15 | Hey, Dad
My father started talking about the stripped-down recording before I had finished making my breathing sound normal.
The label loved it. They liked the restraint in the arrangement, the heavier bass opening, the way the song sounded live without losing its shape. He repeated several comments I had already read in the email, but hearing them in his voice made the approval feel more official.
I stood beside the hot tub with a towel clutched around my naked body while Kadir adjusted his swim trunks several feet away.
Professional success had rarely arrived under less professional circumstances.
“That’s great,” I said.
Leo leaned against the table behind me, biting the inside of his cheek so visibly that I wanted to hit him with the phone.
Wesley had turned away, shoulders moving with silent laughter.
Kadir looked less entertained. He was calm enough to fool anyone who hadn’t watched him pull out of me less than a minute earlier, but his jaw remained tight.
My father continued talking as though nothing unusual was happening.
“I’m flying into Los Angeles tomorrow. I figured I’d stop by the lodge retreat on the way.”
He said it casually.
My father discussed redirecting a private plane from New York to Colorado before continuing to California the way normal people mentioned stopping for coffee.
There was no concern about cost, scheduling, pilots, or weather.
He wanted to see his daughter, therefore several professionals and a multimillion-dollar aircraft would adjust.
“You’re coming here?”
Leo silently mouthed, Tomorrow?
I turned away from him.
“Yeah, just for a few hours,” my father said. “Hear what you’re doing in person. See the place.”
There it was.
The part where the visit became an inspection while remaining wrapped in enough parental concern that objecting would make me sound paranoid.
“You don’t need to check on me. We’ve already finished two tracks. The label has both recordings, and the band is working together.”
I glanced over my shoulder as I said it.
Wesley had moved beside Leo. The two of them were silently arguing over who had ruined the moment. Leo pointed at Kadir. Kadir responded with one raised middle finger.
I had everything handled, provided my father’s definition of handled didn’t include the previous fifteen minutes.
“I know you’re doing your job,” he said.
“Then you don’t need to fly here.”
“I’m already flying west.”
“Colorado isn’t exactly on the way to California in the way that you make it sound.”
“It can be.”
That was the kind of answer only rich people gave with confidence.
Behind me, Leo stepped between Kadir and Wesley and began pantomiming the hot-tub scene. He pointed at Kadir, then the table, then made a dramatic thrusting motion that caused Wesley to cover his mouth with both hands.
I turned toward the windows before my father heard me commit a murder.
“I don’t need supervision,” I said again.
“I want to see you, Dasha.”
His voice softened.
That was another skill he possessed. He could move from executive to father inside a single sentence and make me feel guilty for continuing an argument that had started under different terms.
“I’ve barely seen you these past few months,” he said. “I want to visit my daughter. Is that not allowed?”
The question landed exactly where he intended.
It was manipulative. At least partially. He knew I couldn’t say no without sounding as though spending several hours with him was an unreasonable burden. He also sounded sincere enough that I couldn’t dismiss it as strategy.
My father hovered. He inserted himself into my career, offered advice I never requested, and had spent most of my adult life making it nearly impossible to determine which opportunities I had earned without him.
He also loved me.
“Of course it’s allowed.”
Leo lowered his hands in a silent display of disappointment.
My father said he would arrive around noon. He promised not to stay long, which meant anything between two hours and the remainder of the week depending on whether he found a reason to extend the visit.
We spoke for another minute about the flight and the weather. I kept my responses short while trying not to look at the table. The polished wooden surface had acquired a new and horrifying place in my memory.
Leo noticed where I was looking and smiled.
Then he silently mouthed, Daddy.
Wesley grabbed him from behind and clamped one hand over his mouth.
A laugh escaped me before I could stop it.
My father paused. “What?”
“Nothing. Wesley dropped something.”
Wesley nodded rapidly as though my father could see him.
Leo licked the center of his palm.
Wesley recoiled and nearly slipped on the wet stone floor.
