“Good one. I like it. I’m going to bed, but I’ll hug you in the morning when things aren’t so… tense. Good luck with that,” she says, nodding at Dad before folding up her chair and leaving the fire pit area completely.
I give Bates a hopeful smile and settle in to wait for Dad to snap out of his funk.
23
BATES
We’re both hawks.
I’m watching Hawk like the proverbial bird, noting every twitch of his eye, the curl of his fingers, and the rise and fall of every uneven breath.
He’s going to snap soon.
I see the exact moment his stunned, vacant stare focuses into a murderous glare, and I lean over to ease myself in front of Lana’s chair. She’s not the one he should be angry at, but he can’t seem to decide which of us he should hold accountable for the betrayal he must be feeling.
“We didn’t fall in love to hurt you, Hawk.”
“You weren’t even in the equation until you picked us up at the airport,” Lana states plainly, before her empowered posture softens and she glances at me. “It was too late by then. For me. I was already love-struck.”
She looks almost scared to admit that — to me, not to her father. She suspects it was too soon to feel so strongly, and she’s worried what I’ll think of her confession. I squeeze her hand, having felt the same about her before she’d left the hotel.
“Me too,” I assure her.
Lana turns to her father. “I can see why you’d want to fall in love as often as you do. It feels wonderful.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Hawk snarls, still glaring at us. “It opens you up to losing every fucking thing until you wish your heart was filled with hate instead. What the fuck were you thinking, Kelly? Youjustbroke up with Shaniah. Nowthis?You’re so desperate for babies you’ll do anything to get them? Like brainwashing a littlegirl?Mylittle girl?”
Lana stands with a growl.
“Iresentthat you consider my mind feeble enough to be swayed by another when I’ve given you no indication that’s possible. You’ve certainly had no fucking success brainwashing me despite every attempt to make me ‘normal’ over the years. And I’mnota little girl. I’m an educated woman who has fit three times more learning into my twenty-two years than most of thosenormalpeople you love so much. I know more at this age than some folk ever will, but you wouldn’t deprive them of love because of it. I also refute the idea that I’myours. I haven’t been yours since I was three and a half, when you gave up on me and subsequently pretended I didn’t exist for fifty-one weeks of every year thenceforth. If you wanted me, you shouldn’t have thrown me away.”
Hawk grips the sides of his chair. He looks as if his heart just got ripped out and tossed into the fire pit.
I want to hug Lana — who’s obviously on the verge of tears — but if I stand, my size is going to add something to this situation that’ll only provoke fear and rage. Sometimes I think life would be a lot easier if I were smaller.
My hand gives Lana’s another squeeze, and while I’d like to pull her into my lap, it’ll only inflame things. I tug her camping chair closer to mine and then guide her back into it so we’re all sitting again.
“Let’s all take a breath.”
Both of them hit me with the same expression, and it would be funny if they both didn’t look so… wounded.
“Okay,” I say keeping my voice steady. “It’s early in the piece, and there’s reason for tension, but my hope is that with some discussion we’ll progress to a place where we can all get along.”
“You can’t fix this, Kelly.” Hawk’s tone is cool and cutthroat, but I shrug it off.
“Won’t stop me from trying, Hawk.”
He tries to maim me with an even more intensive death-glare, but everything seems so calm and clear to me right now. I can see what everybody needs, and if I can just smooth things over, then all will be well.
“Hawk, I respect the fuck out of you, and I value our friendship. I cried the whole way here on the back of your fucking truck because I knew I was going to have to hurtsomeoneI love and I didn’t want to. You’re my family, and there aren’t so many members that I can suffer casualties. You two are it.”
“You’re insane. You just fucking met her. She’s half your age. She’s…Lana.”
He says her name like it’s unbelievable to him that I could want her — like she’s a consolation prize or some shit — and I see red. A low rumble builds deep in my chest, and Hawk pricks up his fucking ears as my free hand grips the arm of my camping chair so forcefully the metal bends.
“I don’t know what you meant by that last comment, Hawk, but I am getting really fucking tired of the way you talk about our girl without thinking how your words are going to be taken. Do you know the damage you’ve done after years of that shit? You’ve had her thinking she’s some unlovable outcast who’s unworthy of your time and understanding — and I have to say, it makes me fucking livid that she came out here believing she had toproveshe could be of use to you before you’d accept her, motherfucker.All she wants is a slice of the love you share so easily with everyone else.”
“You’re offering fatherly advice, Kelly? You want to be her daddy? Is that it? You want to lie awake at night worrying about all the shit you know you’re doing wrong when you’ve already made such a fucking mess of things you don’t know what the right thing evenlookslike? Fuck you. You have no idea what it is to be a father.”
