Page 137 of Dirty Like Zane
Harder than I’d anticipated,even.
My father was the very opposite of a nice, loving father or a nice, loving man. All he had to do was open his mouth to remind me ofit.
Calling his ex-girlfriend a uselesscunt?
How would I ever get through to a man who would dothat?
No matter how pissed off I was about the girl spilling my private shit to the media, she didn’t deserve my dad talking about her like that. Maybe she was a little… air-headed? But from what I knew, she was barely twenty-one when I mether.
My dad was turning sixty thisyear.
It would’ve been swell if this age disparity was an anomaly in my dad’s dating history, but not so. Fact was, Dizzy Bowman, fading rock star, was drawn to girls with major daddyissues.
Admittedly, I had daddy issues of my own, so it wasn’t exactly difficult to recognize. I’d never been into dating vastly older men, but I couldn’t exactlyjudge.
“You want one?” he asked me as he looked me over. He gestured belatedly toward the bar cart, where he hadn’t bothered to pour me adrink.
“No, thank you,” I said, and my dad actually rolled his eyes. Because, you know, good fathers always rolled their eyes when their daughters wouldn’t drink alcohol with them. “I came to talk.” I chose a chair across from the couch that didn’t look like anyone had had sex on it recently, and perched carefully on the edge. “Look, Dizzy. I wanted to askyou—”
“Dizzy.” He cut me off with a bitter chuckle. “Are we back to thisshit?”
Uh… we never got off this shit. Butokay…
“Dad,” I amended, though it pained me. I was pretty sure he only preferred me calling him Dad because of the power trip.I’m your father, you owe me your life.That kind of thing. “I need to talk to you about somethingimportant.”
“So?” He sipped his drink. “What’sup?”
What’sup?
Seriously?
We hadn’t seen each other since my wedding almost two years ago, and we’d spoken less than a handful of times thisyear.
Any number of things could’ve beenup.
I’m dying of cancer,Dad.
I’ve got three months tolive.
I won the lottery and I’m leaving it all toyou.
Jesus, I wanted to say something terrible to get some kind of reaction fromhim.
Five minutes in the man’s company, and I already felt like an angry teenager all overagain.
“What’s up,” I said slowly, “is that Maxxi said a bunch of stuff to the media aboutus.”
“She’s not here,” was hisresponse.
“Yes, I see that. Did you see what she said,online?”
“Yeah. Isaw.”
Okay. So at least he knew what I was talking about. Though he didn’t seem the least bitconcerned.
“They quoted her, Dad. She gave them her name. She didn’t even try to hide who she was. Which means she was probably trying to hurt you. And to do that… she was probably pretty upset withyou.”
“So?”
