Page 22 of In Love and War
I found it extremely odd that I didn’t immediately hate it.
“Your dad did. A bunch of times actually,” he answered casually, wiping his mouth with a napkin.
Spoke too soon.
The food in my mouth turned into stone as I swallowed. I quickly reached for my water and took a sip to help it go down.
“You said you’ve been going there since you were a kid,” I managed to say without coughing. The words scratched at the back of my throat, making my eyes water.
I put down my plate and took another sip. My appetite was gone.
“Yeah, I was around ten.”
What the fuck is he on about?
“How does that make sense? You started working here in your twenties.”
His eyebrows pulled together, and he cocked his head to the side, “Amelia, I’ve known your dad for ages. That’s how I got the job here in the first…”
He trailed off and studied my face as I stared at him with my mouth open in shocked silence. It only took a second for understanding to wash over his features, and one more for it to turn back into confusion. “Did you seriously not know?”
“No, I didn’t. Can you explain?” My voice came out unintentionally louder than I’d meant, as a new scenario popped up in my head for every second that passed, none of them making any sense.
Thisdidn’t make any sense.
I was trying to keep calm, and it wasn’t working. Why exactly hadn’t my father mentioned this to me?
He scratched his jaw in hesitation.
“Zac. Tell me how it’s possible that you’ve known my dadsince you were tenand this is the first time I’m hearing about it.” I could feel the anger coming on, but I couldn’t exactly pinpoint where it was stemming from.
He was still contemplating, and we were playing the staring game again. Though I was quite sure it was more of a glare from my end.
“It’s not an interesting story. My mom used to work for your dad. And that’s how we met.” He broke eye contact and started to pack up the empty food boxes on his desk. “We need to get back to work.”
Nu-uh.
“You’re going to have to be more specific than that.” There was no way it was that simple of a story.
“No, I don’t. It’s not relevant, and we have to get all of this done.”
His jaw set in a way that made me think I wouldn’t be able to get anything else out of him, so I let it go. But only because I knew I could go to the source for the information.
Except now I also needed to find out why Zac wanted to avoid the topic.
“Oh,good morning, Milly! To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“Is there a reason you never mentioned that you’ve known Zac since he wasbasically in diapers?” The words were coming out of my mouth before his office door had a chance to close behind me.
“Oh darling, he was quite a few years past the potty training stages when we met.” My father’s moustache lifted as he smiled at me, already amused.
“Dad,are you kidding me right now with this? How has it never come up in conversation?” I had all night to sleep and think on it, and it still didn’t make any sense to me.
“I would have loved to tell you the story, but you never wanted to talk about him. You always changed the topic as soon as his name was brought up in conversation. Or have you forgotten?”
Damn it, he was right.
“Fine, yes, you’re right,” I sighed, feeling slightly calmer than when I had stormed in. Probably now because I didn’t think he’d been trying to hide it from me.
