by P. Dangelico
With the exception of this small difference, my family is embarrassingly mainstream. So mainstream my parents both drive Subarus and we have an honest to goodness white picket fence around our house in Del Mar. Up until this summer, before Iggy passed, we even had a Labradoodle. Like I said––mainstream.
“Thanks for the s-surprise, but why today?” Even though I’m always happy to see them, this unexpected visit on a Saturday morning strikes me as a bit suspicious.
“Have to travel to Washington next week,” the Chief explains.
“Did you find your phone yet?” my dad, Evan, asks.
“Not yet. But the guy who found it said he was out of town so…”
It’s been a week and I’m starting to get a little nervous that my mystery person, the one who found it, is playing me. I’m purely speculating it’s a guy by the tone of the text.
He frowns. “Let us know.”
“I think I can get you a new one off my plan. I don’t want you going anywhere without one,” says the Bureau Chief of my personal safety.
“How was the party at Sasha’s sorority?” dad, Evan, asks.
Every muscle in my body automatically draws tight. I shouldn’t have said anything, but he kept pestering me and he always frets about my lack of a social life so I mentioned Sasha’s party––I threw him a bone. Which, I see now, was a huge mistake because he won’t let it go.
“Okay. I guess.”
His dark blond brows come together as he examines me. “You guess? Come on, you can do better than that.”
Sigh. This is how it starts. As far as helicopter dads go, he’s a military grade Black Hawk stealth.
“Sasha m-met a guy she liked and kind of left me to fend for myself. So, you know––” I shrug, not bothering to finish. My parents know how hard it is for me talk to anyone, let alone strangers. “D-don’t say anything to aunt Donna,” I say to him. Donna being his sister and him not knowing how to keep a secret to save his life.
Case in point, he makes a face. I know he’s just being protective, but it’s too much. He doesn’t realize how incapable it makes me look.
“I m-mean it. Do not say anything to her, Daddy.”
“Fine,” he promises way too quickly. Which is why I’m fifty percent certain he won’t keep that promise.
The snort coming across the table has me glancing up to meet my dad’s brown eyes. He’s watching me over the rim of the coffee cup. They crinkle on the sides as he smiles around the cup.
Even though I was a surrogate baby, I don’t resemble either one of my parents. Before having me, they decided never to do a DNA test. Which means either one of them could be my biological father. All I know is that I’ve been told I look a lot like my birthmother.
A woman I’ve never met.
A woman who wants nothing to do with me.
“Are they coming over for Thanksgiving or are we going to their place?” I ask, eager to change the subject.
“Our place.”
The mention of our home brings up the sad fact that it won’t be a typical holiday.
“I miss Igg.” We had to put my dog to sleep this summer. Being at school and away from home has tempered the blow, but going home and seeing it empty is going to be awful.
Iggy was basically my only friend for years. My speech impediment was so bad that my parents got him as a therapy dog for me when I was eight. The trainer named him Ziggy but I couldn’t pronounce the Z so everyone just starting calling him Iggy.
“We all do––” Jay says, and my parents share a look. Dad runs a hand over his closely-cropped salt and pepper hair, and sighs. “but he was in pain, sweet pea.”
That scrapes my nerves. As if I don’t know what the life expectancy of a large Labradoodle is. “I have s-something to talk to you about…”
Both of them freeze. The deer in the headlight expression is a familiar one. Every time I broach the subject, I see it on them.
“I want to meet her.”
“Honey––”
“I d-don’t care that she’s not what you think I deserve. Or…or that she’s not up to your parental s-standards––which are extremely high, by the way. I just…I-I need to see her…in person.”
I can’t explain it any other way. It’s not like I expect us to have an Oprah moment. It’s not like I expect her to see me, come to her senses, and throw her arms around me. And who knows––maybe I’ll see her, scratch that itch, and never think of her again. It could happen. But I need to meet her. It’s an itch that hasn’t lessened in five years.