Kadir caught his arm before he fell, then looked at me with a quiet amusement that made the entire situation worse.
I managed to finish the call without further disaster.
“Love you,” my father said.
“Love you too.”
I ended the call and lowered the phone.
Silence lasted less than one second.
Wesley folded forward laughing. Leo dropped into one of the patio chairs, completely losing whatever restraint he had been pretending to possess. Even Kadir covered his mouth to laugh.
I clutched the towel tighter.
“That was so fucking humiliating.”
Leo struggled to sit upright. “Your voice.”
“What about my voice?”
He straightened his posture, placed one hand delicately against his chest, and spoke in a high-pitched voice. “‘Hey, Dad. Everything is completely normal. Nobody is naked. I have never seen a penis.’”
Wesley laughed harder.
“I sounded professional.”
“You sounded like a hostage reading a statement.”
“At least I answered the phone.”
Kadir looked toward the table. “You were in the best position for it.”
I stared at him.
The smile finally appeared without shame, which offended me more than anything Leo had said. Kadir had been responsible for most of the problem and still managed to stand there looking composed while I defended my career wrapped in a wet towel.
“You’re all children.”
“You liked us ten minutes ago,” Wesley said.
“Clearly, that was a mistake.”
Leo stood and moved closer. “You were very clear about what you wanted.”
My face heated despite everything.
“I am begging you never to mention my father and what happened out here in the same conversation again.”
“Agreed,” Wesley said immediately.
Leo considered it. “What about separate conversations with very little time between them?”
I shoved his shoulder.
He caught my wrist, laughing, and the absurdity finally reached me.
I had been seconds from an orgasm when my father called to announce a surprise visit.
Leo thought I had developed a sudden parental kink.
Wesley had tried to volunteer the group for it.
Kadir had been inside me while discussing nothing because he had briefly forgotten how words worked.
It was horrible.
It was also funny.
I started laughing before I wanted to. Once it began, I couldn’t stop. Wesley leaned against the table for support. Leo wrapped an arm around my shoulders, partly affectionate and partly to prevent me from escaping while he continued imitating my calm phone voice.
Even Kadir laughed quietly when Leo repeated, “I have everything handled,” and gestured toward the abandoned bikini bottoms on the floor.
The humor faded gradually.
My father was still coming tomorrow.
I stepped away from Leo and adjusted the towel around myself.
“Okay. You guys need to be on your best behavior.”
Wesley nodded with exaggerated seriousness.
“I mean it. Shirts stay on. Nobody mentions the hot tub, my sex life, the tour video, the word daddy, or any surface in this house.”
Leo glanced at the table.
“Especially that one. Please. I’m serious.”
He smiled. “You were the one asking Kadir to fuck you five minutes ago. Now you’re worried about us being professional?”
The laughter left me so quickly that the porch felt colder.
Leo’s expression changed when he saw mine.
He had meant it as another joke. Under different circumstances, it might have worked. Instead, it reached every fear I had been holding beneath the relief of the label’s response.
“That is exactly the problem.”
I turned away from them and gathered my robe from the chair. My hands felt clumsy as I shoved my arms into the sleeves over the wet towel.
My father would arrive, listen to the songs, and tell me I had done excellent work. He might tell the label the retreat had succeeded. He might recommend me for another artist, another difficult project, another opportunity that would arrive with his name attached to it.
Everyone would congratulate me.
I would know I had slept with the entire band.
“I just wanted one thing that was mine,” I said under my breath.
The men quieted.
I stared through the glass at the snow instead of looking at them. “He gave me this assignment. He introduced me to half the people I’ve worked for. Every time something goes well, I have to wonder whether I earned it or whether everyone is being nice because of him.”
My father had never ordered anyone to hire me. At least, not that I knew of. He didn’t need to. His recommendation opened doors that remained closed to most people. Then I walked through them and spent years trying to prove I belonged there.
“It doesn’t matter what you do with us,” Leo said. “You still did the work.”
