Page 76 of Topping the Jock
“Beck.” Reed walked over and placed his hands on my shoulders. “You have a horrible perception of yourself. Do you really think Monty would’ve fought so hard for your attention if he intended to leave you high and dry?”
“I don’t know. This is all too confusing.” I exhaled a breath and stood from the barstool, walking over to the set of glass doors. Snow covered the back porch, and a few stray flurries fell from the gray sky. “I don’t know what he’s thinking in that goofy head of his.”
“Let me meet him,” Reed said from behind me. I looked at him over my shoulder, eyebrow raised. “Don’t give me that look. I’m serious. You said yourself that you don’t know what he’s thinking or how he feels. So let me meet him. I’m good at reading people. Plus.” He walked over, coffee in hand, and stood beside me, peering out into the snow. “You haven’t been serious about a guy in a long time. I’m happy for you, Beck. I want to judge him and make sure he’s worthy of my best friend.”
I chuckled, feeling that heaviness in my chest lift. Reed always made me feel better.
“I’ll see when he’s available,” I said. “Maybe we can do dinner.”
“Then you can have him for dessert?”
I bumped Reed’s arm. “Perv.”
As I left Reed’s house around three that afternoon, I called my dad. It rang… and rang… before going to voicemail. He usually called me back as soon as he saw he had a missed call, so I put my phone aside and continued toward home. I parked in the garage and went inside, cranking up the temperature on the thermostat because it was a bit too chilly in my house.
About an hour later, I still hadn’t heard from my dad. Worry knotted in my gut. What if something had happened to him? I called him a second time.
He picked up on the fourth ring.
“Hey, kiddo,” he said, sounding a little out of breath. “Everything okay?”
“What were you doing? You sound winded.”
“I was, uh, exercising.”
“You don’t exercise.”
“Well, I took it up recently,” he said. “It’s good for the old ticker. Gotta stay healthy in my old age.”
“You’re not old,” I responded, not sure if I believed his exercise story. A quiet murmuring sounded in the background of his end of the line. A woman’s voice. “Is someone there?”
“Huh? It was the TV.”
“Dad… what’s really going on? I can tell you’re lying, even over the phone.”
“Do ya really wanna hear about my sex life, Quinn?”
“What? Oh my god.” As realization slammed into me, I shuddered in disgust. “And you were out of breath because you were…oh my god. Why did you answer my call? I’m going to have nightmares for the rest of my life.”
“Quit bein’ so dramatic,” he said with a raspy laugh. “You called me once, then when you called again, I worried something had happened, so I answered. I didn’t know if you had an allergic reaction and needed me to take you to the hospital.”
Sweet of him. Yet, I could only think about the fact that I’d just interrupted my dad having sex.
“I only wanted to check on you and see if you needed me to bring you anything because of the snow,” I said, pinching the bridge of my nose. “But I can see you’re fine. Let’s never speak of this again, okay?”
He laughed harder. “Sounds good to me.”
“Bye. Talk to you later.”
“Bye.”
I disconnected the call and shuddered again. I needed mind bleach. Preferably some kind of pill I could take to wipe the whole conversation from my memory. Deep down, though, likewaydeep down, I was happy my dad had found someone. He’d been alone for too long.
My phone buzzed in my hand. At first I thought it was a text, but it kept buzzing. I looked to see Monty’s name flash across my screen. Right away, butterflies fluttered in my stomach. Especially since I’d realized how I truly felt about him.
“Didn’t I just see you?” I answered, doing my best to play it cool.
“Don’t you know my heart breaks when you’re not with me, Specks?” Monty responded in an exaggerated and melodramatic tone. “One second away from you is too much. How will I ever go on?”
