Page 181 of The Fake Date Agreement

My smile slips off my face.

I haven’t told him we broke up. I kept meaning to tell him, but it never seemed like the perfect time. And I know Dad. He loves me so much. If I told him on the phone, he’d get on the first plane to Pennsylvania and punch Marc in the face for hurting me.

“Junebug?”

I get to my feet.

Javier is frowning at me from the ice. For that matter, so is Reid. And Caleb has stopped listening to whatever his coach was telling him.

I grab my bag and try to give them a reassuring smile as I leave the arena. “It’s just going to be me, Dad,” I tell him as I walk out.

“Is everything okay?”

“Fine.” I smile as I lie. “We can talk when I get home.”

“Or I can get the first plane to Pennsylvania.”

“I’m fine, Dad, and you have to work,” I say a little too loudly, drawing attention from the students I pass on my way to the quad.

“That’s what PTO is for.”

I nearly tell him that paid time off is not for getting on a plane to punch your daughter’s ex-boyfriend in the face, but that really will ensure it happens.

“I’m fine, Dad.”

“You think I can’t tell when something is wrong with my little girl?”

And there it is.

The overprotective‘will do anything and everything to protect his little girl’dad that I know. Nothing stirs his rage like the thought of me hurting.

I didn’t have cousins like the rest of my school friends. Christmases and Thanksgivings were always small. That was fine when Mom was alive. I didn’t care about having big family get-togethers or anything like that.

I had Mom and Dad, and that was enough.

When Mom died, the house felt empty in a way it never had before. I looked at my dad, and he seemed older. More tired.

I envision him in his garage office, a coffee drop or two on the short-sleeved pale blue shirts he likes to wear, his tortoiseshell glasses sliding down the bridge of his nose, and a little more gray in his brown hair and beard than the last time I saw him.

“I’m okay. We’ll talk more when I come home. Have you started dating yet?” I ask, more to throw him off the scent of my breakup than because I believe he’s finally decided to change his ways after eight years of being single.

He chuckles. “Dating?Me? Everything is online now, Junebug. That’s hell for nearsighted people like me.”

I smile into the distance as I near my dorm. “Nancy from the diner always liked you.”

“She likes everyone because it’s her job. I can pick you up from the airport, and we can talk on the drive back.”

He knows something is wrong and that I’m not ready to talk about it yet. And he’s telling me he’s ready to listen whenever I’m ready to talk.

I curl my fingers around my cell as the back of my eyelids prickle. “Sure thing, Dad. I better go. Love you.”

“Love you too.”

Back in my room, I wince as I scroll through flight prices on my laptop and mentally curse myself for not buying tickets home before prices doubled.

My phone vibrates across my desk. Caleb.

I answer it, still distracted by my task.

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