Yeah, that wasn’t how anything in life worked, but if that’s what he needed to do, then who was I to crush those dreams of his? It’s one of the reasons I hadn’t told him about Mike and Kieran yet.
That, and the way he acted when he met Fang. I didn’t think he’d be too thrilled at knowing I was not only dating one older man, but three—one of which was still technically an uncle, since the divorce hadn’t finalized yet.
Crazy as it was, here couples needed to be separated for a full year before a divorce could go through. It was all right, though. We were getting there, day by day. Tessa apparently knew what was good for her, and she hadn’t shown hide nor hair of herself in the city since that day in the Gilded Rose. Lola and her men were on the lookout for me, just in case.
“I still can’t get over how quiet the house is now that you’re gone,” my dad was busy saying.
“Was it ever really that loud with me here?” I asked, already knowing the answer: no. I was never someone who played loud music or did anything that would rock the walls of this house, mostly because I used to play the perfect daughter, and then for two years I wasn’t even here.
“Maybe not,” he admitted.
“Besides, aren’t you going to start campaigning for your next term or whatever it’s called? Once you do, you’ll be busy. I bet you’ll hardly ever be here.”
My dad gave me a tight smile, and he ran his hand through his hair. “Yeah. I… I don’t actually know if I want to run again or not.” When I gave him a surprised, questioning look, he went on, “Tessa was always the one pushing for more. I let her. It felt good to have ambitions again, but I can’t get it out of my mind, what you said a few months back, if I’d leave the job for you.”
The only thing I could do was stare at him. We sat side-by-side at the table in the dining room, so I had to turn my headsomewhat to stare at him comfortably. I had food in my mouth, but I couldn’t even chew it, too tuned-in to whatever he was about to say next.
“I hesitated when I shouldn’t have,” he told me, holding my stare with his own—and that’s when I realized just how tired he looked. Bags beneath his eyes, his brown hair graying. “And I’m sorry for that, Laina. I should’ve told you that I would, that you are always more important than a job. You’re my daughter, my family. You are all that matters to me now, I want you to know that.”
The old Laina, the one who was a fresh escapee from that basement room, would have loved hearing this from him. I used to think he was the root of it all, and I hated him for finding a shred of happiness while I was locked away in that room. I used to think it wasn’t right, it wasn’t fair, but that’s something I’d learned.
Life could kick you, shoot you, try to kill you, and unless death actually took you, there was only one thing you could do: keep going. Keep living. Do whatever you could to find happiness in whatever time you had left.
I didn’t understand it then, but I did now, and I didn’t hate my dad anymore. Hearing him say all that, I only felt bad.
“Thanks, Dad,” I said, feeling a strange kind of sadness deep within my soul. With me gone from this house, the last thing I wanted was for him to give up politics. Without it, and without me here, what did he have? What would he do? “For the record, I don’t want you to give it up. I want you to do what makes you happy, and if that’s staying in politics, then that’s what you should do.”
He reached for my hand, and I lifted my right hand and placed it in his, letting him squeeze it gently. “I love you, kiddo, you know that, right?”
I gave him a smile. “I do, Dad. I love you, too.” With the weight of the current topic of conversation, it would be almost perfect to bring up Kieran and Mike and the fact I was dating them, but for some reason, I couldn’t do it. The words refused to come out. Maybe I wasn’t ready.
Maybe a part of me was worried he’d view me differently. One older boyfriend was one thing, but three? You’d have to have a really open mind to accept it.
I’d tell him… eventually. Tonight was not the night.
Ironically, the person picking me up from my dad’s and driving me back to campus was Kieran—someone who I didn’t see much of anymore. Sylvester kept him busy, and I was pretty damn sure he only kept him so busy because Lola wanted to make sure he wouldn’t do anything to hurt me again, like kidnap me a second time.
I knew my Devil would never hurt me, but Lola didn’t know that. Then again, she didn’t trust most men. She trusted me, but girls and women were lied to and deceived by men every day; she didn’t want me to become one of them.
Kieran parked down the street when he picked me up. Dad would recognize his car if he came up the driveway. He offered me a half smirk when I got into his car before he leaned over the center console and placed a hungry kiss on my lips.
“Mmm,” he quipped, “steak tonight?”
I brought a hand to my mouth as I buckled my seatbelt. “How the hell did you know?” Seriously, there was no way my breath smelled like steak.
“It’s my superpower,” he said, putting the car into drive.
“If that’s your superpower, it’s a lame one.”
“How is dear old dad?” You’d have to be deaf to not hear the bitterness in his tone—then again, if you were deaf, you wouldn’thear him speak at all. He was, clearly, still salty about being forced to move out and take the offer of a job from Sylvester so he could afford his own apartment in the city.
“He’s fine. A little sad, maybe.”
He dramatically gasped. “Sad? Oh, no, whatever will we do?”
I shot him a look. “Stop it. He’s… doing his best. You can’t blame him for changing his mind and wanting you out.” It’s a conversation we’d had lots, but if there was one thing I’d learned about Kieran, it was that he didn’t like to let things go—hence why he still had an issue with sharing me with the others.
“Sure I can.”
