Chapter Ten #2
So what if he doesn’t think I’m sexy? Cute is…
okay. It isn’t as if he called me an ogre and made Shrek jokes.
I like myself, even if it took me a while to get there after my body started changing.
I’m pretty, if not a little average. I may not be tall or leggy of society’s standards of skinny, but I’ve got nice curves and boobs that still have a little perkiness to them, and my butt isn’t flat.
But if Bodhi has a specific type that he thinks is sexy, and he considers me lesser in comparison, that doesn’t bode well for me.
Wait. Why do I care?
Nope.
I don’t.
I. Don’t. Care.
“Honor,” he says, the tips of his skates coming into my line of vision. “Look at me.”
It’s hard, but I do.
“I have a lot of thoughts when it comes to you,” he states matter-of-factly.
“But I’m trying to be a gentleman. You don’t even want me calling you honey, so I’m making sure I’m careful of what I say.
But make no mistake. I think you’re gorgeous.
You’re caring. You dedicated. You’re a lot of things.
And I’m looking forward to learning more about what those are. ”
Now I’m really blushing.
He jabs his finger behind him. “I’ve got to get back out there and finish up some drills with Henderson and Grayson. But we’ll talk later. Okay?”
I nod, tugging on the hem of my shirt nervously. “Okay.” My voice comes out higher than normal, and his lips spread like he hears it too.
Ugh. I’m so lame.
“Okay,” he repeats, backing toward the rink.
“Okay,” I say again, wincing.
He laughs. “You already said that.”
I don’t allow myself to say anything else, so I turn around and click my tongue for Puck to follow me.
The entire way back to my office, I realize I’m in trouble. Because Bodhi and I never labeled what this is, which means we didn’t label what it isn’t. And the line between the two is thin.
*
My father shows up at my office long after Karina goes home.
In fact, I thought I was the last one here trying to sort through the digital files from my camera of the last game and upload them to my desktop.
I shouldn’t be surprised that he’s still lingering too.
One of the many complaints my mother had about him was how much of a workaholic he is.
“I thought you went home,” I tell him, rubbing my eyes and turning away from the photo album I’ve been working on for the last hour and a half.
He lifts a plastic bag with a big smiley face on the front that smells like… “Chinese?” he asks, walking in and setting the takeout onto the corner of my desk. “I haven’t seen you leave yet, so I figured there was a safe bet you haven’t had dinner. I got your usual.”
My usual. When was the last time I had Chinese with him? At seventeen years old? Maybe eighteen? But the second he pulls out the shrimp and snow peas, and then the shrimp fried rice, my stomach rumbles to life.
He remembers my usual.
I smile a little when he pulls out a container for himself. “Let me guess. Boneless spare ribs?”
He flashes me a sheepish smile as he opens the white cardboard box revealing the ribs inside. Out of anything he could have gotten on the menu, it’s always that. “I’m consistent, if nothing else,” he answers with a shrug.
I grab one of the plastic forks that came with the food and start poking at the shrimp. “At least its protein,” I remark, unknowing of what else to say. Before Sylvia, we lived on takeout. It’s a wonder I still love pizza so much considering how much of it I consumed growing up.
We’re quiet as we pick at our dinner. Conversations have always felt forced with my father. Neither of us seems to know the right words when it comes to our relationship.
He clears his throat a few minutes in, and I notice his eyes on the basket of goods still sitting on the edge of my desk.
“You’ve been spending a lot of time with Hoffman lately,” he mentions.
The way he says it is plain, simple. Yet, there’s something in his tone that I can’t put a finger on.
It isn’t suspicion, but I don’t know what it is.
“Have I?” I ask, spearing a piece of snow pea and staring into the abyss of my takeout container.
The sound I’m rewarded with is a cross between a chuckle and snort. Like he’s amused by my evasion of his statement. “If I thought he had bad intentions, I wouldn’t have introduced him into your life.”
He doesn’t know the brief history I share with his player, so I don’t point out that he isn’t the one to introduce us.
Fate is. A little Irish pub with greasy food is.
“Why did you ask him to meet me at the aquarium. I don’t really need anybody to show me around the city I grew up in. Not much has changed.”
“That’s debatable,” he mutters.
Furrowing my brows, I stop eating. “What is that supposed to mean?”
