Chapter Forty-Nine

Dylan

 

Seeing Dad attempt to slink in unnoticed pissed me off. The man had no balls.

No, I wasn’t pissed—I was ashamed.

Mom squeezed my hand, silently messaging me to not make a scene, so we kept dancing until the songs switched. Then my amazing wife created a distraction. Our friends stepped on the dance floor while Mom and I nudged Dad outside.

“What are you doing here, Dad?” I asked when we were far enough around the house to not be heard.

“Are you going to apologize?” Mom said next to me.

He wouldn’t meet either of our gazes, but at least he’d put on a suit. “I don’t know what to say,” he mumbled.

“Unbelievable.”

“Dylan, patience,” Mom said. “Your father isn’t good with emotions.”

“If he’s just sorry to get out of your dog house, I don’t want to hear it.”

She punched his arm. “Say something.”

“You know what, Dad? We’re not close and we never have been, so you don’t really owe me an apology. I’ll live. But you do owe my wife. Because here’s the timeline you were too pigheaded to learn: I proposed, Jen told me she’d missed a second period, I was thrilled to hear we’re having a baby, and then we planned a Christmas wedding—not because our child might be a bastard if we waited a year, but because we wanted to share our lives together as soon as possible. My days are wrong and empty without her in them and I don’t care anymore if you can’t respect that. We’ll have an amazing future while you miss knowing your grandchild.”

With that off my chest, I turned to go back inside.

“You’re right,” my father said. I stopped, but didn’t face them. “You’re going to be a better father than I ever was. Better than my old man, or his, and you haven’t started, yet.”

“And?” Mom said.

I rotated on my heel to see the rest.

“I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions, or said what I did at your party. I went to the drugstore before we left home to get medicine for your mother’s motion sickness on planes, saw a tabloid at checkout, and…the rest isn’t important.”

“You could’ve called to ask me for the real story.”

He lifted his gaze to mine. “You didn’t announce the baby at your concert?”

I ground my teeth. “No, I did, though I didn’t plan on it. Whatever else they said is a lie.”

“You don’t know what I saw.”

I shrugged. “It always is.”

Mom stepped between us. “Can you two shake hands now?”

“He doesn’t have to,” Dad said. “I think I have to earn it.”

It was the best apology I was getting from an emotionally-stunted old man.

I nodded in deference to his acceptance of his wrongs. “We’ll cut the cake soon.”

Then I returned to my bride.