The café was crammed with businessmen and women trying to grab a sandwich on their lunch break, so at first, I skimmed the room through skeptic eyes, wondering how in the hell we were going to recognize each other. Maybe I should have mentioned that I was big on eccentric designer clothes. There was no overlooking my sick jacket.
I walked past the bar and started looking into people’s faces, plates, phone screens, desperate to catch someone who might resemble me.
Three young men in suits. Nope.
Two students sipping coffee with their MacBooks. Next.
An eighty-year-old guy in a three-piece-suit. Like hell. He wasn’t Nina’s taste.
A thirty-something woman who returned a gaze and smiled red and bright at me. Sorry, sweetheart. Happily taken.
My eyes were frantic, begging to find a suitable suspect, and my heart was doing that thing it did when Rosie took off her clothes before we got into bed.
Then I recognized a head of thick gray hair that made my eyebrows dive down and a chuckle leave my lips.
“Dad?” I walked to a small table at the corner of the room. My dad, Eli Cole, sat there, staring into a coffee cup. “Jesus. You’re in town? Why didn’t you say? Is that about the Farlon case?” I asked.
He looked up from his coffee and stood up, but didn’t say a thing.
Not a goddamn thing.
No.
No, no, no, no, no.
I took a step back.
“Where’s Nina?” I asked. I was crazy, right? The kind of sick, twisted shit that went through my mind when I assumed Rosie was cheating on me when she was actually at the hospital. My dad was happily married to my mom when Nina got knocked up. Maybe my biological dad bailed at the last minute, and Eli was here to pick up the pieces.
“Sit,” he said.
“No.” I couldn’t feel my face. “Tell me why the fuck you are here and where is Nina.”
“Language, Dean.”
“Fuck your language, Dad.” I righted myself using a back of a chair. “What’s going on?”
Panic ran in my blood. This couldn’t mean what I thought it had meant. Dad inched closer and put his hand on my shoulder. His squeeze wasn’t as firm as it usually was.
“I wanted to tell you when you were in Todos Santos for Thanksgiving…”
“No.” I laughed, embarrassed. I pushed him away, feeling like someone punched my nose from the inside of my head. His back hit the wall, and his shoulder bumped into a woman who stood in line and gave us a pointed look. “My life is not a fucking soap opera, and you didn’t fuck Nina while you were married to Mom.” I said that as a statement, but obviously, this too was wishful thinking. He put his hands up in surrender. “There’s a lot to talk about, son. You should sit down.”
“Stop telling me to fucking sit down!” I raised my voice, smacking his table with both palms.
Eleven years ago, Donald Whittaker was finally admitted to the ER after two days of excruciating pain to help him get over the broken nose, two fractured ribs, and several cuts I had caused. He wasn’t insured, so Owl and Nina had to pay a ton for his hospital stay. What he didn’t know was that the only thing that separated him from death was the preacher’s daughter, Tiffany.
Eleven years later, and I wondered who would be the designated Tiffany to save me from doing something to my dad. Something I couldn’t take back. Because I wanted to fuck something up real good. And I sure as hell wasn’t going to use my girlfriend’s body as an outlet this time.
“There’s an explanation for all of this.” His voice was so low he almost whispered. People stared at us through rims of coffee cups. Dad grabbed me by the bicep and tried to pull me into the seat in front of his chair. I didn’t budge.
“Tell me it’s a mistake, Eli.” The coldness in my voice sent goosebumps down my body.
“It is not a mistake.” Eli narrowed his eyes, still composed, still firm, still himself. “You were not a mistake.”
I didn’t know what to think. I didn’t know what to feel. I didn’t know why my mom was still married to him when he obviously fucked her older sister.
And then it hit me like a speeding truck. I was him.
I was the douchebag who did this. Who came between two sisters. That asshole I flipped the hate switch on? I had all the potential to be him.
“This is how you break it to me?” I spat.
“You shut me down every time I tried getting through to you.”
Jesus Christ.
“You’re dead to me.” And in that moment, it was the truth. “Fucking. Dead. Don’t call me. Don’t talk to me. Don’t even think about me. I won’t be thinking of you.” Then I stormed to the door and slammed it behind me, bolting to the nearest bar on the block.