Blowing them off, I turned away and rested my chin on my palm. ‘I had a bit of a falling-out with a friend Monday night,’ I lied, but attempted to keep my story as close to the truth as possible. ‘We sorted out our misunderstanding. Now I’m in a good mood.’
‘Well, what a bloody boring explanation that was,’ Angus said teasingly. ‘You’re a librarian, Liv. You’re surrounded by books and material for a good yarn. And you stick to the truth.’ He tutted. ‘Have I taught you nothing?’
I smiled sweetly. ‘I’m quickly learning how to become a drama queen.’
‘Well, that’s something, I suppose. I’ll be in my office, then, where in five minutes a dashing stranger who looks an awful lot like Ryan Gosling will shackle me to my desk and do completely inappropriate and naughty things to me for the next two hours.’ Angus arched an eyebrow at me. ‘Now didn’t that sound better than “I’ll be writing this month’s rota.” ’
I laughed. ‘Point taken.’ I heaved a contrite sigh. ‘Well, if you must know, Monday night I had wild, amazing sex with this hot guy but shit got weird and I was in a really bad mood about it but he surprised me by appearing in my apartment last night where we had more hot wild monkey sex before we snuggled up and watched a movie. Hence my good mood today.’
All three of them looked at me incredulously and then Angus made a face. ‘My Ryan Gosling story was far better.’
I grinned and turned to serve the student approaching my desk, Nate and my secret still … well, a delicious secret.
Later that day I was still in a fantastic mood and more than happy to see my dad standing outside my building with a shopping bag in hand. As soon as I reached him, he bent his massive frame so he could press a kiss to my cheek.
‘Hi, baby girl. Hope you don’t mind’ – he lifted the bag – ‘I brought some food over. Thought I could cook you dinner.’
I unlocked the building door and let us in. ‘Of course I don’t mind. It’s great to see you.’
Once we were inside, Dad immediately set about cooking and soon my apartment smelled like home. Like old times, we chopped vegetables together and I stirred the sauce while Dad boiled the pasta. You wouldn’t think there was an art to boiling pasta, but there was. Apparently. Just ask my dad.
Our conversation as we cooked was light. Dad told me about this new contract he’d just signed to work with Braden’s company again, while I told him about the sock I’d found in a returned book last week only to come upon the matching sock in the reserve section on Monday. They were dirty socks. I was all for weird. But there was weird, and then there was just weird. Angus had this theory that we had a crackpot Harry Potter fan in our midst and this person had somehow confused library assistants with enslaved house elves and by giving us socks thought he was doing a humanitarian act.
I thought it was a pretty good theory.
Better than my theory that some immature freshman was stashing his dirty socks everywhere, laughing his ass off while he filmed me finding them and then put the video up on YouTube.
We ate sitting on stools at my counter, and I was having a great time just chilling with my dad when our conversation took a more serious turn.
‘So you’ve been quiet lately?’ He eyed me, his eyes sharp, searching.
I shrugged, feeling guilty as hell about keeping my shenanigans with Nate from Dad. ‘I’ve just been busy.’
‘Did you know Joss and Braden are back from their honeymoon?’
Another pang of guilt. Wonderful. ‘No, I didn’t know that.’ I swirled a piece of pasta around my fork. I didn’t know that because I was too lost in my selfish sexual world with Nate Sawyer to give a shit what was going on outside of it. That would have to stop. ‘I should call Joss.’
‘This … absence … Is it because of Dee?’ Dad looked deep into my eyes for answers. ‘Because I think we should talk about that. About me and Dee, I mean.’
My breath caught at his expression, at his words, and I felt my pulse speed up. Sweat coated my palms as I shakily exhaled. ‘Are you … are you going to ask her to marry you?’
Dad frowned and gave a slight shake of his head. ‘No, baby girl. No. Though I’m going to take all the color draining from your face at the mere thought of it as a bad sign.’
‘No.’ I hurried to assure him. ‘Dad, I like Dee. I don’t know her as well as you do, but I like what I do know.’
He studied me, not convinced. ‘Then why do you look ill at the thought of me marrying her?’
Pushing my food around my plate, I shrugged. ‘It’s silly. Immature. I just … still think of you as Mom’s.’
Dad’s fork clattered against the plate and his huge hand covered mine, drawing my gaze back to him. His eyes were bright with emotion as he told me in a low, thick voice, ‘A huge part of me will always be your mother’s. I was from the moment I met her. What I have with Dee won’t ever change that.’