Page 85 of Good For Me

I debate whether I should tell her why I’m not staying, but I decide that would probably just cause her more stress when she definitely doesn’t need it. It would be better to tell her how it went after I know what his reaction is going to be.

I kiss her head one more time than head downstairs to face the music.

Dad is back at the table, this time with two mugs of coffee in front of him. He pushes one toward me but I hold up a hand. “I’m not drinking coffee,” I tell him as I drop into my seat. Then I take a deep breath as I meet his gaze. “I gave it up in solidarity with Jas. She’s pregnant.”

He manages to keep his face expressionless, but I can see the strain under the surface. “And the baby is—”

“Mine. The baby is mine.”

He sucks in a deep breath, looking a little more pale than he had a moment ago. This clearly isn’t news to him, but I can tell he was holding out hope that he had misunderstood whatever he heard. That hope is dashed now. I can see anger etched in every familiar line of his face and what I’m pretty sure is disappointment in his eyes.

“Damn it, River,” he mutters, rubbing a hand over his face.

I wasn’t expecting any other type of reaction, but it still stings. “She’s resting right now,” I snap. “So if you’re going to start yelling at me, we should take this outside.”

He moves his hand from his face. “You think I’m going to start yelling?”

I shrug. “You look pretty pissed.”

His eyes flash. “And you don’t think I have a reason to be?”

“I’m twenty-three years old, Dad. It’s not like I’m coming to you with this as a teenager.”

“Yet apparently you haven’t matured very much since you were a teenager,” he shoots back and my entire body goes cold. It wouldn’t have hurt worse if he actually hit me.

My dad is breathing hard, a flush spreading over his cheeks. I recognize all the signs of an impending freak-out. I’ve seen it countless times from my dad and uncles and cousins—the famous Ransome temper. My dad and his brothers are notorious for their blow-ups. Their best friend, Levi, had to break up hundreds of fights when they were out on the road, crammed in a tour bus together.

I inherited that same temper. I was raised by a Ransome. But there’s one huge difference between me and my dad—I was also raised by Daisy Harris. And if there’s something my mother is good at, it’s communication.

So I take a deep breath, trying to channel my mom, and look him right in the eye. “I want you to think really hard about the way you handle this conversation, Dad. This is a big fucking deal—”

“Oh, I know it’s a big fucking deal, kid,” he snaps, but I talk over him.

“It’s the kind of conversation with my father that I’m going to remember for the rest of my life,” I tell him. “It’s not going to be the kind of thing you can take back if you regret what you say.”

He seems taken aback by that, blinking at me for several minutes like he doesn’t quite recognize the person sitting across the table from him. “So I’m just supposed to be fine with this? I’m not supposed to tell you any of my concerns or—”

“You think any of your concerns are new to me?” I shoot back, anger rising. “You think I haven’t spent the last week going through this, over and over? You think I’ve thought of anything else? You honestly think there’s any way you could possibly be feeling more disappointed in me than I already feel myself?”

“Hey.” He holds up a hand, and I realize my voice rose to a shout at the end there. I close my eyes, trying to rein it in. The last thing I want is for Jas to hear any this.

“River,” he says, more firmly, then waits until I look at him. “I didn’t say I was disappointed, kid.”

I snort out a laugh. “You were disappointed in me long before this.”

He stares at me. “That’s not true. Why the hell would you say that?”

I laugh, the bitter sound echoing across the kitchen. “Come on, Dad. You hate that I’m just a bartender. You hate that I spend my time surfing and hanging out when I could be doing something important with my life like your other kids. You hate—”

“You’re assigning an awful lot of emotions to me that I have never had.”

I scowl at him. Is he honestly going to sit there and tell me I’m wrong? That he hasn’t thought all of those things?

“River.” Something softens in his face as he studies me. “Your mother and I tried to encourage you to find something you cared about because we wanted you to be happy. Not because we were disappointed.”

“How do you know I wasn’t happy?” I shoot back. “Ilikedtending bar, Dad. I liked meeting new people all the time and getting to hang out in that atmosphere. I liked that it gave me time to do other shit like surf and hang out with my friends. What’s wrong with that?”

“There’s nothing wrong with it,” he says, shrugging. “If it actually made you happy.”