move in a healthy direction with my father, and I still want that to happen.
I want him in my baby’s life, but the first step is fixing our relationship.
I need to make sure they’re done doing whatever it is they were about to do when I left. While I’m more than okay with embarrassing them in their post-coital bliss, I don’t want to catch them in the act. I’ll be scarred for life.
I quietly tiptoe around back from the side instead of going through the house again. As I’m doing so, it occurs to me that Fallon may have told him about Daylen and the baby. Holy crap. What the hell am I doing here? What am I walking into?
I start to turn back around, but then I hear Daylen’s voice in my head telling me to be an adult. Damnit. Adulting sucks.
Resigned to the fact that I’m about to have one of the most uncomfortable, awkward conversations of my life, I continue walking toward the backyard until I reach the final corner, which has some shrubbery hiding me from view.
I listen before I look. I don’t hear moans. In fact, I hear more laughter. Most people don’t laugh during sex, though sometimes Daylen makes me.
Deciding there’s no way my dad makes her laugh during sex, I poke my head out enough to see them lying next to each other on an oversized double lounge chair. They’re clearly naked, but at least there’s a blanket on top of them.
They’re both laughing at something. My dad isn’t a big laugher…or much of a smiler. Maybe she brings it out in him.
They’re trading sweet, familiar touches, smiles, and kisses.
They’re actually kind of cute together. I guess physically they make a lot of sense, both being attractive.
He’s a little older than her, but it’s probably around the same age difference as Daylen and me so I won’t judge that aspect of their relationship.
As I consider it more and more, I realize I want to know the details. Time to make my presence known.
I pop out from behind a big bush and yell, “Sex police. You’re busted.”
They both jerk up in surprise into a seated position. Fallon quickly covers her briefly exposed chest with the blanket before she brings her other hand to her mouth and cries, “Oh my god,” before tears flood her blue eyes. “Kennedy, I’m so sorry. I wanted to tell you. I…I—”
“It’s my fault,” my father interrupts as he hangs his head in shame. “Don’t be upset with Fallon. She loves you and the relationship you’ve formed. You can blame me. You already hate me.”
The blanket is pooled at his waist, but Fallon is clutching her side up for dear life. They look like teens who were busted in the act. If I wasn’t so confused and pissed, I’d probably laugh at this situation.
It’s almost comical how they’re both afraid of me right now and resorted directly to explanations without any other words spoken. I guess I’m kind of scary.
I silently grab a small chair and place it in front of their double lounge chair before taking a seat. I wish I had a flashlight to shine in their eyes like a police interrogation.
My father studies me carefully. “Why don’t you look surprised?”
“Oh, I’m surprised. But that surprise occurred an hour ago, when I was last here and watched you dancing and feeling her up. I left in tears when I realized the one mother figure in my life didn’t actually care for me at all. She was using me to get to you.”
They simultaneously shout, “That’s not true.”
My pointer finger toggles between them. “How long has this been going on?”
They look at each other and then back at me before my father answers, “I became interested in Fallon about a year ago. We didn’t start seeing each other until about seven months ago.”
I look at Fallon. “Made him work for it?”
She’s silent for a moment before admitting, “It’s complicated.”
“What’s not complicated,” I spit in response, “is that I met you six months ago. Probably not a coincidence.”
My dad starts to open his mouth, but Fallon grabs his arm. “I can speak for myself, love.”
He nods and wraps his arm around her as a show of support. They’re quite obviously more than fuck buddies.
She begins, “Your father and I were already talking when Sulley approached me about the job. She pursued me, not the other way around. You can ask her. That’s exactly what happened.”
I kind of remember Sulley referencing the same around that time, so I don’t question it.
She continues, “I was on the fence because of you. I wanted the job, it affords me a better homelife than my last, but things were complicated enough between you and your dad. I wasn’t sure if it was the right thing to do.
After talking to your dad about it, we agreed I would take the job.
Did I seek you out to try to get to know you?
Honestly? Yes. Did I plan on us becoming as close as we’ve become?
No. That happened naturally. And so you know, I would never betray any of your confidences to your father. ”
She widens her eyes at the last part, letting me know that she hasn’t told him about Daylen or the baby.
I nod in understanding. The admission softens things a bit for me. At least I don’t feel like she was some sort of spy or anything.
My father nods in agreement. “I don’t know what you two talk about, but I do know you are in desperate need of a mother figure in your life.
It’s something you missed out on, and I was happy to hear you found it in Fallon.
I’ve never met a better mother than her, certainly leaps and bounds above the hand you were dealt.
I love that you have her in your life. You’ve been lost for so long, but there have been so many positive changes in you since you moved back into town.
I have no doubt having Fallon in your life has played at least some part in that. ”
Interesting. It’s the first time he’s ever ragged on my mother, indirectly or not.
He continues, “Fallon wanted to tell you—she’s been wanting to tell you for a long while—but I was afraid you’d clam up like you have for the past ten years.”
“Can you blame me?” I yell in frustration. Why is he always so nonchalant about my mother’s behavior? We’ve never discussed it. Not once.
He visibly swallows. “I’m sure it was traumatic walking in on your mother having an affair, but you turned your back on all of us after that day.”
“An affair?” I ask with incredulity. “It was way more than that, don’t you think?”
Confusion crosses both their faces as they look at each other with creased brows and then at me. Holy shit. They have no idea what I’m talking about.
“Do you know who she had an affair with, Dad?”
He shakes his head. “She never said. I assumed some stranger she met. She never let on that it was anyone we knew.” His eyes widen. “Did you know the man?”
I bark out a laugh. Of course my mother lied to me about telling him everything. Why would I ever think otherwise?
“Does the name Nick Castillo ring a bell, Dad?”
I can see on his face that he’s running through names and faces in his head, unable to find the answer.
He sucks in a breath the moment it hits him.
“Your boyfriend? That older college guy you were dating who I wanted to choke to death every time he walked into the house with a smug smile like it was normal for a twenty-year-old to date a sixteen-year-old?”
I nod once. “Ding, ding, ding. You’ve won a prize,” I announce like a game show host. “I didn’t walk into my house, my safe haven, my home, and see my mother having sex with a stranger.
I walked in and found her getting railed from behind by my boyfriend.
On my kitchen table. The same place I used to do my homework.
The same guy I lost my virginity to a few weeks earlier. ”
Teardrops fall in rapid succession from Fallon’s eyes. She breathes my name while my father sits silently, looking like a deer in headlights. He’s not faking this. He genuinely didn’t know.
Reality eventually hits him too, and tears trickle from his eyes, nearly matching hers.