“Too busy for a quick phone call with your father?”
I sigh. “What is it this time?”
“Isaac, really. Do you have to take that tone with me?”
Patience, I beg.Deities grant me patience.
“You call when you have a work event you want me to show up at,” I say calmly. “So I’m just asking what it is now.”
It’s my dad’s turn to sigh. “I enjoy spending time with my son. Is that a crime?”
“There’s nothing for me to do at those things,” I argue. “The dinners. The fundraisers. The corporate schmooze-fests? Sometimes, I barely even see you.”
“Isaac. It’s a good way for you to learn.”
Oh, fucking hell.
I try to keep my tone level. “I’m not joining the business, Dad.”
“You have the intellect for it,” he says, managing to make that sound like both a compliment and a criticism. “Yet you waste your time on stories. Tell me, how will fiction pay for your future?”
“I don’t care about the money,” I grit out.
“Which is why you accept the checks I send you each month.”
I tug the phone down to my chest until the urge to scream has passed. Bringing it back to my ear, I speak hotly despite my best efforts. “Look, I know I’m privileged. But do you have to use that as a bargaining chip against me and my happiness? I never asked you to pay for my schooling.”
“Yet I have. Because I hoped you’d grow out of this phase.”
“This phase…” I repeat slowly.
Does he mean pursuing my PhD in English? Or being gay?
Likely both.
“I have to go,” I tell him, my tone short.
“Isaac. It’s a product launch with new investors. It’s important.”
“When?”
“Next month.”
I blow out a breath. At least that gives me time to collect my lost fucks. “Fine.”
“You’ll be there?” he checks. “You won’t blow it off like last time?”
“I’ll be there. But this is the last one I’m doing for a long while. And I’m not joining the business.”
My dad doesn’t deign to acknowledge that statement. “I’ll send you the info.”
The call disconnects, and I let the phone in my hand drop to my side. “I’m fine, thanks for asking. How are you? Great. Oh, I got a new boyfriend. You’ll hate him just as much as the last one. Good fucking chat.”
The girl passing on the sidewalk gives me a wide berth, doing her best to pretend she didn’t just catch me talking to air.
Closing my eyes, I try to expel every ounce of negativity from my body in a single breath.What would Todd do?
“A cookie,” I decide. Definitely a cookie to go along with that second latte.
