33. Cool Dad
Cool Dad
Desdemona
The air is so cold it burns a little when I breathe it in, opening my lungs up wide. Around the tennis court, the frost hasn’t quite melted off the grass, but the sun is out and the sky is a startling, cloudless blue—my favourite colour.
This is also my favourite weather for tennis: the air feels light and hard, the ball cuts clean and sharp, and the cold keeps you moving without ever letting you get sluggish.
“Come on, Dess!” Dad calls from the other side of the net, his breath puffing out in the crisp air. “If this is your A game, I might actually win one for once.”
I snort and serve so hard and fast he has to leap backwards to return it—which he does without fumbling.
Dad never fumbles. It’s one of the things I’ve always loved about playing against him, ever since I was a little girl: no matter how tired he is, or how many mistakes he makes, he always puts up a proper fight.
“Keep dreaming!” I call back, whacking the ball with a clean, short arc of my arms.
He laughs, head thrown back, boyish despite the silver hair peppering the gold at his temples. Some of my earliest memories are of afternoons like this: Dad’s jubilant laughter, the satisfying thwack of the ball against the strings, the bright blue sky and the clean green court.
Even now, all these years later, now that my serves are faster and my forehand sharper than his, there’s still something childishly comforting about the rhythm of it—the back and forth, the muscle memory, the bond between us that feels like a string of muscle connecting us.
“You’re getting slow, old man,” I call as he lunges for a return and finally misses.
“Old?” he exclaims, but he’s grinning, eyes the same colour as the sky, cheeks flushed pink from exertion. “I’ll have you know I’m still in my prime.”
I laugh. I feel free and young and light as I move up and down the court, trading points and barbs, beautiful and perfect in Dad’s eyes in a way I can never quite achieve when I’m away from him. At Spearcrest, I’m only ever pretending to be perfect, and I never, ever feel like I am.
Around Dad, I never even have to try to still feel like it.
After the game, when we sit by our bags to catch our breath and drink water, Dad tosses me a snack bar and says without prelude, “So. Are you going to tell me about this boy or am I supposed to drag it out of you?”
I almost choke on my water, eyes widening.
“That donation to the Pearsons didn’t seem very you, that’s all, especially given how they, uh, redistribute donations. Your mum’s been looking into it. But I’m not all that interested in the Pearsons—it’s the Lennox boy I want to know about.”
He catches the expression on my face and shrugs.
“What? Don’t tell me you’ve been buying the whole cool dad act I’ve had going on.” He rolls his eyes. “That was just to spare you embarrassment. You should know by now that I’m not a cool dad.”
“I’m sure you could be, if you put your mind to it,” I tell him, smiling into my water bottle, hoping the flush of exertion in my cheeks will hide the blush growing there.
“Nah,” Dad says, finishing his snack bar in a huge bite.
“I was never cool when it came to your mother, and I’ll never, ever be cool when it comes to you.
” He swallows his mouthful and tilts his head almost thoughtfully.
“The opposite, actually. I love you so much I think I could kill for you—no, I know I would.” And then he shakes his head fondly and says, “Crazy, isn’t it?
But anyway—back to the matter of this boy. ”
“Do not kill him,” I tell him immediately.
His eyes narrow, a glint in the amused blue. “Would I have any reason to?”
“No.” I shake my head, my laughter weak in my throat, a giggle that makes me feel like I’m a little girl again. “Don’t be insane about this, Dad, please. Be normal, alright?”
“Alright.” He nods in an unconvincing iteration of obedience—a look he’s perfected against Mum over the years. “I’m listening. Normally.”
I lick my lips, gathering my legs to my chest, flicking a fleck of dust off my pristine white trainers.
“So he’s from Spearcrest—as you know. He’s there on a scholarship, like Mum was, so he’s not… What I mean is that he transferred late, so he’s not like… he’s…”
“Different,” Dad says. “Not a Spearcrest kid—something else.” He tilts his head. “He stands out?”
“Yes—and no. It’s like…” I gesture helplessly, feeling off-kilter and awkward as I try to explain myself.
“It’s like he was late to a game everyone already knew how to play, and he didn’t have any of the pieces he needed to win.
And the rest of the players didn’t even realise he was playing, they just thought he was something on the board.
But—” I swallow, thinking, for the first time, of how Elias must have felt when he started at Spearcrest, how utterly outmatched and alienated he must’ve felt.
