Page 3

Becca.

Thousands of students.

Hundreds of employees.

A dozen different spots to get coffee, and yet she stands behind me.

I don’t have to look. I always know when she’s near. It starts with a shiver on the back of my head.

That awareness that shouldn’t be.

Chapter Three

Perhaps meetingin a public place wasn’t my best idea. I want to get up, flip the table and run. The urge to rage, scream, and throw things, burns into my chest like a wildfire begging to turn the world into ashes. Instead, my fingers tightly grip the coffee mug until my knuckles turn white. My gaze zeros in on the cracked, black nail polish on my thumb. I can’t evade this any longer. I chose to meet him and hear what he has to say. Avoiding looking into the eyes of the man sitting across from me, into a face so much like my own, won’t make meeting my father for the first time any easier.

I school my face, drag in a breath, inhaling the ever-present scent of coffee and sugar at Pat's Café, and glance at him. He doesn’t look much older than me—in the right clothes, he could easily pass for a grad student. I take in the cut of his gray suit jacket. Not designer, but not cheap, either.

His hands wrap around his coffee mug. A few calluses and a scratch or two. The hands of someone who’s not afraid of manual labor.

I drag my gaze upward and finally meet his eyes. His eyes are my eyes—the same amber-green color. Do they change colors with his moods like mine do?

“Why now?” The question has been needling me since he first texted three days ago.

“Because it took me this long to grow some balls.” He laughs, but there’s no humor behind it. He covers his mouth as if regretting the ill-timed laugh, then runs a hand through his hair. The same honey-blond as mine. His stare is intense, as if trying to encompass all the missing years at the same time.

“I have regretted not being in your life a thousand times over. I know that nothing can make up for twenty years of lost time—”

“Twenty-two years. It’s been twenty-two fricking years!” The words spill out of me uninvited, and I bite my tongue to keep the rage in. I swallow a lifetime of anger. It burns going down.

He flinches, his gaze drops to the table as he gives a small nod.

“I deserve that. I’m sorry. I can’t go back, I can’t change what happened—”

“What do you want from me?”

His mouth opens and closes again, as if looking for the right words to say. “I want to get to know you. I want you to know me too.”

He waits for an answer, like I waited for him my entire life. I say nothing. The seconds stretch into a full minute of silence. I rejoice in his discomfort. His shoulders sag a little more with each moment until he finally recognizes I’m not going to make this easy for him, and he speaks again.

“I know I’m too late, and you don’t need me in your life, but I hope you’ll make room for me. Please?”

I almost get up and leave. Now? Now he wants to be a father?

“You’re right. I don’t need you. I don’t need anyone.”

Expect nothing and you’ll never be disappointed. But a small, quiet voice inside my head reminds me of all the times I hoped my dad would come and take me away from the messy house and the empty fridge. I’m not a little girl anymore. So, why do I still carry that kid’s hope inside me?

Because you never stopped hoping.

The voice whispers, a neutral outside observer who watches all but never judges. It shakes me to my core.

My lips press together, resentment tasting bitter on my tongue.

And yet, I hope.

I hate hope. I hate how hopeless hope makes me feel. Like the proverbial dangling carrot. Always out of reach. Fuck hope. And fuck him for awakening the glimmer again. He waits for an answer that will not come.

His chest expands under a heavy breath, then pauses. His eyes never waver from mine. “Becca—there have been too many secrets and lies, and I don’t want to hide behind secrets and lies anymore. You deserve better.”