Our eyes met. His expression remained smooth, but my face flushed with the undeniable heat in his stare, so intense that he almost looked angry. Maybe he was, because he curled one hand into a fist. Was he seeing me, finally, not as a kid, but as a woman? There was more there I didn’t understand. A hardness in his eyes, frustration in his tensed arms. As I looked closer, I saw the visible signs of his time away—a scar on his upper lip, the way his nose now crooked a little to the right.
Tiffany came through the door, holding up a bottle of wine. “Got it. It rolled under the seat.” She looked at me at the mouth of the stairs and burst into laughter. “Why are you dressed like that?”
Her fingernails were the color of a firetruck.
“Red makes men horny.”
She’d one-upped me. Again.
“You mean like you?” I asked. “You wear slutty stuff all the time.”
Tiffany balked. “You look like you got dressed in the dark.”
“Half of it is yours.”
“Girls,” Mom said.
I turned, startled. I hadn’t heard my parents come in. Dad stood in the doorway of his study, staring at Manning, who hadn’t noticed him, either. He followed Manning’s line of sight to me. I saw the same anger in Dad’s face I’d just seen in Manning’s, but there was nothing exciting about it.
“Go put some clothes on,” he said. “Now.”
“I’m wearing clothes.” I sounded more confident than I felt—but it wasn’t fair! I did everything I was told, even if I didn’t want to. I’d waited so long for tonight, seventeen months to be exact. This was my time.
“You are so obvious,” Tiffany muttered, storming past Mom into the kitchen.
“It wasn’t a request,” Dad said. “Get upstairs, take off that ridiculous outfit, and put on some goddamn clothing.”
The back of my neck tingled, heat creeping up to my cheeks. Oh my God. This couldn’t be happening. There was nothing more childlike than being sent to your room by your father. It was so unfair and so typical of him to ruin anything important to me. “No. I’m not sixteen anymore,” I said, glancing at Manning. “I—”
“Please,” Manning said. “Just do it.”
We all turned to him. He wanted me to change? With his tormented words, I felt suddenly selfish. I had no idea what Manning had been through, or what he needed from me. I wanted him to see me, but not if it hurt him, so I took off my left shoe and returned upstairs, changing quickly so I wouldn’t miss anything. In a plain t-shirt and jeans, I went back down without shoes—but I still took the stairs two at a time.
Mom had set out a dish of black and green olives and was pouring two glasses of wine. “Charles,” she called as I entered the kitchen. “Why don’t you make Manning a drink?”
“I shouldn’t,” Manning said. “I’m meeting my PO tomorrow.” Before I could wonder what that was, he added, “Parole officer.”
“Oh, of course. Lake, go tell your father never mind. Could you drink in jail?”
Ugh. Seriously? I blew a sigh out of my nose and hurried out of the kitchen while trying to listen. “Prisoners can make alcohol if—”
“Make it?” Mom asked.
“It’s called pruno . . . not like cigarettes, which you can get—”
I stuck my head in dad’s study. “He doesn’t want a drink,” I said, then ran back through the house.
“What’d you miss most?” Mom asked as I entered. I moved out of the way so she could get in the fridge. “I should’ve had Tiffany call to find out so we could’ve had it here.”
Seated at the breakfast bar with a glass of wine and a half-smile on her face, Tiffany tried to get Manning’s attention. He leaned on the counter in one corner of the kitchen, keeping his eyes toward the doorway. I inched a little closer to him. I remembered him being stiff the last time he was here, but it was as if he weren’t completely present. His guard was up. I couldn’t fault him that. I needed to be alone with him to feel his presence like I had that night in the truck, and who knew when that would be?
“I missed a lot of stuff,” Manning said without inflection. “Carpet. Towels that aren’t falling apart. Privacy. But especially steak.”
Mom blushed. At the kitchen’s island, she checked on the tray of meat, turning the slabs over in the marinade. “You’re just saying that because I have it for dinner.”
“No, ma’am. The food inside was sh—excuse me. It was no good.”
“Poor thing. I can’t imagine how hungry you must be.”
Manning dropped his eyes to mine. “Starved.”
The word, only the second he’d said directly to me, pulled at my heart. No man of his size and importance should ever go hungry. I decided then and there—he’d never starve as long as I was around. It was worth the time and effort I’d put in to make sure every detail of tonight’s dinner would be perfect for him.