Page 12 of Our Hearts Knew Better

I smiled as my thumbs danced above the keyboard, about to assure him of his charm. Because he did charm me.

But Levi charmed me too. And in a steadier way.

I decided to just send a neutral thumbs-up, then quickly put my phone, face down, back on the table, pressing deeper in the sheets and wondering how I was supposed to just wait for sleep to take me when I was now taken by possibility.

Eggshells

Dad always woke up before me. His footfalls and clatters were my alarm when I didn’t have to set one, and even now, I could hear them from a different floor.

I closed my eyes for a few seconds longer, a few seconds for my imagination to let me believe I lived alone, in some apartment building, and I had a noisy neighbor waking me up every morning.

This one was the last straw and I confronted him with loud feet and loud knocks. It didn’t go over well, and we started having noise competitions, until webothgot in trouble, then had to form a truce, forced to the same side. We were enemies who became lovers.

My eyes blinked open to more noises, my lids heavier than the first moment they opened, and I groaned out of bed.

My body had forgotten that it had to pee, the urge having faded once I’d got to my driveway, and now my thighs were doing the clench on my way to the bathroom.

I showered and dressed quickly in a tank top and a pair of leggings—I needed to do laundry—before piling my hair on top of my head and brushing my teeth.

The air conditioner wasn’t on. Dad was in complete concentration mode. He couldn’t focus if he was even the slightest bit chilly. I’d be going back to my room after breakfast and giving praise to my ceiling fan.

I padded to the kitchen, feeling like the eggshells I could spy in the trash were beneath my feet. A line of sweat was alreadyforming between my boobs, and my knees were almost locking themselves, like I was fighting this walk.

“Dammit,” Dad muttered as I stepped around the entryway, my body bracing to defend myself, but he wasn’t talking to me. He was sitting at the table in front of his laptop.A sight you see most mornings, Summer.

I relaxed a bit as I approached the table, seeing the plate of sausage links and scrambled eggs waiting for me beside a glass of milk. And I smiled, a sight he saw most mornings. And he glanced up with a smile back, gesturing for me to sit and eat.

“How’d you sleep?” he asked.

“Not good,” I answered honestly, chewing my smile forwhyto hide it, then hid my zip of giddiness behind my bite of food, shifting the feeling to the sausage. That was the meatIhad a serious passion for.

Trouble sleeping wasn’t suspicious. People didn’t always sleep well. And neither of us had that track record.

“Well, eat up. That’ll give you a boost.”

Consuming sustenance for another day on my ass.

For another night on the town, I told myself now, with a shimmy I shifted to a bite of eggs.

Dad had a cup of black coffee he was sipping on. I got my love of food from both my parents, but coffee was usually his only sustenance in the mornings. He loved cooking too. But he wouldn’t teach me. Why would I need to learn something he could do for me himself?

Ididlike breakfasts with my dad. Lunches were kind of eat-what-you-want-when-you’re-hungry. And I liked our dinners.

I liked many moments with my dad. On the outside—which was where I had to put myself sometimes to feel that way—it would seem like we had the perfect father-daughter relationship. Mom’s death brought us closer, made our love stronger. Us against the world.

It washogwash.

On the inside, it wasmeagainsthisworld.

There was a distance we couldn’t close, our moments just moments, with no real connection. I would be keeping peace while trying not to be rejected or shamed. A common ground ofhisfoundations I’d build upon.

I didn’t like to fight. I didn’twantto fight. I wanted my dad’s smile shining on me like that all the time.

That was part of the trouble. It was unrealistic.Hisown fantasy. And I had to have my own world too.

I chewed and sipped and swallowed to his narration of work—numbers and security systems and meetings—eyeing his tapping fingers over the keyboard as he raved over this new position, not knowing I was out of the house with his boss’s son a lot of the night.

Adam’s dad ran one of the biggest companies outside of Rosalee Bay, and Adam looked at me like he already knew my dad was a new employee. A lot of people who lived here worked there.

---