Ten

McKenzie

I haven’t felt this numb since high school, since the Monday West never showed to pick me up, and decided that I no longer existed. My brain and my heart are warring with each other, one telling me to go to his house and bring the pain, while the other tells me to give him another chance.

Maybe I should have let him strip in the parking lot of Tanaka’s, and left him stranded after all.

“What did those plants ever do to you?” my dad asks.

I start at the sound of his voice, almost overturning the clay pot of baby ferns. “Nothing.”

He moves to stand beside me, rubbing a frond between his fingers. “Looks good. Who’s it for?”

“Me.” Like everything I grow, I’m the only one who sees it. Well, besides my dad. “Maybe Julia, but she kills plants just by looking at them.”

“Your momma had a green thumb, just like you,” he says and I glance up at him in surprise. He never willingly talks about her, at least not without a six-pack or two behind him.

“So do you.”

“Nah, not like she did. I swear that woman could talk plants into growing.”

“With a name like Wisteria Holland, what else could she do?”

My dad grunts in answer before saying, “In another year, I’ll be ready for you to start shouldering more of the responsibilities at Walsh Lawn Service. Are you up for that?”

“Do frogs jump?”

My dad laughs, letting go of the fern and the subject of the woman who left both of us. “We’re invited to the Diaz house for a Christmas Eve party. Feel like going?”

If I say no, he’ll know something’s up, and if I say yes, he’ll ask me why I’d want to go hang out with people I barely know. Shrugging, I say, “I dunno. What do you feel like doing?”

He takes a pull from his bottle of beer, then says, “Diaz is nice enough. So’s his wife, but I’d feel out of place there, like if I touch something, a maid will be right behind me, wiping away any trace of my existence. I’d rather be here at home, watching A Christmas Story marathon with my little girl, and eating take-out Chinese.”

I would have given anything for any trace of my existence to have been wiped away during high school, until my tormentor-turned-lover did exactly that. “Then we won’t go.”

“You shouldn’t feel like that, too.” He moves the clay pot to one side. “You’re just as good as the rest of them.”

“Never thought I wasn’t,” I say lightly.

“Mac, you might fool everyone else around here, but you can’t fool your daddy.” His gaze turns harsh. “Weston Diaz is damned lucky you chose him, out of every guy around here, to spend time with. Make sure he knows it, and treats you accordingly.”

My heart jumps into my throat and all I can do is wrap my arms around the one man who’s always taken care of me and hug him tight.

“I love you, Daddy.”

“Love you, too.”

“Would you mind if I go hang out with Julia instead of watching Duck Dynasty with you?”

He lets go of me. “Go on. Have some fun. Be twenty for once, but not too twenty.”

Grinning, I text Julia and press a kiss on my dad’s cheek. “You don’t know how much I need this.”

“Honey, we all need that, every now and again.”

West

For the past hour, I’ve been playing soccer with my dad in the backyard. Nothing too competitive, but he’s good enough to keep me on my toes.

“Eyes on the ball, son,” he’d say before every pass.

Once he gave me a tennis ball, and made me do drills with it. Tiny and greenish-yellow, I hated that thing, because it was so difficult to keep going and find in the grass… until I realized how much it improved my game.

I still refuse to play tennis, though.

“Ready to talk, old man,” I say, panting a little as I sweep my leg out and kick the ball back to him.

He grabs the ball, tucking it under one arm and nods at the patio. A pitcher of water with lemons floating in it, and two glasses wait for us beside a veggie platter. My mother’s doing, I know.

“Are you happy at school?” My dad pours water in the glasses and hands me one.

This wasn’t the opening I thought he’d go for. Honestly, I thought he’d heard McKenzie and me.

“Yes, sir.” This is not the time to talk about transferring to Carolina. Instead, I dig into the veggie tray and scarf down about a dozen carrot sticks.

“And Charlotte?”