“She never wanted to be a mother,” Daddy says jumping right into his usual explanation. “She has no children of her own––I mean––” he sighs tiredly, “you know what I mean. None that she raised.”
“So that’s a no,” I answer for them, more than a little frustrated.
“It would be a breech of our agreement, Honey,” Dad, Jay, explains.
“The new clothes really suit you,” Evan segues in an attempt to distract me. “You look beautiful, honey.”
I’m wearing a white t-shirt that hugs my curves and frayed designer boyfriend jeans. My long, straight red hair is in a high ponytail, and for once, I’m wearing a little makeup. All courtesy of Zoe.
“Daddy stop. My friend t-took me shopping. It’s not a big deal.”
He’s been trying to take me shopping for the better part of the last eight years and I refused so it kinda is a big deal. I just don’t need a therapy session from him right now.
“I’m just going to say what I need to say––” he continues, no less determined to speak his piece.
My other parent sighs, his expression long suffering. “Babe––”
The subject of my weight has always been a hard one for my father to handle. He’s super fixated on being supportive and at the same time terrified to say the wrong thing. The consequence of which is that the conversation always ends with me feeling forced to reassure him that I’m fine––even when I’m not entirely fine. It’s exhausting.
“You don’t have to change for anyone. You know that, right?” he continues as if he hasn’t heard a single pleading word. “You’d look beautiful in a garbage bag.” He stares across the table. “Right, Jay?” Not even waiting for an answer. “We support all your choices.”
“As long as the garbage bag covers you from neck to ankles,” Dad adds, eyes twinkling. Always the practical one.
I smile around a bite of pancake. “Will you s-support my choice to shave my head and join a r-radical political party?”
“No,” they simultaneously and forcefully clap back.
“What the fuck, dude!” a loud and angry male voice cuts into our conversation. It cuts into all the conversations. This restaurant is full and everyone turns to stare at the commotion happening behind me.
“Sweet Pea?” Dad’s brown eyes narrow and his lips practically disappear, his gaze pinned on something or someone behind me.
“Hmm?” I glance up from stirring my latte.
“If you care for your old man at all, please don’t ever bring a guy like that one home.” He tips his chin at the commotion happening behind me.
“Jay––” my other parent scolds.
Curiosity has me turning in my seat, my attention trailing after Dad’s glare. It leads me straight to a guy wearing a black wetsuit that’s peeled down to his waist, his torso naked, his dark hair wet, and his bare feet covered in sand. He looks like he came straight from the beach. Maybe even the one this restaurant overlooks.
Standing over a table, he points angrily at whomever is sitting there. I can’t see them, my view blocked by the healthy width of the angry guy’s back.
“We are broken up, Cody. Do you understand broken up?” a girl, presumably sitting at the table, responds in a pitchy voice.
A love triangle. My favorite shape.
“You’re making a scene, Holloway. Run along,” a guy grinds out, one that must be sitting at the table next to the girl because Cody seems visibly peeved ab
out it.
Transfixed, we watch the manager walk over and implore the angry guy and the people sitting down to take it outside. The manager gently places his hand on the angry surfer’s naked bicep and the guy jerks away.
“––the fuck off of me,” angry surfer barks, directing his ire at the manager who takes a step back, understandably spooked by the exchange.
“That’s it,” comes from across the table. My Dad is out of our booth and striding toward the ruckus while my father and I watch him go.
Ramos to the rescue. Sometimes I think he was a superhero in a past life. His compulsion to keep everyone safe is almost too much. My other dad’s compulsion––if you haven’t already guessed––is to fix everything. Whether it’s broken or not.
“Jay, be careful––” There’s tension and concern in my dad’s voice. There’s always cause for concern when the Chief’s on the job.
At six four and fighting fit, Jay Ramos cuts an imposing figure, but he isn’t invincible. Every time he stepped out the door when he was still working in the field, he was at risk. It’s a persistent low current anxiety all law enforcement, military, and firefighting families have to make peace with. The fear has only subsided recently, since he made Chief.