“You’re benefiting from keeping me happy.”
Kadir’s expression hardened.
“I played the bass line for you before anything happened in the studio.”
He spoke calmly, but the distinction mattered to him. I had heard the idea, pushed him to preserve it, and convinced him to bring it to the others before he touched me that night.
Wesley moved closer, though he stopped short of putting his hands on me.
“You backed my rhythm because it worked,” he said. “I know you liked me before that. You still told me when I was being too careful.”
“You tell us all when we’re being idiots,” Kadir added.
Leo rubbed one hand over the back of his neck and looked toward the hot tub. Being serious seemed physically uncomfortable for him.
“You stopped me from changing Kadir’s song,” he said. “I hated your method. But it worked.”
The admission was small, reluctant. Coming from Leo, it carried more weight than a speech would have.
That didn’t erase the problem. My father could still discover the arrangement. Fans could identify me. The label could decide every successful moment at the lodge had been compromised.
But the men didn’t sound as though they were protecting my feelings.
They sounded certain.
Wesley picked up my towel from the floor and draped it over one arm. “Can we go inside before you freeze while having a career crisis?”
Kadir collected the wine bottles.
Leo opened the door and held it for me with exaggerated courtesy.
I walked inside before he could say anything that destroyed the effect.
Wesley turned on the fireplace while I went upstairs long enough to change into dry clothes. By the time I returned, the living room had transformed into the lodge version of emergency emotional care.
The fire had caught behind the glass. My favorite blanket waited on the couch. Kadir stood in the kitchen heating milk on the stove. Wesley carried wet towels from the porch toward the laundry room.
Leo sat in front of the fireplace doing nothing.
I lowered myself beside him. “You’re not helping them?”
“I am.”
“With what?”
“Keeping you entertained.”
The arrogance was familiar enough to be comforting.
He stretched one leg toward the fire and glanced at me. Without the sunglasses and stage posture, he looked nicer. Less like the version of himself the label used in promotional photographs.
“Tomorrow will be fine,” he said. “Your father will hear the songs. He’ll see we haven’t killed each other. Kadir might even speak in full sentences if we prepare him.”
From the kitchen, Kadir said, “I can hear you.”
I narrowed my eyes on Leo. “You’re being… nice?”
“Don’t get used to it.” Leo leaned closer. “Besides, if I stop being an arrogant asshole, how am I supposed to upset you enough to bring out the manager voice?”
“There’s gotta be healthier options.”
Kadir brought four mugs of hot chocolate into the living room. He handed me mine with a calm smile.
Wesley and Kadir went back to cleaning while Leo remained beside me, periodically claiming that his emotional labor excused him from performing manual tasks.
The lodge slowly returned to something my father could enter without immediately discovering evidence of group sex. Towels disappeared. Wineglasses reached the kitchen. The hot-tub cover went back into place. Wesley wiped down the table without knowing why I watched him do it with horror.
By the time my drink was gone, the panic had softened into ordinary dread.
That was manageable.
I stood and collected my mug.
“I’m going to bed.”
Wesley hugged me carefully. Leo remained stretched across the couch and told me to practice looking innocent.
I went upstairs.
My room waited at the end of the hallway. I made it halfway there before slowing near Kadir’s door.
A narrow line of light showed beneath it.
My father had interrupted the evening. My professional crisis had ended it. Somewhere between the hot tub and the fireplace, Kadir had quietly put on clothes, cleaned the porch, and made me hot chocolate without mentioning the fact that I had left him painfully unfinished.
I knocked once.
“Come in.”
Kadir sat against the headboard with a book open in one hand. He had changed into dark lounge pants and nothing else. His gaze moved over me as I entered, then settled on my face.
I closed the door behind me.
“I think we have unfinished business.”
The book lowered.
Kadir’s attention sharpened with the same patient focus he had given me in the studio and against the table downstairs.
I crossed the room and climbed onto his bed.