Chapter Twenty-Six
Cassidy
Dad’s house looks exactly like the photos.
It’s a modest one-story, red brick, ranch-style house, complete with a front porch missing one step. Solar panels line his roof, and at least ten chickens roam in a giant coop to the left of the house.
“You didn’t tell him we were coming?” Luke asks in a rush. “What if—”
“God save the king, that’s not my Cass.”
Dad lopes out of a covered garage to the right of the house, wielding a metal detector. He pauses, puts his free hand to his forehead like he’s saluting, throws down his tool, and breaks into an unselfconscious jog.
He doesn’t hesitate when he reaches me. His arms pull me into the tightest hug I’ve ever experienced.
“Well, this is a fantastic surprise.” He releases me and clasps my shoulders. “You look just like your nana Duncan. If she could see you, she’d be tickled silly at the resemblance.”
“Wait, Nana”—I lower my voice—“passed?”
“Nah, she just can’t see for beans.” He slaps my shoulder. “Come on in.”
“Dad,” I say, turning my attention to the man staring very intently at the chicken coop, “this is Luke.”
“Well, would you look at that?” Dad approaches Luke, puts out his hand like he’s ready to shake, and drops it as soon as Luke reaches for it to point at the car. “How long you been driving my daughter around on a flat, Luke?”
“Wait—what?” Luke scrambles to check the tires as my dad grasps his stomach, holding his organs in place as he full-body chuckles.
“Nah, just kidding. Always wanted to make that joke for my Cassidy.” He gives Luke a proper handshake, and my stomach does a pirouette.
Dad returns his attention to me, throwing an arm over my shoulder. “C’mon in. Stacey was just whipping up lunch.”
The screen door rattles as we pass through, Dad first, then me, followed by a very wary Luke. My hand itches to wrap around his, but I’m not sure if holding hands in front of people is on the things Luke and I do list.
My breath catches in my chest as we cross Dad’s living room. It smells, impossibly, like somewhere I’ve been. The familiarity of that settles over me as my gaze catches on a photo of me and Isabelle on the wall. It must be at least an eight-by-ten, if not bigger, in an oval frame. We can’t be older than five, both sporting toothy grins. It’s one of the few pictures I’ve seen of us where we aren’t dressed to the nines in frills—just coordinated overalls, Isabelle’s a maroon color and mine a dark green.
It’s as big as the photo of his two daughters right next to it. As if we are somehow equal to the girls he got to raise their whole lives.
I press the ache in my chest that I have no time to nurse as Dad saunters through the house.
“Stacey! Guess the fuck what, baby?” Dad’s slicked-back black hair gleams under a row of pendant lights as he leads us into the kitchen. “I found Cassidy. Washed up right on shore, if you can believe it.”
Stacey, who I’ve met a handful of times when she’s joined my dad on “business” in Los Angeles—which was code for coming to visit me in a way that wouldn’t upset my full-custody-having mother—is a quieter presence than Dad.
By about one-quarter of a decibel.
She chucks her ladle on the stove and gives me a hug to rival Dad’s, screeching in my ear. “Holy guacamole, look at you! Phil, she looks just like your mother. I’ll have to find a photo—I had no idea you were coming or I would’ve made something other than Thursday Stew Surprise. I would’ve made…” She taps her pointy chin. “What would I have made? Let me think. Maybe a roast?” Her gaze hops over my shoulder. “Hey, who’s this?”
“Sorry, yes.” I reach behind and tug Luke forward by the clammy wrist. “This is Luke.”
Luke’s answering “hi” is a croak. “Nice to meet you.”
I toss him a curious glance. Boy sounds like he strained a vocal cord. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he was nervous.
His possible nerves make my own pulse stutter.
Maybe I should’ve thought twice about bringing him here. Heck, I’ve never even been to my father’s house. I knew the address by heart—mailing letters once a week cements things to memory pretty fast—but I was never allowed to visit growing up and haven’t been as an adult. In the times we’ve seen each other, Dad’s come to me.
“Luke…” Stacey taps her temple. “Have we heard about a Luke?”
“Yeah, he’s old friends with Matthew, Mark, and John,” Dad chimes in, licking the ladle he procured from the stove. When this doesn’t get a laugh, he adds, “A little biblical humor. No disrespect intended if you’re into that. Or not into that.”
“Phil loves new people,” Stacey says in a stage whisper. “Gets to try out new material. Welcome to our home, Luke. Any friend of Cassidy’s is a friend of ours.”
Friend. That’s one way to describe Luke.
Though no friends of mine are kissing me tenderly one second and drilling into me in the front seat of a convertible the next.
I shake off the thoughts before they creep up as a blush.
Dad takes a seat at a counter bar stool. “So, what brings you two to our humble abode?”
“We were unexpectedly in the area. And I was hoping you and I could talk. About the wedding.”
His forehead wrinkles, just enough to hint at his unease. “Ah.” He taps the ladle he’s inexplicably still holding against the counter. “Sure, we can talk. Though I can’t say it’ll change my mind. You’re staying for lunch, right? Seems a shame to drive all the way out here and not try Stacey’s Thursday Surprise.”
I glance Luke’s way, searching his eyes. “Is that okay?”
“I’d be glad to,” he says.
Stacey’s voice snaps me back to attention. “The stew’s been stewin’ for a while now. Phil, do you want to grab bowls?”
“Can I help?” I offer.
“You can have a seat and take a load off. Both of you run along to the porch.”
We settle at a picnic table overlooking the back half of their property. Luke’s leg presses against mine under the table. When my dad runs inside to get the salt-and-pepper shakers, Stacey leans in and asks in a low voice, “How’s wedding prep?”
“Not without its complications,” I hedge.
“I hear ya. There’s a reason your dad and I eloped. Well, two reasons. The second one calls me Mom.”
Dad bursts back onto the scene, clutching an Elvis-and-Priscilla ceramic shaker set.
“I put plenty in the meal, Phil,” Stacey laments. “You don’t need to load up.”
“I’m just going to put in an extra dash. I call it the DASH diet.” He lowers into his seat. “So how’d you wind up in Utah, Kiddo?”
“Took a wrong turn on Sunset Boulevard.”
Dad’s hearty laugh flames my ego so much I flush. Peeking over at Luke who is eating his stew in a very no-nonsense way, I add, “It’s actually kind of a funny story. Luke and I were traveling from North Carolina. He stole my parking space.”
Luke swallows. “Unintentionally. And then we were on the same flight.”
“Our plane was grounded.”
“Then our rental was hit after we pulled over—”
“Totally smashed.”
“Cassidy was freaked out, so we decided no more cars.”
“Then Amtrak was a slow-motion disaster.”
“So then we got another car.”
I meet his eyes, those honey hazels hypnotizing in their brightness. “Couple of stops later, here we are.”
“Here we are.” He quirks a smile that makes me honest-to-God weak.
A few seconds drift past before I realize we’re openly staring at each other, grinning like carefree teenagers. I snap my attention back across the table.
Dad lowers his spoon. It hits the plate with a clink. “Wait a second. You’re telling me you two just met? And now you’re driving my daughter across the country?”