Page 60 of The Virgin Game Plan (Rules of Love 2)
That would solve a ton of problems right now.
Mainly my blankness.
I don’t know how to feel.
How to think.
And yet I also think a million things all at once.
I think it’s been several years.
I think I saw him on TV last night.
I think I’m falling for his cleanup hitter.
But I don’t know how to look at my father without thinking about that day I caught a bus to Sacramento and discovered who he really was.
Who he probably still is.
A cheater.
I think another thing—this isn’t how a relationship should go between a father and a daughter.
This isn’t what I wanted with him. To be unsure of how to respect him or how to love him.
He opens the door, his face wrinkled, but his eyes and his smile as magnetic as they were when I was growing up. They’re as welcoming as when he lived at home and read bedtime stories to me and taught me how to serve a ball over the net and tended to bruised knees and scraped elbows.
The memories rattle past me.
Another dip. Another roll.
“Sweetie bear,” he says.
Before I have a chance to respond, his arms rope around me, and he’s hugging me like no time has passed. Like the last time we had father-daughter sushi—unagi and mackerel rolls, seaweed salad and yellowtail—was only yesterday.
Like we didn’t have painful, awkward words at my high school graduation.
Like he was a regular part of the people I contacted when I was in South America.
Instead, the truth is I haven’t said much to my father since he left home more than a decade ago.
We drifted an ocean apart.
“Come inside. Let’s catch up. I want to hear all about South America, and your new job, and how Tia and Layla are doing.” That’s my dad. He remembers everything.
Those right-hand men who walk behind presidents and politicians and whisper details about every dignitary they meet? Ambassador Williams’s oldest daughter just graduated from Smith with a degree in French languages. Congressman Johnson’s wife just beat breast cancer.
My dad would never need that person.
“I’m great,” I say, my voice pitching up. “Tia is great. Layla is great. My new job is great. San Francisco is great. Everything is wonderful.”
I won’t reward him with the truth. He has only earned platitudes.
A redhead turns the corner and walks into the living room. “Oh, hello there!”
Becky.
She’s attractive in a put-together, well-dressed, blow-dried way. She looks exactly like my father’s type—a little bit younger than him and a lot pretty.
Beyond that, I don’t know what to make of her except that she’s poised and wildly pregnant. Stopping in front of me, she extends a hand and says in a warm, intelligent voice, “It’s so good to meet you, Reese.”
I part my lips, hunting for words, peering under the couch for them, searching under pillows, scouring drawers. “It’s great to meet you too,” I say, and I do sound like Minnie Mouse.
I don’t know why my voice is so high.
I don’t know why I can’t jerk it back to my normal range.
I also can’t stop staring at her stomach. It’s gigantic. And it’s filled with—
I pump the brakes on that thought, on the bizarre reality that she’s carrying my half brother or half sister in her belly.
My father’s DNA twined with hers, and now there’s a person growing inside her who is closely related to me.
If I need a kidney, I’d have to ask my sister or this person.
Dip, sway, plummet.
“We’re so thrilled to have you here, Reese,” Becky says.
“Same,” I say, though that’s not true.
My dad says, “Come on. Come in.” He gestures to the couch in the living room. It seems comfy and cushy, and it overlooks a window with a perfect view of the water.
I head in there and sit down, cycling through topics. I’m not sure if I should ask how her pregnancy is going, or comment on them moving back to San Francisco, or remark on my new job.
Or my friends, or the view, or this home.
I go to the one thing that my father and I can always talk about.
Baseball.
The universal lubricant of our father-daughter conversations.
“Bummer of a game last night. It was so close,” I say, sitting on the edge of the couch. Settling comfortably into these soft cushions would be too weird.
His face falls, but in an aw-shucks, we almost had it way. “So close, wasn’t it?” Becky sits next to him, and he takes her hand, threading their fingers together. “It’s always hard to lose by one run. But we’re three-for-one so far this year, and the guys are playing great.”
The guys. I know one of those guys carnally.
“They are.” I paste on a smile. “What do you think of the team, Becky?”
My mom taught me to be polite. It’s polite to ask Becky what she thinks.
She flashes a grin. “I’m more of a hockey fan myself, but I’m delighted the Dragons have a winning record. Would you like some tea? Green, mint, black?”
