“What?
“The tights.”
I wasn’t going to wear them to dinner, but now I want to, just to piss Rich off. “Why don’t you let me choose my own friends and worry about how I come off to clients? Newsflash—I’m not one of those girls looking to date my dad, you shoulddefinitelyknow that by now.”
“I see. So you’re going to turn this argument into another of your dad’s faults. All I said was those tights are a bit sexy for work.”
After a long, in-your-face gulp of wine, I set down the empty glass and leave.
“Where are you going?” he asks.
I suddenly feel gross and sticky. “Shower.”
“I was going to shower,” he calls.
“I won’t be long.”
“We don’t have time. We’ll have to take one together.”
I start stripping in the bathroom. “Fine.”
Rich and I didn’t sleep together for months after we started dating. I’m not sure it would’ve happened at all if it weren’t for a fifth of tequila. I couldn’t even say why we got together. We went to a series of business dinners with my dad, and when clients left, my dad would insist on an after-dinner drink. Then, a few sips in, Dad would make an excuse to go home. Rich and I were each too polite to leave before the other had finished their drink.
One of those nights, when the conversation was good, we ordered a second drink, and then a third. Tequila happened, and we were a couple. Just like my dad wanted.
After Rich and I shower separately under the same stream of water, I blow dry my hair, glancing at him as he dresses in a suit and tie. Rich is a catch—I know that. He was positioned in front of me for a reason. Smart, thoughtful when he has to be, even-keeled—and all that in a nice package. He takes care of himself, and a solid body and handsome face helps me get in the mood when I need to.
I could cheat on him.
Not with just anyone, but with Finn. Finn does things to me with just a look, and I’m even more tempted by him when he opens his mouth. He read my journal and it didn’t scare him off. If it’d been Rich who’d come across it, he’d have put it back where he found it and never mentioned it again.
“Ten minutes,” Rich says with a spritz of cologne.
I’m patting on liquid foundation. “Thanks, Dad.”
“You’ve made your point,” he says. “I just thought you’d like to know the time since you aren’t dressed yet.”
“I’ll be ready.”
“Look,” he says.
Great. I know that “look.” He’s going to say something I don’t want to hear. “At what?”
He ignores my stunning wit. “You’re in a bad mood, I get it. But since that’s rare, I have to ask.”
My heart leaps into my throat. I should’ve known this was coming, because Rich is right. Iamin a bad mood, but I was in a great mood earlier, and any kind of extreme is unusual for me. I’m not temperamental anymore.
I skip ahead to applying eyeliner, the best way I know how to avoid his gaze during this conversation. “Don’t start this,” I say. “Not right before we walk out the door.”
“So I’m right then. Something’s changed. Please tell me you haven’t stopped taking them completely.”
It irritates me that it’s been less than a week and Rich has already noticed. Has being on antidepressants changed me so much that the moment I lower my dosage, I become an entirely different person? A person I don’t even know, because it’s been so long since I’ve been her? “I’m a grown woman,” I say. “I’ll decide for myself.”
“That’s not how it works. We’re a team, you and me—”
“Andmy dad,andDoctor Dummy.”
“It’s DoctorLumby.” He gets his phone from his pocket. “The car’s here. I’ll be downstairs, but we can finish this after dinner. And don’t forget . . .”
