But the truth was, for the past day, I’ve only had an appetite for Dax. But now that that’s sated, if only for a little while, I feel ravenous.
“Why didn’t you say so?” He hooks a right into the Denny’s—the one restaurant Friesville has— and pulls the truck into a spot in the crowded lot. I push open the heavy door. I’m already tasting the Grand Slam breakfast I’ll be having when I realize that Dax is sitting behind the wheel, frozen with his hand on his seat belt clasp.
“What?” I ask, giving him a playful nudge. “Come on, I’m starving.”
“You want to go somewhere else?” he asks quickly, but it’s too late. I’m already following his line of vision past the windshield, across the lot to a Jeep parked a couple rows over, in the back of the lot. It’s my dad’s. He rides the Wrangler in the summer with the top down and what little hair he has left blowing around. I’m about to wonder aloud why he’s here when I see a head with long, shiny dark hair in the passenger’s seat.
At first I think I made a mistake. It’s just another army-green Wrangler that looks very like my dad’s. But then I crane my head a little to get a better look at the driver. It’s my father’s same, sandy windblown hair, my father’s same ruddy face that begs for SPF in the sun, the same mirrored sunglasses he wears everywhere. He’s talking to the mystery woman very animatedly, smiling a toothy smile that was missing the entire week I spent at the house.
Then he reaches over, locks the woman in an embrace, and they begin to make out.
My whole body rockets off the seat. I’m going to be sick. Dax is already trying to pull away, but I push open the door with the truck in motion, causing him to slam on the brakes and the truck to lurch forward.
“What the fuck?” I shriek as I jump from the cab of the truck and stomp past the rows of cars toward the Jeep.
“Wait, Katie!” Dax is calling from behind me, but I don’t pay attention. I stalk forward, watching my father going at it with a girl I’ve already determined to be a floozy of the first order. He has his hands in her hair and they’re completely oblivious to me stalking up to them until I reach through the opening and shove his shoulder.
He jumps sky high. “Katie!”
“What the fuck, dad?” I scream at him. People in the lot turn to look at us, but I don’t care. “Is she why you and mom are getting a divorce? Her?”
He holds out his hands. “Katie, I was going to explain—“
“When?” I shout incredulously. “I was home for a week and you never told me anything!”
He pats the air in front of him, trying to get me to calm down. “Look. This is Patsy. I’m not moving to Colorado like I said. Patsy and I are getting married as soon as the divorce is through, and we’ll be living here.”
I stare at him in horror. “How long have you been doing this?”
He presses his lips together, so I know the answer isn’t one I’ll want to hear. “Since last summer,” he finally admits.
I explode. “So a whole fucking year?” I snort. “Sure you were going to tell me.”
He’s speaking softly and rationally, like he usually does whenever something other than Dax Harding is the topic of conversation. It’s so false, so fake. Everything about him is just phony. “Look. Calm down, Katie. I never wanted to hurt your mother. But this just happened . . .”
Just happened? Hell no, I won’t be calm. I refuse to. After everything he’s had with my mom, he’s going to throw it away for . . . this? I study the woman, who’s looking genuinely sorry for me, as if she played no part in tearing my world apart. Pathetic. I can see what men see in her—she’s young, probably not much older than I am, and pretty—but I never thought my own dad would be taken in by that. I never thought he would be one of those cheating, home wrecking low-down assholes. He was one of the few good guys. I had him on a pedestal, and now it’s crumbling before me. Mom was mom. His one love. They were a team.
I open my mouth to say something. But nothing comes out. Instead, I stifle a sob and hang my head. I think of everything I’ve ever done, running away to Boston, all those years of school. For him. To please him and live up to his expectations and dreams for me. My daddy.
“Oh, Katie,” my father says, sorrowfully. “I—“
I yank my head up. “No! Don’t say another word. All this time you’re lecturing me about what a big mistake I’m making with Dax? Well, it turns out you don’t know a fucking thing about relationships, if you think this--” I wave my hand and the woman in the passenger’s seat “—is a good idea.”
I grab Dax’s hand and make sure my father can see that I’m with him, that we’re together. “This is what a good man looks like, Dad. He’s smart and loyal as hell, which you’d have known if you’d just taken the chance to get to know him. But you were more concerned with being a phony snob then what truly makes me happy.”