“We should go back downstairs, I guess,” I said, feeling the heaviness in my chest return.
“Yeah, we should,” Maxx agreed, giving my hand a squeeze.
My dad had come home in the few minutes I had been upstairs, and I wondered whether my mother had called him.
Dad looked as though he had aged twenty years.His hair had turned completely gray, and his face was lined and tired. Gone was the strong, always smiling man of my youth.
“Hi, Dad,” I said in a small voice. Dealing with my dad had in some ways been harder than dealing with my mother.
Maybe because the disapproval and shame were absent from him. From my dad, there wasnothing.
After Jayme had died, he had retreated from me completely, and it was as though, for him, I no longer existed.
And that hurt, perhaps more than my mother’s coldness.
“Aubrey,” he said, with a gentleness I hadn’t heard in years. And then he did the most surprising thing. He walked across the kitchen and enfolded me in a tobacco-scented hug.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” he said quietly into my hair. It had been so long since I had been hugged by my father. And I had missed it. A lot.
I felt like crying, but wouldn’t. Not now.
I pulled back, putting some distance between myself and the man who had raised me. “Still smoking that pipe, I see,” I commented, trying to smile but finding that my mouth wouldn’t cooperate.
My dad’s smile was just as rusty. “Busted.”
“I keep telling him to quit. To try one of those e-smokers, but you know how stubborn he is,” my mom spoke up, fixing several cups of coffee.
I wanted to argue that Ididn’tknow how stubborn he was. Not anymore. The truth was that these people in front of me had become strangers.
Maxx came forward and held out his hand. “Hello, Mr. Duncan, I’m Maxx Demelo. Nice to meet you, sir,” he said politely.
My father looked surprised to see him but shook his hand. “And you are?” my father prompted, his brows furrowing.
I grabbed Maxx’s hand and pulled him close. “He’s my boyfriend,” I answered.
My dad’s smile slipped, and a silence rose between us.
I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to say or do.
“Let’s take our coffees into the living room,” my mother interjected, waving her hand toward the hallway. She handed me a steaming mug, and this time my smile came without effort.
“You kept it,” I mused, holding it up to see the faded blue writing. Maxx peered over my shoulder.
“That’s pretty funny,” he chuckled, indicating the OCD mug Jayme had given me all those years ago.
“Yeah, it is,” I said in agreement.
“Are you coming?” my mother asked, already in the hallway.
Maxx cleared his throat. “If it’s okay with you, I need to run to the store and grab some things I forgot to bring.” I frowned at him.
He met my eyes. “I’ll be back soon,” he said, and I felt a momentary panic at the thought of being left alone with my parents. Maxx was my buffer! He couldn’t leave!
“Of course. There’s a Target just off the highway,” my mom offered.
“I saw it as we came into town, I think I can get there.” Maxx smiled. My parents went on to the living room, and I rounded on my boyfriend.
“You can’t leave me here with them! What the hell, Maxx?” I demanded in an angry whisper.
