Mom shrugged. “I was going anyway. I wanted another cannoli.” She rolled her eyes. “DearLord, the pastries here are just?—”
“Carol.” Dad gave her a hard stare.
“I’m gone.” She walked briskly toward the counter, and I pulled out a chair.
Dad gazed at me for several seconds, until I couldn’t wait a second longer.
“I haven’t grown another head, have I?”
He blinked. “Not unless it’s someplace under your clothes, no.”
“Okay. I’m still me. I just happen to love a guy.”
That got me another blink. “Love?”
I gave him a wide smile. “You think I go around kissingeveryguy I meet in front of the whole world?”
“Well, when you put it like that…” He cocked his head. “So you’re a… bisexual?”
I chuckled. “How can you make bisexual sound like alien?”
He held his hands up. “Hey, I’m just trying to keep up.” He paused. “Have you always been this way, and you just never told us?”
I rubbed the back of my neck. “I don’t know.”
Dad blinked. “Seriously?”
“Seriously.” I laughed. “I mean, I dated girls. I loved Claire. None of that was fake.”
He listened quietly.
“I never spent much time putting labels on myself,” I admitted. “Maybe because I never had a reason to. Then I met Luka and I stopped being able to explain it in a way that made sense.”
Dad let out a breath. “Because you fell in love with him.”
“Yeah.” I smiled. “Because I fell in love with him.”
Saying it out loud still felt a little unreal. Not wrong, just… new.
Mom appeared at my side. “I see you started the interrogation without me,” she teased.
“I’m not interrogating him,” Dad protested.
“So where is he? Where’s Luka?”
I sighed. “I told you. He said he’ll meet us for dinner tonight. Remember? Right before I asked you to book a table for four?”
Dad snickered. “Relax. I’ll do it. Your mom’s been addled ever since she saw the pair of you kissing on TV. God knows how many texts she’s had from friends back home, all dying to know more.” He cackled. “And she couldn’t tell them a damn thing.” He studied me. “But you’re happy?”
I smiled. “More than I’ve ever been.”
Mom’s face glowed.
Dad leaned back in his chair, and some tension I’d never even noticed before now seemed to leave him.
“All I needed to know.”
Mom reached across the table and squeezed my hand.
