Mom . . . and her confessions.
Getting engaged.
Getting kidnapped.
Getting another new sister.
And finally, getting the nerve to actually schedule and show up for this dinner.
I tell him everything, and I don’t cry a single tear. If this is the last conversation I ever have with my dad, it needs to be the most brutally honest one I’ve ever had.
“So I guess what I want to know is why?” I finally ask him after basically dumbfounding him with the facts of my life. The facts any father who loved his daughter in any normal kind of way would have already known. “Why did you pull away, Dad? Was it really because you found out we weren’t your biological children?”
My heart hurts even going there. But I’ve avoided this particular elephant in this particular room long enough. “Did we really mean so little to you that DNA erased everything you’d felt our whole lives?”
“Oh, honey, you were my world. And then your mother ripped you away from me. She weaponized you both the day she told me the truth about your paternity. Holding it over my head. Forcing my hand. And that was only a few weeks before...”
He swallows the remainder of his wine and wipes his mouth with the white linen napkin. “Before we lost Evan and everything fell apart. I didn’t know how to be a parent by then. I was so torn up over the reality of losing Evan and the idea of losing you that I turned it into a self-fulfilling prophecy and pushed you away. And I really think it was because I was too much of a coward not too.”
“Do you regret it?” I ask, needing to know the truth if I’m ever going to move on. “Do you ever even think about me?”
“Every day,” he responds so quickly my head spins. “I miss you, and I think about you. But I also think about all mymistakes. I think about your brother and how if I hadn’t buried myself in my work instead of going home, maybe Evan would have come home that night. I think about all the ways I’ve failed you both. Keeping you at a distance felt like the bigger kindness than inserting myself into your life ever would have been.”
The waiter brings our food and with it maybe a new tide.
At least that’s what I’m willing to try.
Rome wasn’t built in a day . . .
“So tell me what’s been going on in your life, Dad.”
ASHTON
Them: Men suck. You can’t rely on a man.
Me: The fuck I can’t. Watch me.
—Ashton’s Secret Thoughts
“Ilook like a whale,” I grumble, shifting sideways in the mirror and catching a glimpse of Kyrie in Dillan’s arms. “But I guess since we match, I’ll suck it up.”
“It’s a football jersey, Ashton, they don’t look good on anyone.” Dillan kisses Kyrie’s cheek. “Well anyone except you, baby girl. Come on... Dil-lan. Or how about DD? You’ve got this, little one. DD.”
She’s a little jealous that Kyrie has started to mumbleLalawhenever Delaney is around. Dillan is definitely feeling slighted.
I turn around and throw a somewhat evil glare Lexie’s way. “She looks hot as hell in hers.”
Lex preens in her husband’s jersey and cute cut-off shorts. “You’re pregnant, Ash. Not a whale. Your tits look incredible, and your ass is great. Focus on the good.” She pushes me in front of her. “Now let’s go. I don’t want to miss the national anthem.”
The three of us walk downstairs, where Delaney and Kaleigh are laughing conspiratorially with Jonah, who’s loving the attention, and I don’t even ask.
When Delaney walked into my life four months ago, I never could have even imagined we’d end up here. But here we are. I see her all the time. She’s become as much a part of the fabric of my life as Jamie, Finn, Ryker and these women surrounding me. She’s my family. And it all just fits.
“Who’s making you cry now?” Delaney asks as Kyrie throws herself at her favorite auntie.
“The baby or Ashton?” Dillan shakes her head and picks up Kyrie’s bag.
“Both,” the girls all sound off in unison.
