Page 41 of When We Were Reckless
“Pommes frites,” he said.
I nearly rolled my eyes. Same thing. This might be a French bistro, but we were in Austin, not Paris.Get over yourself, dude.
“Can I get it without the aioli and just have American cheese instead of this…” I glanced at the menu in my hand. “Whatever this cheese is….”
“Gruyere,” the server said.
Declan lost patience and threw up his hands. “Just give her the damn burger that’s on the menu.”
I scowled at him. “I don’t want all that weird stuff on it.”
“This isn’t McDonald’s,” he said. “Who orders a burger at a French restaurant?”
He looked so scandalized I had to laugh. Then I redirected my gaze to the server. “Can I please just have a plain burger with nothing on it?”
Five minutes after we ordered, my dad waltzed through the front door. For a moment, I wasn’t even sure it was him.
For the past five years, my dad has been having a midlife crisis. Or, at least, that was what Mom called it. It all started on his forty-fifth birthday when he traded in his SUV for a Porsche 911. I still remember when his idea of fun was an annual fishing trip with his college buddies. Or his monthly poker games in the den.
He used to be a good dad, the kind of dad you could rely on to be there for you when you needed him.
I don’t think I ever really got over him leaving. And I’m not sure I ever truly forgave him for cheating on Mom. But my relationship with my dad was complicated. He gave me a kidney when I was twelve, and even though I hated the things he’d done, I still loved him. Because he was my dad and hello, he gave me a kidney.
Now I watched him escort a leggy brunette to our table, his hand on her lower back, a broad smile on his suntanned face. He was wearing a dark tailored suit and a white dress shirt with the first two buttons undone. He looked as if he’d just stepped off a yacht after a holiday in the Caribbean. So it took me a few minutes to fully process that this was indeed my fifty-year-old father.
“Holy shit,” Mason said.
“Well, damn,” Declan said. “Daddy-O’s doing all right for himself. I’d tap that.”
“Now I can see why he was late,” Holden muttered.
With long dark hair and caramel skin, this woman looked like she could be a Brazilian supermodel. She couldn’t have been much older than Mason.
My dad was handsome. I’d never really thought about it until Evie had called him a DILF. And I hated that. I hated that everything had changed and that now I felt like I was looking at someone I used to know and vaguely remembered.
My dad had a big smile on his face when he stopped in front of our table—two small tables that had been pushed together to accommodate our party of six, although I’d thought we were going to be a party of five.
“There’s my Bean.” He pulled me out of my seat and into a hug. My dad used to smell clean, like soap and peppermint gum. Now he smelled like expensive cologne. Nothing about him was familiar except for his voice. “How are you doing, kiddo?”
“Great. I’m doing great.”Other than the fact that you missed my graduation and now you brought a date to our family dinner, everything is just great.
He released me and pulled out a chair for the woman. I don’t remember him ever doing that for Mom. I stared at the woman across from me. She was beautiful. Sexy. Exotic.
She wore a black silky wrap dress with a plunging neckline and a gold medallion around her neck. Her hair was dark, cut in long layers, and her eyeliner was winged, but the rest of her makeup was minimal.
My dad made the introductions. Her name was Camilla, and she ran her own PR company, which my dad had hired to do some campaigns for Green Fields Market. At second glance, she was probably in her early thirties, if I had to guess, but still too young for my dad.
When she picked up her menu, I saw it. The diamond on her ring finger was the size of a small asteroid. It felt like such a punch in the gut that I was having trouble breathing.
My brothers and I exchanged looks, raised brows, and expressions that said,What the fuck?
My dad waited until he and Camilla had put in their orders to drop the bomb.
“Camilla and I are getting married. We wanted you to be the first to know.” He beamed like he was doing us a big favor by telling us he’d proposed to a woman that none of us had even met.
For a few moments, my brothers and I sat in stunned silence. I mean, I’d seen the ring. We all had. It was hard to miss. But those words sounded so wrong coming out of my father’s mouth.Camilla and I are getting married.
For the first thirteen years of my life, it had been Abby and Mark. Mark and Abby. Whenever their friends used to say it, it almost sounded like one word. That’s how close they were. Now it was Mark and Camilla. It didn’t sound right.
