Page 253 of The Bluffing Game

She looks at me. “When did you know?”

I don’t know what to say. “The other night,” I say. “Brett told me.”

“So, you’ve known for a few days, and you”—she turns to Jimmy—“have known for far longer than that. Weeks! You knew I was your daughter, and you didn’t care.”

“It’s not that I didn’t care. It’s …” He pauses. “Well, don’t you be mad at Dalton. I’m the one who told them not to say anything. If you should be mad at anyone, it’s me.”

“Oh, I’m more than mad at you, Jimmy. And you.” She turns to me. “How could you? This is worse than your first lie and your second lie. I told you there were two strikes against you, Dalton. Well, three strikes, you’re out. It’s done. I’m not staying with you anymore. I’m going back to Lucia’s. And then Rosie and I, we’re going to find our own place. Maybe we’ll leave town. We don’t need to stay here. Everything I thought I came for doesn’t matter. I realize that now. None of it matters. I just want to go back to the way things were before I met you, before I was looking for my dad.” She looks over at Jimmy. “You saw me crying, Jimmy. You saw me desperately wanting my father to reach out to me, and you said nothing.”

“I ain’t nothing but an old schmuck.” He shrugs, but I can see his heart is breaking. He reaches out and touches her shoulder. “I ain’t never done a thing right in my life.” He stares at her. “You sure is pretty, and you sure is kind, and you’re strong, and I can honestly say that if you had grown up with me in your life, you might be none of them things. And you can hate me. You can hate me for as long as you want, but now the truth is out in the open, and I would like to get to know you.”

“Now you want to get to know me … I don’t even know,” she says softly. “I have to go. I’m sorry.” She pulls off her apron, runs to the back, and grabs her handbag. “Tell Rosie that I’ll call her later, but I have to go. I can’t stay here. I can’t look at either one of you. I don’t even know if I ever want to talk to either of you again. I hate you both. I hate you.”

She runs out, and I go to chase after her, but Jimmy grabs my arm and stops me.

“She needs to be alone. She needs to process. I might not know women too well, but funnily enough, I think I know my daughter.” He looks at me and tilts his head to the side. “That feels real weird, saying I have a daughter.”

“You should have told her, Jimmy.”

“I know.” He nods. “And I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make things bad for you.”

“It’s okay. I think this was inevitable. She’s too good for me.”

“And if you love her, you should let her know,” Jimmy says, shrugging. “You’re a good guy, Dalton. I’ve known you your entire life. You’re not your dad. And if you want her and you try hard to get her, you have my blessing. I know you’ll be there for her. And she’s a good one too. She’s a real nice girl. Funny that I made her.” He looks down. “You think she’ll ever give me a chance to be her dad or pops or whatever?”

“I don’t know, Jimmy.”

I wrap my arm around his shoulders and rub, not because I forgive him or understand, but because I can see he’s in pain. And ultimately, I can see he does want a relationship with her, maybe just as much as I do, but it’s different. He wants the love of his daughter, and I want the love of my future wife.

As I realize how immensely and deeply in love with her I am, the more worried I become because I don’t know if I can ever get past this. She told me clearly that after three strikes, I was out, and I have to accept her wishes because, truly, I haven’t done anything that would justify her giving me another chance. Just loving her isn’t enough. I wish I could give her the moon and the stars. I wish I could start over from the beginning, lead with the truth, and open my heart and mind and trust in what we had. But I’m not a magician. I can’t change the past. I just have to wait and see.

And maybe, one day, she’ll pick me. Maybe, one day, she’ll see through the bravado and the gruffness and the grumpiness. She’ll see that I am just a man with a boy who wants to be loved and to love. She’ll see that my protecting her wasn’t because I thought she was weak, but because I thought she was special, that she was to be treasured, that she was the most important thing to me. But I am not going to push that on her. I am going to let her figure it out in her own time, no matter how long it takes.

“She may not forgive either of us, of course, but maybe one day …” Jimmy shakes his head and makes his way back to the bar. “I got a daughter, and she hates me.” He sounds disgusted with himself. “I suppose you hate me too?”

“I don’t hate you.” I press my lips together.

I hate myself for putting him above Sage and her feelings. I hate myself for once again falling short. I stand there in the middle of the room, and I barely recognize it. I feel cold, unmovable, and detached.

Sage hates me. She really hates me, and I know without a shadow of a doubt that I’ve lost her.

Chapter 33

SAGE

I sit on the beach for what feels like days, but I know it is only hours. The sun is setting, and I look down at my phone. I have several missed calls from Rosie, Lucia, Izzy, Dalton, my mom, Jimmy the Fish, and even from my dad. So many people want to talk to me, and yet I don’t want to talk to anyone. I’m still processing everything. I can hardly believe it.

“Jimmy the Fish is my dad,” I say out loud.

Never in a million years would I have believed that Jimmy was my dad. But now, it kind of made sense. All the times I saw him staring at me, the questions he asked, the gruffness, the way he tried to lend a listening ear, even though I could tell it made him extremely uncomfortable.

“Jimmy the fucking Fish is my dad.” I laugh hysterically. I can’t quite accept it.

I feel sad, knowing that Dalton knew. The man that I had fallen for, that I wanted to trust so badly, yet again held something back from me. Yet again, he lied. I feel such sadness and despair. I know he thought he was doing it for me, and yet that doesn’t make it any better.

I pick up grains of sand with my fingers and let them fall back to the ground. I almost want to run into the water with my clothes on, but I know how uncomfortable they’ll feel if they get drenched with water. I stand up, then go down to the shore and pick up shells. Pretty white shells glisten up at me, and I wonder if I’ll be able to find a pearl.

“That would be cool.”