A handful of grape tomatoes never make it to my mouth. I drop the handful in front of me on the table. “She seems to like school.”

“That’s not what I’m asking.”

I can’t lie to him; I’ve never been able to lie to him. “We’re not together anymore.”

“This is good to know, especially after the strip show you performed at Tanaka’s.”

“It wasn’t a strip show.”

He raises his brow at me, and I hold up a hand. “Okay, so out of context, it was a strip show, but in context, it was me, willingly humiliating myself for—” I swallow, unsure how to phrase things best, so that I don’t make McKenzie sound awful, and I still manage to protect my parents’ image of me.

I shake my head. That’s my problem. Image. All my life I’d been concerned with my image, and here I was, after everything, still concerned with how my dad might view me from now on.

“McKenzie Walsh.”

I nod, and then drop my gaze to my feet. “I wasn’t very nice to her in high school, Papi. You might say I was… no, you would say I bullied her. I humiliated her at every turn, and didn’t stop others from doing it, even after I’d stopped.”

“Why would you do such a thing?”

My head snaps up. “Because I was a stupid boy who wanted a pretty girl to notice me. I have no excuse, and I don’t want to be excused.”

My dad begins speaking in Spanish, something he saves for when he’s really pissed or really happy. Suddenly, I realize he’s praying. He’s asking God to forgive him for raising such a selfish child, to forgive him for failing me as a parent. He’s asking God for the Walsh’s forgiveness, especially the daughter’s, and I can’t help but choke up.

Lo siento mucho de verdad, por favor perdóname.

I’m so very sorry, please forgive me.

“Por favor perdoname,” I whisper, taking my father’s hand. “It’ll never happen again.”

He looks up at me, his dark eyes sad and thoughtful. I can see my reflection at the center of his disappointment. God, it hurts, but it’s no less than I deserve.

“I hope so.” Then he rises from the chair, his hand slipping from my grip, and heads inside.

The sun has set by the time I get up. My muscles protest, cramping a bit because I didn’t cool down the right way, as I walk. I head upstairs to my room and shower, changing into the most conservative, dad-friendly outfit I own without heading into church clothes territory.

I take out my earrings, but leave on my medallion. A guy needs all the help he can get from above, after all. A quick check in the mirror and I’m off to McKenzie’s, with a stop at Charlie’s house first.

I knock on the door, instead of letting myself in like I would have done, and had been expected to do in the past.

Mrs. Foster greets me, her brow scrunching. “Is there something wrong, Weston?”

“No, ma’am. Is Charlie home?”

“I’m right here,” Charlie says, bouncing into the foyer with her dog, Dozer, under her arm. “Where are you going in that—a job interview?”

“No.”

Her face dawns with understanding, and her lips thin. “Don’t do this.”

“Charlie,” I begin, and then turn to her mom. “Mrs. Foster. We need to talk.”

“She’s not here?” I stare up at Mr. Walsh, with what has to be the blankest look in history. “But she never goes out.”

“You saying my daughter is some kind of—?”

“I’m not saying she’s anything, but perfect and smart and beautiful.”

Her dad frowns at me.

“And really, really smart.”

His frown disappears. “Those flowers for her?”

“Unless you want them.”

He barks out a laugh. “You got big ones.”

“Any chance you’d like to share where she and Julia went?”

He glances at the flowers, and then back at me. I fight the urge to cover my junk, in case he decides that my balls need resizing. “Cunningham’s. Mac texted me about ten minutes ago, asking about cab fare, so she wouldn’t get ripped off.”

“Damn smart girl,” I say, before taking off and tossing, “Er, sorry, sir,” over my shoulder.

“Don’t tell her I told you where she was,” he calls out after me.

I race out of the driveway, almost halfway to my exit, when I realize that Cunningham’s is for the twenty-one and older crowd. And I’d left my fake ID at home.

Grimacing, I call the one person who can help me. Too bad he’s also the one person who’s likely to tell me to shove it.