I open the door to my apartment and quickly start to climb the stairs. But Dad won’t drop it.
“You know I’d help you out if you needed it. You don’t even have to ask.”
“I’m twenty-seven years old, Dad!”
“So?”
“So I want to do it on my own. I want to find my own place one day, a house… I don’t want to keep getting under your feet.”
“It doesn’t bother me. You don’t even live with me. Look, you have your own apartment.”
“Yeah, which is part of your house.”
Dad looks at me for a few seconds before shaking his head, and going to the fridge for another beer.
“This is your house, Casey. You’re my only daughter – who else will it go to once I’m six feet under?”
“I don’t want to have this conversation.”
Dad leans down and opens the top drawer to grab the bottle opener.
“What’s this family called, anyway?”
Oh God.
He closes the drawer and looks at me again, waiting. Is there any point in lying? He’ll find out sooner or later.
“It’s the O’Connors.”
He slams his bottle down onto the countertop, sending foam shooting out of the top.
“Are you kidding?”
I shake my head.
“Casey…”
“Dad, it’s just work.”
“I don’t like the thought of you having anything to do with those three dickheads.”
“I only have to work with their dad, and I promise you he’s no dickhead.”
“But they’ll be there, too.”
“They don’t even live there. They’re adults.”
Dad bursts out in bitter laughter. “Adults? Those three?” He laughs again, but it sends chills up my spine.
“It’s been a few years now, and you haven’t seen them since they were teenagers. Come on, they’ve grown up.”
“They’re making my blood pressure fly through the roof.”
“You have high blood pressure because you love bacon and battered sausages.”
He shrugs indifferently. “I don’t like you being in contact with them.”
“I won’t be.”
