Chapter 28
TWENTY-EIGHT
Elizabeth
It took quite a bit of coercion from Mona for me to make the decision to see my father.
It’s not even that I don’t want to see him, but I’m nervous.
The last time I saw him, it did not end well.
I hated to see the disappointment in his eyes, while I was also shocked about how determined he was to ruin my relationship with Logan.
What Leyla told me yesterday threw me for a loop.
If what she said is in fact correct, my father helped Logan to get a better position in the league, knowing that he would not have had much of a chance of advancement while still with the Sliders.
He actually believed in him, and he thought he was a good goalie who just needed the opportunity to prove himself.
But it still doesn’t make sense that he disliked him so much for his own daughter.
It makes me realize how immature I’ve been about life in general.
In my opinion, and I’m sure he would disagree with that, leaving home and trying to survive on my own, has been the smartest decision I could’ve made.
It’s taught me so much in a very short period of time.
Now that I can look at things from a different perspective, I have to agree with what Logan told me when I was devastated about losing my job. It truly was a lesson in life.
I still don’t know what I want to say to my father.
On one hand, I want to thank him for the life he gave me and for helping Logan with his position on the Aces.
On the other hand, I want to lash out at him that he never trusted me to make any decisions on my own.
It makes me think that he never actually took me seriously.
I realize with a start that I’ve been standing in front of the door of my father‘s house for quite some time now. I took an Uber here, and after it dropped me off, I just wanted a minute to compose myself. Now I realize that it’s been ten minutes, and I’m still in the same spot.
I didn’t tell him that I was coming, but based on my conversations with Leyla, I’m pretty sure she told him that she talked to me.
Taking a shuddering breath in, I raise my hand and make a fist with it before banging it softly against the hard surface of the door.
I hold my breath as I wait for someone to answer. When I hear footsteps from the other side, I feel absolutely sick to my stomach. I take another deep breath in just as the door starts opening. My father looms over me like a dark angel.
As I take him in, I’m surprised by how casual he looks.
He’s wearing a white T-shirt, paired with light wash jeans and athletic shoes on his feet.
For most of my life, he wore suits. Even when he did wear jeans, they were always the very expensive type and most definitely pressed.
The ones he’s wearing now or no brand name, they’re as plain as they come.
He looks younger than his fifty-two years.
“Elizabeth,” he says, in his always gruff tone of voice. “Are you going to stand outside for the rest of the evening? Are you here to talk to me, or… Just to stare at the door?”
Snapping out of it, I roll my eyes at what he just said.
“I didn’t know you had this kind of sense of humor, daddy,” I tease him.
He clears his throat, looking self-aware. “It seems that I developed one since the last time you were here,” he says.
My eyebrows go up in surprise, wondering what could’ve caused him to become this relaxed. He’s always been tense and driven, focused only on the task at hand. But the man in front of me seems different.
“I would like to come in,” I tell him in a slightly timid voice. “If you’re okay with it.”
He takes a couple of steps back to allow me entrance. “More than,” he murmurs softly.
I walk inside the home I grew up in, expecting to find it the same as I left it. But there’s a different vibe to it, something I can’t put my finger on. It looks light and airy, it feels like a happy place.
When we walk into the large sitting room, I notice new white curtains adorning the large windows. We used to always just have shades that would go up and down at the touch of a button.
“Wow,” I say in awe when I look around the rest of the room. “You got new furniture in here.”
Raising his arm to run his fingers through his still thick hair, he looks away almost in embarrassment. “Yeah, it was time for some changes.”
“It looks really good,” I tell him. “I really like it.”
“Good, that’s good,” he says. “Have a seat. Do you want anything to drink?”
I walk over to the new white couch and sit down, loving the way my body sinks into the cushions.
“This is awesome,” I giggle. “So comfortable!”
My father watches me for a few moments, the beginning of a smile forming in the corner of his lips. He has the same look on his face that he used to get every time he would see me happy about something while I was growing up. Drinks forgotten, he comes and sits in the chair that’s across from me.