He peers up at me as if he didn’t realize he said that out loud. “Your mother didn’t exactly raise you here. Do you remember how many times I had to call her to figure out where you two were in the state?”
I vaguely remember the heated conversations my mother would have with him while she drove us to some random man’s house who “was going to change our lives”.
Even then, I knew that wasn’t true. I used to whine on car trips like that, telling her I wanted to be home or with Mila.
If I’d known she’d take that to heart and go on her own for extended periods of time, maybe I would have been more careful about what I wished for.
“She liked to…travel,” I offer weakly. I’m not sure why I’m trying to defend her. It isn’t like I’m her biggest fan either.
Mom walked away from their marriage getting a good chunk of child support a month from Dad, keeping an apartment in Brooklyn that was subpar at best because the custody agreement made it impossible for her to move out of state with whatever guy she was at the time.
Without that legality in the way, she probably would have bolted the second the papers were signed.
She loved upstate New York and the New England States.
God only knows where we would have wound up.
I’m not keen on talking about her or the sordid past we share. “My point is that you didn’t need to ask Bodhi to meet me there. So why did you?”
One of his shoulders lifts casually. “I thought you needed a good guy in your life considering the last one was a dick.”
He… what? “You met Max once.”
He pins me with an unimpressed look, his lips pressed into a thin line as if he’s recalling their encounter. “And during that one and only time, he asked me for tickets to the playoff game while wearing a Bruins hat.”
I wince. I told Max that it was a bad idea, but he wouldn’t listen. I can’t even defend my ex-husband to my father because it was a dick move. What made it worse was that the playoffs were between Dad’s team and the Bruins, which was Max’s favorite.
“Yeah, that was…” My words fade, and I flinch again. “He was an idiot. But that doesn’t mean I need my father introducing me to other men. I literally just finalized my divorce.”
His eyebrows go up. “I’m not trying to set you up, kid. I’m simply trying to show you that there are good men out there. And…” He pauses, poking a piece of his dinner before sighing. “I suppose I want to give you a reason to stay.”
I blink. Pause. And then blink again.
“Just because Max and I didn’t work out doesn’t mean I don’t know that men better than him exist,” I reassure him. “He hurt me, sure, but I’m not that shutoff to reality.”
My father sets his food down and scratches the side of his neck. “I feel like I have a lot to make up for. I sure as hell wasn’t the best role model on what a father figure should be, which means I didn’t show you what men should be like. That’s on me.”
Snorting before I can help myself earns me a puzzled look.
“Sorry,” I apologize, shaking my head and wiping my mouth with a napkin.
“I don’t mean to laugh because that’s actually really thoughtful.
But that is some Sigmund Freud level shit.
Sure, you weren’t in my life as much as I wanted you to be.
Maybe even needed you to be. And since you’re bringing it up, that means you probably talked to Sylvia. ”
He doesn’t confirm or deny it.
So, I go on. “But just because you were a busy father, doesn’t mean it made me choose some asshole to marry. My choice to be with Max had no reflection of you. That would be daddy issues times ten.”
My father’s cheeks darken, but he otherwise keeps his composure. “So, for the record, you’re not dating Bodhi Hoffman?” he asks.
What is with people talking to me about dating Bodhi? “No. Are you forgetting the part where I mentioned that I just finalized my divorce? I’m not the type of person to jump from one relationship to another. I’m not Mom.”
He’s quiet for a second, then nods in acknowledgement. “I know you’re not, kid. Trust me,” he says quietly. “But if you do end up starting something with him—”
I grab my shrimp. “Just eat your food” I cut him off, trying not to blush. Because I really don’t want to talk about the potential future of my dating life with my father.
“—then I’d approve,” he finishes anyway. “I want you to be happy, Honor. To have the kind of love that…” He stops himself and takes a deep breath.
The kind of love that he has with Sylvia, I realize is what he’s going to say.
It doesn’t make me feel bitter or mad or sad like it would have if I were a child. If anything, I find the sentiment kind of…sweet.
I glance up at him through my lashes.
He’s watching me, his throat bobbing with something that he’s holding back.
I let out a small breath. “Noted. Can we please eat now?”
A small smile tugs at his lips. “Yeah. We can eat.”