My father approaches the table with authority. Which with his size doesn’t take much. He pulls his badge out of the back pocket of his jeans, and brandishes it at the manager and trespasser.
Angry surfer’s face stiffens while the restaurant manager’s body language tells a completely different story, his shoulders slumping in relief.
My dad’s presence takes all the energy out of the situation. Angry surfer abandons the table and walks out of the restaurant, making an even bigger scene when he sends the door crashing open. Meanwhile, the restaurant manager shakes my dad’s hand. Pride fills me. Both my parents are pretty awesome people.
Then they step aside, giving me a perfect view of the two people sitting at the table. A pretty brunette and Dallas, who’s staring right at me as if he recognizes me. Not in the impersonal I-think-I’ve-seen-you-around way. More like the I’ve-had-my-tongue-in-your-mouth way. A slow-burning heat crawls up my neck and over my face.
He’s wearing a faded blue Malibu University Water Polo T-shirt and a very serious expression. Streaked blond hair tumbling around his face, darker blond brows drawn down over an unblinking electric blue gaze. His pouty lips pressed together tightly. He looks like a supermodel in the midst of doing his taxes.
The girl sitting next to him tries to nudge him out of the booth, but he ignores her, never breaking eye contact with me.
“Dor?…Dora?”
My dad’s question breaks the staring contest. I rip my attention away from the subject of all my dirty fantasies a few feet away and meet my father’s curious stare. His brow quirks.
“Do you know that boy?”
“Who?”
My dad takes one look at my molten red face and knows. He knows. And does a terrible job of hiding the spark of interest in his eyes. Nor the smile wanting to spread across his face. God, please let him drop the subject.
“Let’s get going,” he says, placing a hundred dollar bill over the check. “We have something to show you.”
Without having to be asked twice, I jump out of the booth and hustle out the door. Try as I may, I can’t resist taking one last backward glance at Dallas.
I swear that for a fleeting moment I see something that could be construed as regret on his face. Then again, it’s probably just my imagination––or wishful thinking.
Chapter Six
Dallas
Eff-It List 2020
1. get a make-over √
2. learn to surf
3. get drunk
4. get a tattoo (a small one)
5. ride a Ferris wheel (or a hot air balloon)
6. meet my birth mother
7. date more
8. get a boyfriend
9. lose my V card
10.
Is this chick for real?
I don’t know what’s more troubling––that she’s still a virgin, or that she wants to lose her virginity but can’t even spell the word fuck in the privacy of her personal notes.
Closing out the Notes app, I stuff said phone in my backpack and follow Rea to the garage where my pride and joy, my yellow Porsche 911, sits parked next to his Jeep. Whoever tells you being rich isn’t all it’s cracked up to be has never been rich.
“I’m driving,” I tell Rea.
“Hmm,” he returns distractedly. Which is weird because he usually fights me on it, arguing that my Porsche is too low and cramped.
“Dude––you okay?”
Glancing up, he blinks out of a fog and says, “No.” Then he stops short at my car and frowns as if he finally realizes what he agreed to. “Let me drive. I need to put my hands to use or I’ll start sending more desperate texts.”
I feel for him, I do. I know what it’s like to be tied up in knots over a girl and it’s not pleasant. Love is a dangerous drug. One minute you’re sixty feet off the ground, riding high on endorphins. The next, it’ll drop you like a Tinder hookup, and run you over for good measure. A lesson I learned a long time ago and never forgot.
We hop into his Jeep, and he tears down the road toward the Slow Drip, a local Malibu coffee shop.
“No use fighting it. It’s pretty simple. Beg for mercy, say yes to anything she says, and all will be well again.”
He shoots me a doubtful, scrutinizing glance. Rea’s never been in love before and I don’t want to spoil it for him. Every guy should know what it feels like at least once in his life. Especially since the guy doesn’t even realize he’s already in deep.
