“How would I know? It was twenty years ago.”
“Trust me,” Dad laughs. “You remember when your son is a failure in organized sports. Don’t worry. You’ve made me proud in other ways.”
I sulk in the corner, but Nash joins the laughter. “We put our boys in T-ball last summer. It was about as successful.”
“Your boys?” my dad says curiously.
“Yeah, twins. They’re seven now, they—” Nash’s smile fades.
My dad is studying him carefully, and something dies slowly in my chest, in part because the discomfort is plain on Nash’s face, and in part because the after-school lecture is now going to include such not-at-all-uncomfortable questions as, “Am I a grandfather?”
“Twins,” my dad says carefully. “That must be a lot of work.”
Nash is fiddling with the hem of his shirt in an uncharacteristically nervous gesture. “It is. They’re great, obviously. But two is a lot. They’re... They live with their dad—their other dad—my ex-husband. In Markham.”
“Oh.” Dad looks like he doesn’t know if he’s should say that’s too bad or ask another question. Instead, he scrubs his hands over his knees and says, “Well, I should get going.”
Nash and I both hop to our feet like the living room is on fire. What am I supposed to say?Oh no, please stay so we can keep making awkward chit-chat about the “older-man-I’m-sleeping-with-who-has-two-kids-and-you-didn’t-know-about-any-of-this” elephant in the room. We’ll order pizza.
“Yeah. Thanks for coming by. I promise I’ll check in more often.”
Is the “please leave”subtext strong enough? I don’t want to be rude, but...
“Nash.” My dad shakes his hand. “Nice to meet you. If I don’t hear from my son, I’m calling you.”
Oh my God.
“You too. I promise to look out for him.” Nash glances quickly over Dad’s shoulder at me. The brief silent contact makes me blush.
“He works too hard.” Dad’s still talking. “I know he thinks he’ll have time for a life someday, but you and I both know it all goes so fast, right?”
Nash’s smile is bittersweet. “Absolutely.”
My chest hurts. Maybe I hug my dad for longer than strictly necessary, but it offsets the way I hustle him toward the door with more promises to call—hell, maybe I’ll even call my mom one of these days, although I think she’s somewhere up a mountain in British Columbia right now.
As the door shuts, I sag against it. I’m so twitchy I might as well have drank about a million espressos and topped it off with a Red Bull chaser. If my heart beats any faster, it will burst, and my fingers and toes seem to have become home to colonies of fire ants.
“Oh my God.” I bury my face in my hands. “I’m so fucked.”
Nash is hanging back, halfway down the hall. He chuckles as he scratches at his throat. “Not the way I thought about meeting your parents.”
I gasp. “Oh fuck. What if he tells my mom?” At that point, I might go find a mountain of my own and never climb down again. “I’m doomed.”
“Do you want me to leave?” he says.
I spread my hands over the door, blocking the exit. “No.”
He runs a hand over the back of his neck. “Do you want to get naked again?”
“No.” For once, my dick’s not into it, and neither is the rest of me. I’m so tired. Several hours of sustained anxiety is exhausting.
Nash sags with visible relief. “Good. I mean, I would, but after everything, it might—”
“I want to go on a date.” The words blunder past my lips like a puppy wearing snow booties for the first time.
Nash stills. “A date.”
The part of me that felt trapped under a microscope while my father sat on the couch for the last two hours is still in self-preservation mode, and it says I should retract that last statement. I’m setting myself up for heartbreak.
