Total pages in book: 45
Estimated words: 41725 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 209(@200wpm)___ 167(@250wpm)___ 139(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 41725 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 209(@200wpm)___ 167(@250wpm)___ 139(@300wpm)
“Brody always does everything to make us happy,” Mia said as she settled back down to her pizza.
I smiled, but when I caught Grant’s eye again, his grin had disappeared, and he was giving me a startled look like he’d never actually seen me before.
“What?” I demanded as the girls returned to their seats, chattering like a flock of excited magpies, and I pretended I didn’t see Jacey breaking the no-phones-at-the-table rule to alert her friends. “Did I get something on me?” I reached out with my tongue to check that I didn’t have pizza sauce on my lips.
Grant swallowed hard and looked away. “No. No, no. I was just… I need to talk to you after bedtime.”
“Oh, right. About Mountbatten’s expectations, you said?”
He nodded and toyed with the crust of his pizza.
I narrowed my eyes. “Is there a problem?”
He opened his mouth to answer when Mia jumped up. “Brody, can we do a dance party before bed? Please, please?”
Cleo rolled her eyes. “Brody doesn’t get to pick the songs this time. He only ever plays Taylor Swift. Borrring.”
I clutched a hand to my chest. “You impertinent child. How dare you disrespect Taylor Swift at this dinner table.”
She fought a smile. “Fine. You can pick, like, two songs. But not the looooove ones.” She made a gagging noise. “Those are the worst.”
“I’m well aware of your opinions on Taylor’s catalog of romantic ballads,” I said solemnly. “I would never.”
Once they settled back down, Grant gave the girls more details. Their first day of school was in four short days, and orientation in two.
“Will you take us, Daddy?” Mia asked excitedly.
Grant winced. “I… I wish I could, peanut, but I’m scheduled to work those days. But Brody can take you, and you can tell me about it at dinner afterward, okay?”
Jacey looked up from her phone. “Dad, how many advanced classes did they say I can take? Cara says you need special permission to take more than three if you’re involved in multiple extracurriculars. Did they say it was fine for me to take more?”
Grant blinked at her. “I… I’m sorry, sweetie. I didn’t ask.”
Her face fell. “You didn’t ask? But Dad! That’s, like, the whole point of me going to Mountbatten. I wanted access to the theater program and the academics.”
“I… I didn’t know. And the dean had some questions about…” Grant darted a guilty look in my direction, and his face flushed. “I was distracted.”
“Typical,” she said in a wounded, scathing tone. “Some patient was more important than your own kids, right? Leave it for the babysitter to handle?”
Grant’s happy expression morphed into something halfway between annoyance and embarrassment. I could almost feel him shutting down. Still, he said sternly, “Be mad at me if you need to be, but don’t be rude to Brody. He’s more than just your babysitter, Jacey Louise.”
“Jacey,” I said abruptly. “We can get the permission you need later. And people forget important things all the time.” I glanced pointedly at the phone that should not have been in her hands and lifted one eyebrow. “If someone is putting in serious effort to do the right thing, maybe you could give them the benefit of the doubt.”
She set her phone facedown by her plate guiltily. “You’re right. Sorry, Dad. And sorry, Brody. You know I love you, right?”
I nodded, and the conversation got back on track after that, with Cleo gabbing about Robotics Club at Mountbatten, while Mia gave a play-by-play of her dance class, Jacey added a few comments about her first year as a counselor-in-training, and I did an impression of my Technology in Society professor that got everyone laughing. Grant settled in, too, quietly cataloging and digesting facts while he ate his pizza.
Despite Grant’s busy job at the hospital, he’d always made family dinner a priority. There were times he’d even come home for dinner just to turn around and leave again once the meal was over. It was the kind of attention and focus I’d missed after losing my own parents, and I loved him for giving it to his girls. He tried so hard to be a good dad.
As much as I wanted to ignore everything Fen had said earlier, she’d gotten had gotten one part right: this was exactly the life I’d dreamed of. Sitting at a table, surrounded by the people I loved best in the whole world, feeling like an essential part of something.
It was really, really tempting to cling to a life that wasn’t actually mine.
“Everything okay?” Grant murmured when the girls got up to clear the table. His kind eyes made the hair on my arms prickle.
“Yeah. Totally. Great.” I swallowed. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
A wrinkle appeared between his eyebrows, like he was trying to catalog my symptoms to make a diagnosis. It should not have been charming.