He will soon enough, though. Chicks like Bailey demand your heart and expect nothing less. She’s a good egg, that one. The problem is, girls like Bailey will cut your heart out and take it with them when they leave. Which is why I steer clear of girls like her. Give me the Speedo chasers, the gold diggers, the ones in it for the bragging rights. Those are my type. Everybody gets what they want and everyone walks away happy. Well…most of the time.
“What if I ruin it?” he says pulling into a parking space in the Malibu Mart. Turning the engine off, he looks over at me with an expression more dejected than I’ve ever seen on him.
“What if you don’t?” I flip up my sunglasses and give him my undivided attention. “On this episode of Who Stole My Balls? we explore––”
“Quit the shit.”
“Look, it might not work-out, but I can guarantee you’ll regret it if you don’t try. I like Bailey. She’s real, for one thing. And she doesn’t think you make the sun rise in the west, which makes her worth the risk.”
As we pass the glass-paned storefront, I catch sight of the woman in question. She’s sitting at a table against the glass with her friends. Among them is Kitten, and a smile grown on my face. This should be fun.
“Sac-up,” I tell him.
Shaking his head, he pushes the door open. The place is packed. Reagan heads for Bailey like a man on a mission while I make for the register and use the time to scope out my prey.
9. lose my V-card…
It keeps flashing in my head like some subliminal alpha bat call. She looks different. I noticed that earlier this morning when I saw her at the restaurant with her dads who I also recognized from the pictures on her phone. Crazy that I know more about this girl than all of the girls I’ve dated in the last four years combined.
For one thing, the baggy clothes are gone. She’s wearing a fitted white t-shirt and jeans. Her long red hair is in a ponytail, and she has gloss on her lips…right. Those lips…I know exactly what they feel like against mine. What they taste like. Those lips have earned my attention.
I lost my shit when I opened her photos and discovered a selfie of my mystery Cat Woman on her phone. It took me a full day to recover from that alone. The revelations that followed had me searching frantically for a safe, quiet space to read like an adolescent
school girl with her first romance novel.
“Hi, Dallas!”
I glance backward and spot the screamer. Amanda something or other. Great legs. No sense of humor. No thanks.
Her smile looks painful. Jerking a chin in return, I give her my back and place my order. A short while later, eye on the prize, I make my way to the table where Rea is busy trying to get back into Bailey’s good graces.
“No, really, make yourself at home, Reynolds. We’re so psyched that you would bestow upon us the gift of your illustrious company,” says the tall skinny blonde, the one Brock is always hanging around. I think her name is Zoe.
Why he hangs with any chick is a mystery to me when he has no intention of touching them. Dude likes his balls on the cool side of blue, I guess.
“Fancy seeing you here, Bailey. We were just talking about you,” I say as I hand a large take-out cup to Rea.
“Dall––”
“What?” I say, tempering the urge to chuckle. My beautiful face, the one that God and my momma gave me, is the picture of innocence.
“Don’t,” Reagan warns. My boy is strung tight. God, I hope he gets laid soon.
Feigning more false innocence, I shrug. Meanwhile, my eyes take a lap around the table and come to rest on Dora. All by design of course. I’m hunting kittens today.
As I stare at her, her eyes flicker to me and away. Her full, glossy lips purse. Wrapped around her cup, her small hands clutch and release, short nails painted a dark color tapping against it.
Somebody looks guilty.
“Do I know you?”
She squirms under my intense examination, doing everything in her power to avoid direct eye contact. A deep flush works up her neck, a marked contrast against the white t-shirt. Damn, she’s cute.
In other news, I can feel the collective curiosity of her friends on me and their suspicions are not misplaced.
Bailey isn’t quite sure what to make of my behavior yet. She knows me pretty well with all the time she spends filming the team so she’s not assuming the worst yet. Blake Allyn, who I know from a public speaking class we both took, is still reserving judgement. But the other one, Zoe Mayfield, that chick is a house burner. Meaning, you cross her and she’ll burn down your house with you in it. Judging by her expression, she’s already made up her mind about me and it’s not good. This, of course, only encourages me to continue.
