“Victor—”
“Look, I know it’s your and Kelsey’s wedding week.” Lord knows if I had a nickel for every time someone—mostly Jason—has directly said or obliquely referenced that, I could pay for the whole damn thing. “And nothing has changed about that. Jason and I are both here, ready to stand up with you while you say your vows.” I tilt my head in Silas’s direction, still typing on his phone with his thumbs. “Your friends are here for you, too. But not everything in the whole world is about you girls, even this week.”
Like the deal-making lawyer she is, Adrienne tries another tack. “Kelsey’s mostly worried about one or the other of you getting hurt.”
“I believe you.” And I do. Mostly. “I’m sorry Kelsey overheard something that made her uncomfortable, but whatever’s happening between Jason and me is our business. If there’s something you and Kelsey need to know, we’ll tell you when you need to know it.”
Adrienne gives me a half-smile. “I warned Kelsey that you’d probably react this way. I get it, Victor. I don’t know what’s going on between you guys, but I hope you figure things out without fucking shit up too much.”
I can’t tell if she’s on Team Dads or not. “Thanks, I think?”
Adrienne shakes her head and flicks a few drops of water at me with her fingers. “I’m going to lay out next to Silas and read for a while. Maybe order a fruity cocktail. You sticking around?”
“I’m going to swim a bit more first. Order me one of those cocktails when you do it.”
“Will do.” She hauls herself out of the pool and wraps a towel around herself, then settles down on the lounger where she’d dumped her stuff. She leans over and peers at Silas’s phone when he tilts it toward her and he launches into an animated conversation with her. About the vocal arranger that almost was, I suspect. I hope she’s able to persuade him that his musical will be fine.
I swim a few dozen laps along the length of the pool. It’s not very big and there’s a small waterfall flowing into the pool at one end, so when I push off from the wall, I only get a handful of strokes in before I reach the other end. Still, this isn’t for exercise; it’s to calm and center myself after Adrienne’s interrogation.
I drink the fruity cocktail Adrienne orders for us, but lounging by the pool is no longer relaxing. I keep checking my watch. I should talk to Jason as soon as they arrive back from their hike. When I can’t take it anymore, I gather my things and head back to our casita.
Naturally, as soon as I round the path’s bend from the pool, I see Kelsey approaching. Her head is down, her shoulders hunched under her backpack straps. She looks like she did when she was a teenager, torn between despondence and rage, just waiting for a target to explode at.
I admit I have a brief instinct to step off the path and hide behind a vine-covered tree. It’s not very mature of me, but I’m already on edge from Adrienne’s interrogation and facing my daughter now, about what’s happening between me and her stepfather, is the last thing I want to do.
I pull my shit together, though, and stop as she approaches me. “Hi,” I say. Lame, I know.
“Hi.” Her voice is cold and clipped. She moves to step around me.
“Kels, wait.” I reach out for her but she steps back.
“What?”
“Adrienne told me you heard…” Jesus, when I think about what she must have heard—I was right earlier, there’s absolutely nothing worse than knowing your daughter heard you having sex. With anyone.
“Yeah, and I cannot even believe what I heard!”
Especially with her other father. I refuse to feel shame about it, though. Jason’s had a monopoly on shame these last fifteen years. I’m done.
“Look,” I say. “I’m going to say to you what I said to Adrienne. I’m sorry you heard something that made you uncomfortable, but this really isn’t any of your business.”
“No? I don’t get a say in who my dads have sex with?”
“No, Kels, you don’t. Also, you spent most of your adolescence talking about your two dads as if we were a couple, so why are you all of a sudden having a problem with it if we’re sleeping together?”
“Because I have no idea what’s going on with you two! Are you sleeping together? What the hell, Daddy? Why? Why now? How long has this been going on?” She glares at me and, for fuck’s sake, her eyes are brimming with tears. I’ve never been able to handle Kelsey crying. Jason was always able to stay calm while Kelsey wailed and cried and threw tantrums, but I’ve always folded at the first sign of tears.
I’m determined not to succumb this time. I stay where I am, and cross my arms over my chest so that I’m not tempted to run to her and scoop her up like when she was a little girl. “I’m not answering questions about it. It’s our business, not yours.”
“It is my business when I can hear you through the walls. It's my business when you're messing with Dad's head during my wedding week.”
“Messing with his head? Kelsey, your stepfather is a grown man?—”
“He’s not gay, Daddy. He can’t be gay and also be the music director at Saint Sebastian.”
“I’m aware of his job, Kels. So is he.”
“So, how is anything between you two supposed to work?”
