Page 9 of Swiped By My Dad's Best Friend
And that was just one of our projects.
My phone trilled again, insistently, and I dug it out of my back pocket. “Kinda busy.”
“Busy getting ready for dinner, I hope,” my father said. “You did say I could count on you.”
Fuck. I pulled the phone from my ear to check the time. I’d have to leave the guys to clean up without me, which I hated, and there’d be no time to change, but…
“I’ll be there, Dad.”
He exhaled slowly. “Good. I think you’ll be happy to see—”
“Sorry, I gotta go,” I said. “I’ll be there. I promise. I just have to finish something.”
I clicked off before he could protest, glancing over to Kev. “Go,” he said. “We’re nearly done here.”
“Sorry, man. My dad—”
“Is the college dean,” he cut in. “Go make him happy so he doesn’t sabotage our frat.” He grinned to show he was kidding. “We’ll survive without you.”
I flipped him off as I grabbed my discarded shirt. “You’re helpless without me.”
He laughed. “Helplessly sober, maybe.”
I tugged my shirt over my head, repocketed my phone, and crossed to the ladder braced against the roof’s edge.
“Yo, Simon!” I called down. “Hold the ladder for me?”
He looked up, brushing dark brown hair out of his eyes, and set aside his crutches to steady the ladder.
With a sprain, Simon was relegated to the ground. It was a little strange he was there at all. Usually, Simon prioritized sports over the frat, and we were cool with that. Now, with an injury, he was hardly expected to help, but here he was.
“You didn’t have to come out here,” I said as I reached the ground.
He looked nervous. “Yeah, I know. I just wanted to talk to you guys about something.”
“Okay,” I said slowly. “I’m running late for a family dinner. What is it?”
Simon glanced between me and Kev up on the roof. “Uh, just some frat business. It can keep till later.”
“You sure? You came all the way out here.”
He nodded, looking almost relieved. “Yeah, yeah. Just go, man. It can wait.”
I didn’t need him to say it twice. I took off running. Thankfully, the restaurant Dad wanted to meet at wasn’t too far away, so I could leave the truck we’d borrowed for this job. I’d have to hustle, and I was all too aware of the state of me: faded jeans, stained T-shirt, sweaty as fuck.
I made it the eight blocks to The Copper Oven, a quaint café that Dad loved, and made a beeline for the bathroom, wetting paper towels to wash away the sweat beneath my shirt and along the back of my neck. It would hopefully keep me from reeking during dinner, but there wasn’t much I could do about my clothes. I frowned at my disheveled reflection.
Dad wasn’t going to be happy. But then, what was new? I was always fucking up shit like this. When I’d agreed to dinner, I hadn’t thought twice about our work project, and when I’d headed to work today, I’d only been thinking that dinner was hours later. Somehow, time had gotten away from me—and it would be one more nail in the coffin of my own making.
As I hurried through the restaurant, scanning for Dad, I wondered: Was I just scatterbrained, or did my subconscious intentionally sabotage me? It seemed like every time I did something right, something else went wrong.
My sister intercepted me on the way to the table. “You’re late.”
“I had a thing,” I said evasively.
I tried to step around her, but she clutched my arm, keeping me in place as she squinted at me suspiciously. “Are you high?”
“No.” I blinked eyes that were itchy from the dust I’d been working around at the House Pledge project. My lips twisted into a sardonic smile. “Why do you ask, dear sister?”
