Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 99723 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 499(@200wpm)___ 399(@250wpm)___ 332(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99723 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 499(@200wpm)___ 399(@250wpm)___ 332(@300wpm)
“Let me know if you need anything,” he murmurs, looking directly at her cleavage.
“Will do,” she purrs. When the bartender disappears, she rolls her eyes and sighs. “God, is a wine without the visual assault too much to ask?”
“What?” I ask, thinking I must’ve misheard her. She wasn’t flirting—that’d be the bartender doing that—but she’s not exactly demure with her curled hair, smoky eyes and glossy lips, and pushed-up décolletage.
She takes a sip of her wine and laughs. “I’m a married woman, remember?” she teases. “And even if I wasn’t, bartenders who graduated high school in the last decade are not exactly my type.” She tilts her head, leaning toward me as she raises her hand. “Daddy issues, party of one.” She arches a brow. “Or maybe two.”
“Ah, I guess you heard what happened?”
“Want to talk about it?”
With her? My dad’s wife? Absolutely not. She’s going to be on his side, no matter what. I’m sure whatever version Dad told her was filled with inaccuracies that make him out to be a misunderstood hero, not the villain in my origin story.
“No thanks,” I say, stirring my piña colada instead.
“Can we pretend that we’re friends for a minute then?” Vanessa counters, undeterred. “I want to tell you a story about my husband, and maybe you can forget that he’s your dad while I do?”
I’m intrigued. And maybe I want to hear Dad’s version, just to see how different it is from mine. “I can’t make any promises, but . . .” I hold up a finger, take a long swallow of my drink, and finish, “I’ll try.”
She smiles, and for the first time, I think I see behind her facade to the real Vanessa. Or maybe the piña colada has a bit too much rum?
“When I met Robbie, I was in a bad place mentally. I was taking care of my sister, working three jobs, and trying to make ends meet. It was hard, and then I met this nice guy. He came into the café where I waitressed for coffee every morning and we’d talk.” She shrugs like it was nothing, but it must’ve been something because this story ends with a giant rock of a diamond on her left hand. “He didn’t treat me like I was beneath him, even though he had his life together and I was barely beginning to figure mine out. He even helped me. My sister got into a rehab because Robbie pulled some strings. She’s doing great now, been clean for three years,” she says proudly. “And I took a few online classes to learn how to day trade. Robbie spotted me the funds at first, giving me one hundred dollars to play the stock market and later, one thousand dollars to manage. Now, I make more before ten a.m. most days than I made in a month back then.”
I stare at her, gobsmacked. I had no idea. Of course, I also never asked. I thought she was Dad’s arm candy, nothing more, and there was no reason to delve any deeper because I figured she’d be gone soon enough anyway. That’s Dad’s MO.
Seeing my shock, she winks with a bright grin. “I’m more than just a pretty face.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know—” I say, but she waves a hand dismissively.
“Not the point of the story,” she tells me. “Point is, Robbie was kind to me . . . is kind to me. Because he loves me, and I love him, which means I know that under his tough guy exterior, his heart has been broken for a long time. Broken because of the daughter he left behind.” She looks at me pointedly.
It’s not that I don’t believe her, but . . . I don’t believe her. “He could’ve called me, could’ve said something, could’ve done a hundred things to repair our relationship.”
“You’re right,” she agrees with a nod. “But for all his good traits, he’s also a stupid old man, who’s ashamed of the ways he messed up and didn’t know how to fix things without making them worse.” She rolls her eyes. “Believe me, we talked about it at least a million times, but he thought trying to be a part of your life now would inevitably come with some painful trips down memory lane, and the one thing he didn’t want to do was further hurt you to ease his own guilt.”
“He hurt me every time he didn’t call. Every time he wasn’t there when I needed him. Whether that was fifteen years ago or fifteen days ago.”
Behind us, a loud cheer goes up and we glance back to see what’s happening. The guys have Tomville hoisted in the air, Kipson under one leg and Dom under the other, holding him up. It sounds like they’re congratulating him on his league debut and mostly successful second period. Or at least I think that’s what the “you didn’t suck too bad” chant is about.