“Yeah, but we were supposed to go to breakfast at Donny’s early, to beat the rush,” I whined, reverting to a tone right in line with my childhood bedroom. “I wassoexcited for those muffins. Now they’re probably sold out.”
I was full-on pouting, and we both knew it.
“You don’t give your old man enough credit.” He smiled mischievously. “Get up and meet me in the kitchen—I think you’ll be happy.”
Happy. Yeahright. I should’ve been, given my dream of opening my own agency was finally happening. The lease was signed, my website and logo were nearly finished, and I was getting ready to conclude my search for an assistant after reviewing the hundreds of résumés sent my way. It was everything I’d wanted, yet it all felt so hollow.
It didn’t matter how many different ways I kept trying to convince myself I was better off without Harrison. I still missed him, which made me angry at myself, which kept me in a perpetual state of unease. Maybe the time away at home would reset me?
Home. I smiled as I pulled on leggings and a hoodie and tucked my hair in a ponytail. In the years since my dad had gotten clean, he’d taken to fixing up the place. From simple cosmetic fixes like swapping out the old vanity in the bathroom I’d shared with Sarah to completely gutting the kitchen and rebuilding it until it was so gorgeous that the amateur baker in me was jealous.
He was in a good place, finally, and it made me so happy to see it reflected all around me.
I walked into the kitchen and flopped onto the new window seat bench.
“If we leave now, we can still make it to the last few minutes of breakfast service at Donny’s,” my dad said. “Or, we can stay right here in our comfy clothes and eat the stack of Donny’s blueberry muffins I raced out to buy at seven this morning.”
I slammed my hands on the table in front of me. “Dad, you didn’t! That was so smart.”
“I just want to pamper you while you’re home. We never get to spend time together these days,” he said sheepishly. He walked over and took a white bakery box out of the cabinet. “I got some other stuff too. Donuts, a couple of cinnamon rolls. And I have stuff to make healthy smoothies, or I can scramble up some eggs if this is too much sugar for you.”
I pulled a face at him. “No such thing. Now gimme.” I reached out my hands, clawing the air as he walked the box over.
He chuckled, and it struck me again how good it was to see him like this. The dad I knew back when I was still at home was withdrawn, gaunt, with hollows beneath his eyes. A prisoner to his addiction.
I didn’t really remember Dad as a famous baseball player. Oh, I knew the stats. Knew that he’d been one of the best in the world for a while. But the career-ending injury happened when I was just three years old. And the Dad I grew up with…he was a very different man. He got hooked on the opioids he was prescribed after his injury, and it took a long,longtime for him to get clean.
Time when he couldn’t hold down a job—and made a pretty embarrassing spectacle of himself when he was high on camera during a sportscasting gig.
Time when Mom—a model/actress who’d married Dad at the height of his fame and who’d pictured a very different life for them—had to go and start a new career as a car salesperson because their savings had run out and her salary had to keep our heads above water.
Time when their marriage crumbled, piece by piece until they finally divorced when I was ten.
Time when he went through a string of relapses in a heartbreaking cycle so that weekends with Dad were more about Sarah and me taking care of him than him taking care of us.
That long stretch of time had been hard and painful, but it was over now.
Now, he was sober, financially stable, healthy, happy, and just a couple muffins away from pleasantly pudgy, with round red cheeks and his trademark dark mullet threaded through with silver. Every version of my dad loved me. I never had reason to doubt that for a minute. But this version looked like he finally lovedhimselfand was comfortable in his skin. And that was a beautiful thing.
“Coffee?”
“The biggest you’ve got,” I answered.
He poured me a cup and walked it over to me, still beaming with happiness. It had really been too long since we’d spent time together.
He set the cup on the table and gently tilted my head to the side to examine the remains of the accident. “Oof, honey. Now that I see your face in the light, I can tell how painful that must’ve been. You’re still all black and blue under here. And the cuts!”
He pointed to my left cheekbone.
“Yeah, I’ve become pretty good at hiding it under makeup. A little orange color corrector, and you’d never know I got T-boned.”
My dad sat down, locked onto me. “Is that what’s been bothering you? The accident? Because you seem…not yourself. Quieter.”
I shrugged a shoulder. “Just been a busy time for me, you know? I’m trying not to spiral about my to-do list.”
He stared at me for a beat. “Yeah, but it’s more than that, I think. I know you, sweetheart. It’s that Jetliner Jackass guy, right?”
My stomach dropped. “Dad, how do you even know about that nickname?”