Once I am over the amazing feel of the new couch, the air around us seems to change. There’s the hint of a little bit of tension floating around, and I get nervous again, wishing that maybe I should’ve skipped this visit.
“I’ve been talking to Leyla a lot lately,” I start the conversation.
His eyebrows go up in surprise, much in the same way that mine always do. He doesn’t say anything, but there’s obvious curiosity showing in his eyes.
“She is really nice,” I continue. “I never talked to her much before, and I wish I had taken the time to get to know her better.”
He clears his throat and looks away. “Leyla is a great communicator,” he agrees, but that’s all he’s willing to say about her. My curiosity is definitely piqued.
“She really seems invested in wanting us to reconnect,” I add.
He turns his intense eyes on me. “You don’t sound like you agree with that.”
I look away, confused about so many things, especially by how our connection broke the moment that he learned about Logan.
“I missed you a lot while I was away,” I confess to him. “It was really hard at first. Getting a job was… awful.”
He starts laughing when he hears that. He shakes his head at me, looking like he might want to say something, but then he changes his mind.
“I’m laughing about it now, too,” I tell him. “But I cried a lot when I lost that job. I cried even harder when I realized that people my age had been working for a lot longer, and that I really didn’t know how to survive on my own.”
He seems to take offense to that. “Elizabeth,” he says, “I’ve always wanted what was best for you. I wanted you to make good choices and be happy. I didn’t want you to have to struggle.”
“I understand, daddy, but at some point, you have to let me fly on my own.”
“People have been telling me that,” he smirks.
I stare at him for a few long seconds, wondering how I should approach the subject of Logan. In the end, I decide that I got nothing to lose.
“Leyla told me what you did for Logan.”
There’s a hint of surprise in his eyes, but his face remains otherwise expressionless.
“She told me that you negotiated his contract with the Aces. That you thought he deserved to play in a better position than what he had on your team.”
He continues watching me with apprehension, waiting to see where I’m going with this.
“Why?” I finally ask the question that’s been eating at me since Leyla gave me the deeds.
My father gets more comfortable in his chair in an effort to prolong the tension. That’s the only explanation I can come up with.
“Why what?”
I shake my head at him. “You know exactly what I’m asking you, daddy.”
“I do…” He rests his arms on the sides of the chair, looking regal and like the upper-class boss he’s always been. “All you need to know is that it was a business decision.”
I frown at that. “A business decision? Logan?”
“At the time, it was a good decision,” he adds. “I lived to regret it at a later date.”
I stare at him with disappointment obvious on my face.
“Let me guess,” I say. “You regretted it once I decided to leave to be with him.”
He doesn’t even try to lie about it. “That exact second.”
“Daddy…”
“I didn’t realize how serious you were about him,” he suddenly says. The tone of his voice is different. He sounds tired and weary. “I thought, out of sight, out of mind…”
Tears gather in the corners of my eyes. I hate the fact that I lied to him before.
“I’m sorry for not telling you about Logan from the very beginning,” I whisper as I wipe at my face. “He begged me not to keep it a secret from you. I just… I wanted to buy us more time because I knew you’d be mad about it. I just didn’t realize how mad you’d get.”
He nods at me in understanding and without arguing.
“I would’ve appreciated your honesty then,” he tells me. “Which is why I will be honest with you now.”
“Okay.” I brace myself for the worst.
“I liked Logan from the moment I met him. He had a lot of talent, and I could tell that he could get so much better with the right coaching.”
I shake my head in confusion. “But you got rid of him like he was nothing…”
“It wasn’t because of him that I removed him from my roster.”
I cross my arms across my body, unsure of what to do with my hands anymore. I feel fidgety and very confused.
“The reality is that my goalie coach was not a good fit for Logan, and the team manager didn’t think we really needed him, I was going to trade him no matter what.”
