Page 23 of My Dad's Best Friend

“John, it’s me. It’s Conner—”

“You fucking bastard,” he growls. “You fucking touched my daughter—”

“You’re going to have to stop calling her yours,” I warn. I swallow what I want to say, that I want to tell him just who she really belongs to. “She’s a grown woman. She belongs to herself.” She belongs to me.

“She’s half your age.”

“She’s old enough to make her own decisions,” I say.

John stops struggling under my hold, and I loosen my grip to test him. He doesn’t move, and I release him.

“John,” I say, putting my hand on his shoulder. “You have to know I’m not some sick old man going after younger girls.”

“That’s exactly what it fucking looks like, you son of a bitch,” he says, his voice sounding defeated, though the anger is still there. I’m stronger than him, and he knows it. There’s no fight in him that can match me, especially when it comes to what’s mine.

“I know how it looks,” I say. “And I was going to resist it, but I couldn’t.”

“Don’t,” John says. “Don’t tell me about how you couldn’t keep your hands off my daughter.”

“John,” I say, letting the growl come into my voice. “You have to stop calling her that. She doesn’t belong to you.”

He opens his mouth, but I stop him. I can’t hear him argue. Telling him that Marie belongs to me, that I’m possessive as fuck when it comes to her, and that I fuck her every chance I get to affirm that she’s mine, isn’t going to help anything. The second I tell him she’s mine, I know the words are going to spill out how I claimed her in the first place, and I can’t do that to him. No father wants to hear that.

“I’ve been on my own for a long time,” I say. “I’ve been to Europe and seen, met, and talked with some of the most beautiful women in the world. Not one of them did I sleep with. Not one of them was I interested in. I’ve had my sights set on finding my one for a long time. You know this. I haven’t touched a woman since before I left.”

I can see his jaw clenching as he presses his lips together and looks at the ground, but I know he remembers me telling him this over the years.

“I haven’t been interested in any woman, and I’ve met a lot of them. Until I saw Marie. Right then I knew she was the one.”

“It’s sick,” he says.

“I know how it sounds,” I tell him. “I know, and I understand this is hard. It was hard for me when I felt it. I know the situation. I know my best friend is her father. I know her age. I know how this looks. But even if Marie was seventy, I’d still feel the way I do about her. She’s it. She’s the one. She’s been under my nose this whole time and I guess I was just waiting for her to grow up and become a woman.”

“You changed her diapers.”

“I promise you, I literally never think of that,” I say.

John shakes his head, his hands on his hips. “I won’t have this.”

“Look. I know how this must feel to you—”

“You have no idea, Conner.”

“But,” I continue. “I want you to know that you don’t have anything to worry about from me. I’m not using her. I’m not going to string her along. She’s not a status symbol for me, or a midlife crisis. She’s the real deal to me. I promise you that.”

John sighs, chewing on his lip as he looks up at the sky, at the ground, anything but at me, or Marie and Kath who are still at the door, watching us. No doubt Kath was ready to call the police when John confronted me, and no doubt she’s making sure she doesn’t need to.

“God damnit, Conner,” he says. “It had to be Marie.”

“It had to be.”

“Fuck.” John reaches over to the barbecue where my bottle of beer rests and takes a long drink of it, nearly finishing it. “I guess I feel more comfortable with you than any college boy she might bring home.”

“You know I’m not looking for notches on my bedpost,” I say.

“Please don’t make me think about that.”

I chuckle. “Fine. We good?”

“Not by a long shot,” he says, finally looking at me. A smile small creeping across his face. “You’re a son of a bitch, you know that?”

“I probably am,” I say. “But you’ll get used to calling me your son-in-law one day.”

“Conner, there’s only so much I can take.”

I start laughing, slapping my friend on the back. It’s enough to get him going, sharing the moment with me that we have something even more in common. Our adoration for Marie.

“What are you doing back, anyway?” I ask when our laughter subsides.

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