Page 89 of Perfect (mis)Match

“Stop frowning, I’mfine,” my dad grumbled as I walked in the room, before I could even get a word out. “No need to look so stressed out.”

“Would someone tell me what happened?” I asked, glancing between the two of them. “Why are you here, Dad?”

Piper refused to look at me, choosing to watch my dad instead.

“I did something dumb,” Richard said.

“Shit,” I sighed. “What was it? Free diving? Paragliding? How many times do I have to tell you that you need to be more careful about how you?—”

“A bike messenger hit me in a crosswalk.”

I paused to consider the scenario and had to stifle a chuckle of relief that it was such a minor accident—and that, wonder of wonders, he hadn’t actually done anything risky to cause it. “You’re kidding me.”

“Do you want to see the tire tracks on my ass?”

“Seriously?”

He broke into a smile. “Nah, the guy barely clipped me, but I fell and hit my head on the curb. Knocked me right out for a minute, and people panicked. I was awake by the time the ambulance came, feeling absolutely fine. I wanted to go about my business, but they sort of forced me to come to the hospital and have a few tests run, so here I am.”

I glanced at Piper. “And how did…why is…”

I couldn’t find a way to ask why he’d reached out to my fake ex-girlfriend instead of me.

“Well, I know how busy you are most days, and Piper and I had just been texting about the new Callaway fairway wood I’d just bought, so I figured I could reach out to her, and she’d get word to you.”

Shit. I hadn’t told him about the breakup yet, and it sounded like Piper hadn’t either. I guess that was up to me.

“And you’re here now, Vincent, which means I can head out. Duty calls at work; you should be very familiar with that scenario,” Piper said in a clipped voice as she stood up. She turned to my father. “It’s wonderful to see you, even though it’s not under better circumstances. I’m glad you’re okay.” She reached out to give his hand a squeeze.

My father grabbed it and raised it to his lips for a quick kiss on the back of her hand, ever the flirt.

“We need to nail down our golf date, young lady. I want you to correct my swing.”

Piper’s eyes flicked to me. “We’ll see what we can do. For now, focus on taking care of yourself. Keep your feet on the ground, mister.”

I watched Piper walk out of the room, and quite possibly out of my life for good.

“Dad, uh, I’ll be right back,” I said as I hurried after her.

She was striding down the hall at a near jog.

“Piper,” I called. “Hold on.”

She turned around slowly, her expression wary.

I wasn’t sure what I was going to say to her, but I wasn’t about to miss the opportunity to saysomething.

“Yes?” Piper folded her arms over her chest protectively.

“I just wanted to say thanks for helping out. You didn’t have to do that.”

“Your father is a wonderful man, and I was happy I could be there for him.”

There was so much unspoken in the single sentence. Myfatherwas wonderful, but I wasn’t.Piperhad the bandwidth to help him, but I didn’t.

“He really likes you,” I said.

She shrugged. Once again, there was so much subtext in the simple gesture. It didn’t matter that he liked her; our relationship was over, so she wouldn’t have a chance to deepen the connection.

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