Page 44 of Three Pucking Words
I smile a little when he pulls out a container for himself. “Let me guess. Boneless spare ribs?”
He flashes me a sheepish smile as he opens the white cardboard box revealing the ribs inside. Out of anything he could have gotten on the menu, it’s always that. “I’m consistent, if nothing else,” he answers with a shrug.
I grab one of the plastic forks that came with the food and start poking at the shrimp. “At least its protein,” I remark, unknowing of what else to say. Before Sylvia, we lived on takeout. It’s a wonder I still love pizza so much considering how much of it I consumed growing up.
We’re quiet as we pick at our dinner. Conversations have always felt forced with my father. Neither of us seems to know the right words when it comes to our relationship.
He clears his throat a few minutes in, and I notice his eyes on the basket of goods still sitting on the edge of my desk. “You’ve been spending a lot of time with Hoffman lately,” he mentions. The way he says it is plain, simple. Yet, there’s something in his tone that I can’t put a finger on. It isn’t suspicion, but I don’t know what it is.
“Have I?” I ask, spearing a piece of snow pea and staring into the abyss of my takeout container.
The sound I’m rewarded with is a cross between a chuckle and snort. Like he’s amused by my evasion of his statement. “If I thought he had bad intentions, I wouldn’t have introduced him into your life.”
He doesn’t know the brief history I share with his player, so I don’t point out that he isn’t the one to introduce us. Fate is. A little Irish pub with greasy food is. “Whydidyou ask him to meet me at the aquarium. I don’t really need anybody to show me around the city I grew up in. Not much has changed.”
“That’s debatable,” he mutters.
Furrowing my brows, I stop eating. “What is that supposed to mean?”
He peers up at me as if he didn’t realize he said that out loud. “Your mother didn’t exactly raise you here. Do you remember how many times I had to call her to figure out where you two were in the state?”
I vaguely remember the heated conversations my mother would have with him while she drove us to some random man’s house who “was going to change our lives”. Even then, I knew that wasn’t true. I used to whine on car trips like that, telling her I wanted to be home or with Mila. If I’d known she’d take that to heart and go on her own for extended periods of time, maybe I would have been more careful about what I wished for.
“She liked to…travel,” I offer weakly. I’m not sure why I’m trying to defend her. It isn’t like I’m her biggest fan either.
Mom walked away from their marriage getting a good chunk of child support a month from Dad, keeping an apartment in Brooklyn that was subpar at best because the custody agreement made it impossible for her to move out of state with whatever guy she was at the time. Without that legality in the way, she probably would have bolted the second the papers were signed. She loved upstate New York and the New England States. God only knows where we would have wound up.
I’m not keen on talking about her or the sordid past we share. “My point is that you didn’t need to ask Bodhi to meet me there. So why did you?”
One of his shoulders lifts casually. “I thought you needed a good guy in your life considering the last one was a dick.”
He…what? “You met Maxonce.”
He pins me with an unimpressed look, his lips pressed into a thin line as if he’s recalling their encounter. “And during that one and only time, he asked me for tickets to the playoff game while wearing a Bruins hat.”
I wince. I told Max that it was a bad idea, but he wouldn’t listen. I can’t even defend my ex-husband to my father because itwas a dick move. What made it worse was that the playoffs were between Dad’s team and the Bruins, which was Max’s favorite.
“Yeah, that was…” My words fade, and I flinch again. “He was an idiot. But that doesn’t mean I need my father introducing me to other men. I literally just finalized my divorce.”
His eyebrows go up. “I’m not trying to set you up, kid. I’m simply trying to show you that there are good men out there. And…” He pauses, poking a piece of his dinner before sighing. “I suppose I want to give you a reason to stay.”
I blink. Pause. And then blink again.
“Just because Max and I didn’t work out doesn’t mean I don’t know that men better than him exist,” I reassure him. “He hurt me, sure, but I’m not that shutoff to reality.”
My father sets his food down and scratches the side of his neck. “I feel like I have a lot to make up for. I sure as hell wasn’t the best role model on what a father figure should be, which means I didn’t show you what men should be like. That’s on me.”
Snorting before I can help myself earns me a puzzled look. “Sorry,” I apologize, shaking my head and wiping my mouth with a napkin. “I don’t mean to laugh because that’s actually really thoughtful. But that is some Sigmund Freud level shit. Sure, you weren’t in my life as much as I wanted you to be. Maybe evenneededyou to be. And since you’re bringing it up, that means you probably talked to Sylvia.”
He doesn’t confirm or deny it.
So, I go on. “But just because you were a busy father, doesn’t mean it made me choose some asshole to marry. My choice to be with Max had no reflection of you. That would be daddy issues times ten.”
My father’s cheeks darken, but he otherwise keeps his composure. “So, for the record, you’renotdating Bodhi Hoffman?” he asks.
What is with people talking to me about dating Bodhi? “No. Are you forgetting the part where I mentioned that Ijustfinalized my divorce? I’m not the type of person to jump from one relationship to another. I’m not Mom.”
He’s quiet for a second, then nods in acknowledgement. “I know you’re not, kid. Trust me,” he says quietly. “But if youdoend up starting something with him—”