“But instead of getting away from the game or ignoring the players, he just got to work, learning the rules, gathering pieces and tokens, trying different moves. And now he’s…
he’s a player, playing at a disadvantage and sort of—winning? ”
“Winning what?” Dad asks. His tone is open and curious, not judgemental like I expected, or even confused. “Winning you?”
Yes—the bargain, my money scattered on his bedroom floor, his arm around my waist at the Cyprian, him sitting on my desk chair in the head girl study, the Inquisitor writing about him, the Brotherhood and the parties, all the girls paying attention to him, the new hot commodity.
“No.” I shake my head, a lump in my throat.
No—the footage of Elias trying to protect the kids in the foster care, fighting two big kids at once, being dragged away by grown adults, and the photos of Elias at the charity gala, his ill-fitting clothes and protruding bones, the Pearsons handling him like an object, the caption From Broken to Brilliant.
Elias’s eyes in the darkness of Dominic House Observatory, the light of dying stars trickling from above us, the words he spoke that night.
Don’t fall for me, Desdemona Sutton-Knight, and I won’t fall for you.
“It’s complicated,” I tell Dad finally, throat tight.
“How?”
“You wouldn’t get it.”
Dad lets out a bark of laughter that startles me. I look up, watching his amusement puff out of his mouth in the cold air, his eyes narrowed, the skin crinkling around them.
“Oh, Dess, if only you knew.” He shakes his head. “Let me ask you a different question, then.” He sobers and leans forward, arms resting on his raised knees. “You like this boy, yes or no?”
So, so much. Far more than I ever thought I could. Far more than I know I should.
So much that it can’t possibly be wise or clever.
So much that this can only end in disaster.
“Yes.”
“What do you like about him?”
I don’t even need to think about that one.
“He’s strong, and clever, and confident. He’s not like anyone I’ve ever met, ever. He makes me want to outsmart him and outmatch him, even though I technically should have every advantage over him.” I bite into my lower lip. “I lo—I like that he laughs a lot.”
Dad nods, as if what I’m saying isn’t completely lame and random. He gazes at me and I peek up at him, blinking rapidly.
“You must think I’ve gone completely insane.”
He laughs. “Worse than that, Dess.” He stands up, still sprightly given he’s been complaining of having a dodgy knee for the past five years. “You, my daughter, are in love.”
My heart tightens, closes up like a fist, punches right through my chest. For a single moment, I’m left reeling, breath short.
I think of the black hole that is love, the event horizon that was the night of the gala or the night of the Halloween party or maybe even the night at the Cyprian, and of being dragged into darkness without having to fight—without wanting to.
Then Dad gives me his hand and I take it, letting him haul me up to my feet despite not needing his help.
“I feel like a total loser,” I tell him, a different version of the truth, which is that I’m scared, absolutely petrified.
“Well, if it helps, your mum thought I was a total loser too and she still married me,” Dad replies.
And then, instead of walking away or grabbing our things, he stands right in front of me, taking my cheeks in his hands and forcing me to look up at him.
“So you like this boy, and it’s pretty obvious from the way he looks at you that he likes you back. That’s not so complicated, is it?”
I swallow hard. For a moment, a flood of words rises to my throat, and I have the overwhelming urge to let it all out. All of it, the ugly, reckless truth: me and Elias; the bargain and the rules; the gala and the Pearsons; the dying star and the black hole.
But if I told him all of that, then I’d have to tell him about why I went to Elias in the first place—what he owes me, and what the twins did, and—
Ophelia.
Dad’s youngest child. My parents’ favourite daughter, and everyone’s favourite sibling.
Whom I failed to protect.
I nod, shoulders slumping in defeat. “You’re right, Dad. It’s just… it’s not easy.”
Dad smiles, tender and thoughtful. “Loving someone?”
My heart skips a beat.
“Trusting them,” I say.
“Ah, yes. But the two are so easy to mistake, aren’t they?”
I nod but can’t bring myself to say anything, because I do trust Elias, who’s only ever been honest about what he wants from me and what he’s trying to achieve, and only ever hidden things from me out of fear or vulnerability, like his past in foster care or the physics thing with Mr Mazzati.
At my expression, Dad laughs softly.
“My sweet girl.” He guides my head down and presses a kiss to the top of my hair. “If anybody’s going to figure this out, it’s going to be you.” He tips my chin up to him once more. “Whatever you do, don’t ever let fear hold you back from the things you want. You’ll only ever regret it.”
Maybe he’s right, and it really is that simple. But it doesn’t feel simple at all.
It feels like standing on the baseline, racket poised, waiting for a ball I may not be able to return.