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“What’s going on?” Kaden asked.
“I…” I glanced behind me, and there stood my father, alongside my sister. He was smiling, probably to not cause a scene. When he made the settlement with my mother, a nondisclosure had been part of it. He wouldn’t want anyone here to know who I was.
“Billie, I’m surprised to see you.” There was no doubt about how distasteful he found this surprise, foundme. I’d felt more warmth standing in the middle of a blizzard.
“I didn’t realize when we were coming here it was your house,” I said, wishing Chaos would kill me right now. “I’ll be leaving.”
“I think that’s for the best,” he said.
My sister smiled, her hand tucked into our father’s arm.
“Excuse me, are you asking us to leave?” Kaden asked the question in a tone dripping in arrogance. He typically sounded arrogant, but this was a notch beyond anything I’d ever heard.
“I’m sorry, have we met before?” my father asked, turning to Kaden.
“No, and you’re going to wish we hadn’t. Now, we’ll be leaving, but only because I have no desire to remain anywhere near you.” Kaden put his arm around my waist and steered me toward the door.
I glanced back at my father and could see his stare trained on Kaden’s back, as if maybe he’d inadvertently stepped on the toes of someone he shouldn’t have. He was probably safe. It wasn’t like he’d kicked Kaden out of the house or that Kaden was actually my date.
I stood there, numb, in the driveway, as Kaden signaled for the valet to get the car. I willed myself to act normal, as if nothing as humiliating as having my father kick me out of his house had just happened. What kind of person got kicked out of their father’s home?
I couldn’t bring myself to look at Kaden, or even the valet. I stared off at the horizon, waiting to spot a car approaching, desperate for some sort of retreat. I turned and walked a couple of steps away, feigning interest in a potted plant as I wiped an errant tear that I hadn’t been able to stop from escaping. There wouldn’t be another.
Kaden laid his still-warm jacket over my shoulders.
“You looked cold,” he said.
“Thanks,” I said, hoping to continue with the silence. I didn’t want to talk about what had happened, or why.
The minutes stretched out as guests meandered in and out of the house. Our car pulled up, and Kaden was the one to shut the door for me. I kept my face toward the window as he got in.
After a few minutes of awkward silence, I mustered up the will to say something.
“I’m sorry. I thought he wouldn’t remember me, or I would’ve warned you. I don’t understand why he did.”
Kaden was suspiciously quiet. He wasn’t much of a talker, but the way his lips were pressed into a flat line, the tense muscles of his forearm, he was clearly holding back on me.
“Are you upset?”
“Of course not. You wouldn’t have expected him to recognize you.” His knuckles were nearly white where he gripped the wheel.
“Do you know why he did?” I asked.
“It’s normal for different feelings to last longer. Different intensities subside at different rates for different people. It happens.”
I clasped my hands in my lap and went back to staring out the window, trying to keep my breathing even. In other words, my father hated me more than my mother loved me.
“Billie, no family is perfect,” Kaden said. I could see him watching me out of the corner of my eye.
“Yeah, I know. I’m good. It was just a surprise.”
Of course we got stuck at a traffic light on the way back to a bridge. I’d heard that Los Angeles traffic was bad, but this was not the time I wanted to discover it.
Kaden suddenly shut off the car. “Get out,” he said.
For a second, I thought he was mad about the job. Until he got out and opened my door.
“It’s coming,” he said, pulling me out after him and running.
