“Do not tell them I told you to do this,” he said, laughing. “You got to make it come from you, Kelly. Tell them your needs. Tell them your goals and dreams and that you’d love to be loyally committed to the success of Craft forever and ever amen, if only it were fiscally possible.” He glanced at me quickly. “You can take me out to dinner on your new baller salary as a thank-you.”
I leaned back, thinking over his suggestion. Was he wrong? Was he onto something? It never hurt to ask. And what was the worst that could happen? If Will said not until the second location was in progress, I could keep looking for that second job. It would be temporary anyway. I could handle it.
In the meantime, why not start with the simplest solution?
While I was thinking this through, Charlie had reached for my remote. He turned my TV on and started flipping through my various streaming services.
“What are you doing?” I asked, more amused than annoyed.
“I can’t go out there,” he said easily. “I’m playing hooky, remember? I can’t let them see me.”
It was the flimsiest excuse ever. But I found I didn’t mind him taking over the big couch. Until Charlie had randomly shown up, I’d been facing a particularly depressing night alone. I’d hated the idea. In fact, I dreaded it so much I’d been staring blankly into space on the sidewalk like a crazy person.
Charlie was hardly a friend, but somehow, he made the first night alone in my apartment bearable. I was in no hurry to kick him out.
“Good point,” I finally said, conceding to this weird truce. “And I can’t be found out as your accomplice if I want that raise.”
He waggled his eyebrows at me. “Exactly. What do you have to eat?”
seven
Hi,baby girl. It’s your dad.
The text had been sitting on read in my messages for three days. After Charlie’s surprise visit to my apartment Saturday night, I’d woken up to the text Sunday morning. Basically, my sister had left my place and immediately texted my number to our dad.
The Sunday morning crash had been real. Charlie had somehow managed to soothe the sting of being all alone during a night of random movies and scouring my kitchen until he declared I had no food and ordered too much pizza for two people.
The leftovers were still in my fridge.
He’d left after midnight, and I’d immediately fallen asleep thanks to a long day of moving and a long night of laughing and goofing off.
Surprisingly, none of our usual animosity was present. Charlie had been relaxed and easy to hang out with.Comfortable.More surprisingly, I had been too.
We had vastly different TV tastes, so we mostly flipped back and forth between one of his shows and one of mine. He would drag my reality TV obsession, and I would roll my eyes at all his epic fantasy action movies.
Pizza led to popcorn, which led to him Door Dashing ice cream. I opened a bottle of whiskey, and we shared some beers I had in my fridge. And I was pretty sure there were tequila shots at the end of the night.
We’d been responsible enough to avoid a hangover the next day. But it had been surprisingly fun.
And I would have preferred a hangover compared to waking up to a text from a strange number. Who turned out to be my dad.
Now it was Tuesday, and I still hadn’t figured out what to do. Adleigh had texted me twice to make sure I got his message. I could tell she was starting to feel the awkward pressure of being the in-between person, but how did one respond to a man they hadn’t talked to in twenty-two years? Especially when that man tried to pick up exactly where you left off as if you hadn’t spent the last two decades working on healing the wound he tore open with his absence.
“Hey, baby girl,” murmured after he got home from a long workday.
“Let’s go, baby girl,” in that sharp, growly tone when I was slow to get moving or obey.
“Night, baby girl,” as he kissed my cheek and his beard scratched my skin. He smelled like the last remnants of oil scrubbed off his calloused hands and Mom’s lavender soap and my childhood.
I should respond.Should.
That was the thought that seemed to be on a time loop in my head.Ada, respond. Just say hi. It doesn’t have to go further than that. Just say hey back. You should say hey back.
But I’d read once that doing something because you “should” do it was the equivalent of acting out of fear, guilt, or people-pleasing. And I rejected all three of those constructs out of self-preservation.
So I decided to sleep on it for a week or so. And in the meantime, I tried to boss my feelings into being cooperative.
Spoiler alert—turned out my feelings didn’t like getting bossed around. Who knew?
