Another Chance Encounter
Holly and I are walking around the Westfield Promenade. I’m trying to eat my own ice cream while holding hers because she needs both hands to reply to some Facebook messages about an upcoming birthday party for one of the girls she goes to school with. It’s difficult.
While looking at her phone, Holly says, “I just, I don’t know. I like this girl, but I don’t know if I want to spend next Saturday night at her place, you know?”
I say, “Uh-huh.”
She says, “Oh, look, though. James is going. Tina is going. Sarah is going. Maybe it won’t be that bad. Should I go?”
I say, “If you want to.”
She says, “Would you want to go?”
I say, “If I were you?”
She says, “No. If you were you.”
I say, “You mean, like, go with you to this party?”
She says, “Yeah. Would that be weird for you?”
I say, “No. Why?”
She says, “Because you’re, like, old, you know?”
I say, “I don’t care if you don’t,” and find that I honestly mean this. I’m flattered that she’d ask me to be her date to a party with friends her age. Some part of me has always thought she wouldn’t tell any of her peers about me because she’d be embarrassed. This is concrete proof that she wouldn’t be. I say, “Actually, I’d love to go.”
She says, “Okay. I’ll tell her we’ll go then.”
I finish my ice cream as we approach a trash can and say, “You want any more of yours?”
She says, “Nah,” and I toss both of them toward the can. Hers goes in, but mine, the empty one, banks off the lip of the can and hits the floor. Holly bends over to pick it up and I take the opportunity to give her a playful slap on the ass. As she stands back up, some guy throwing his drink away at the same trash can sees me slap her on the ass.
He says, “Holly?”
She looks up and says, “Dad?”
I have an immediate urge to walk away from the situation or fake passing out so I don’t have to deal with what is about to occur. Instead I look at Holly’s dad and the woman he’s with, who I assume is her mom. They’re older than me, but not by much. I certainly look closer to them in age than I do to Holly. I wonder if she’s told them about me.
Her dad puts out his hand and says, “Hi, I’m Roger. And you are . . . ?”
I introduce myself and shake his hand with the hand that was just on his daughter’s ass. I wonder if he notices this.
Her mom remains silent as her dad and I have a brief conversation about nothing. After maybe thirty seconds, Holly says, “Well, we should be going.”
Holly’s dad says, “Okay, nice to meet you. Holly, you still coming to the house tomorrow?”
She says, “Yeah.”
He says, “Okay, see you then,” then leans in and kisses her on the cheek in what I can only assume is some kind of weird power play to mark his territory. There’s no way he knows that I’ve had my dick in every one of his daughter’s holes, but he has to suspect.
As Holly and I head to the parking structure to get in my car I wonder if I’ll ever have to deal with something like this with Jane when she gets older. I wonder if I’d care if she was fucking a guy fifteen years older than her. I wonder if that guy would have a wife he was cheating on, too, and two kids whose lives he was ruining.