“But why?”
“Because I thought his talent would be wasted back in the minors. So I’d been looking for another team where I thought he could fit in. That’s how the Austin Aces came into play.”
I hold my breath as I listen to all this. I can’t believe my ears. All this time that Logan was so worried that my father would destroy his career while he was actually saving it.
“Why didn’t you tell Logan?”
“Players get traded and moved around all the time. I didn’t owe him an explanation.”
I can actually understand this part. I just feel differently about it because of the personal connection I have to the one player he sent away.
“You still tried to break us up when you came to Austin,” I remind him. “You were mean and condescending. To the both of us,” I make sure to add.
My father lets out a long sigh while his face is in a grimace.
“I will never get used to you being with a guy,” he says. “You’ll always be my little girl. I tried to protect you for so long…”
“Daddy,” I interrupt him. “I should be able to live my own life seeing that I am on my way to thirty and all. Besides…” I hesitate before saying this last part. “It’s not like Logan was my first…”
I blush to the roots of my hair, and I swear I see my father’s eye twitch.
“What I am trying to say is…” I clear my throat while looking anywhere but at him.
“I’m trying to say that I knew how to sneak out at a very young age.
But when I met Logan, I really fell in love.
I knew you would not be okay with it, and I convinced him to keep it a secret.
I wanted him all to myself… It was all me. ”
The breath leaves my body as soon as I get everything off my chest. I feel like I might just die of embarrassment because I’ve never had this type of conversation with my father, or with any adult that would have any authority over me.
“I can’t say that I’m happy with what I hear, Elizabeth,” he starts talking. “But I can finally accept the fact that you are too old for me to keep tabs on you, at least the way I was used to doing it.”
I give him a sad smile. “It didn’t help that I still ran around like a teenager.”
Because that’s the reality of it. It’s not just his fault for treating me like a kid while in my twenties, but me as well. I had it good, and I didn’t want to grow up.
Then, I met Logan. I wanted him. I thought everything would go my way, because it always did.
Reality smacked me in the face when I realized I had to get a job.
Since I used connections to get it, it wasn’t even that hard.
But then I lost it, and I panicked because I couldn’t come up with anything that would provide me with an income. Logan had to help me through it all.
“I really love him, daddy,” I whisper. “I know I acted immaturely, but this is not just an infatuation. I love him,” I repeat.
“I hear he broke up with you,” he says out of nowhere.
I swallow around the lump in my throat. “He told me to come back to you,” I tell him. “He said he couldn’t offer me the pampered life I deserved…”
I don’t think he actually used the word pampered, but he thinks I’m a princess he’s not worthy of.
“I just want to be deserving of him and his love. That’s all I want.”
He stares at me for the longest time without saying a word. He makes me uncomfortable with how intense his gaze is, and I can see why he’s been so successful in his business ventures.
“I was worried that he would be with you for the money he thought you had.”
I shake my head at him. “But you said you liked him.”
“I liked him as a hockey player. I didn’t know anything about his personality or goals in life. I didn’t want you to be his meal ticket.”
We lock eyes, but my vision becomes blurry from all the emotions I am feeling.
“I became his burden, and he was more than willing to take me on.”
“He’s definitely proved himself,” my father agrees. “And it’s not easy for me to admit it.”
Dropping my face in my hands, I start crying. My shoulders shake with the sobs leaving my body. At some point, my father stands up from his chair and drops to his hunches in front of me.
“I’m sorry I stood in the way of you living your life,” he tells me, which only causes me to cry harder. “I don’t wish to take it back, though, because it’s taught us all valuable lessons.”
Through the tears, I agree with him, even though I refuse to tell him so.
“I don’t want him to leave me,” I mumble against my hands. “And I don’t want him to quit playing hockey.”
My father pulls me into a hug and kisses the top of my hair.
“We’ll just have to change his mind. On all of it.”
I don’t ask what he means by that. But I am not against him helping get Logan back.