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She lowered her voice. “Is it okay if Victoria and Leslie stay too? Their parents are a little more…uptight.”
I almost snorted out a laugh, but managed to keep myself in check. A house full of girls would be nothing but entertaining—and loud—but I was up for the challenge.
“You all are more than welcome, you know that. The alarm code hasn’t changed.”
Serena sighed in relief. “Thank you, you’re the best. We’ll get our stuff together and head over in a little while. Everything is just so…wet.”
“Good thing I won’t need the washer and dryer for a while,” I teased. Then, on a more serious note, I said, “Are you sure you don’t need me to come over?”
“I promise. We’re all good.”
“Except for Victoria’s clothes. Got it.”
“Exactly,” she said, and I could hear the smile in her voice. “There’s, uh, something else I wanted to ask you about.”
I opened my mouth to tease her about using my private car while they were at my place, but then I snapped it shut when a long silence followed. A silence that told me whatever she needed to ask, it wasn’t easy for her to say. And that could only mean one thing.
Preston.
“You won’t be having any…visitorswhile we’re there, will you?” she said.
My stomach fucking sank. Not because of her question, but because of the fact she had to even ask it at all.
God, what was I even doing?
“No,” I said, closing my eyes. “You don’t have to worry about that.”
When silence was all that met my ear, I added, “Areyou worried about that?”
“About your having…a visitor?”
“No.” I sighed and rubbed the back of my neck. This was great—now we were talking in code. “About all of it.Anyof it.”
I could hear some rustling, the noise in the background fading as though she’d moved away from the chaos unfolding at her place, not wanting anyone within earshot for whatever she had to say next.
“I mean, it’s a little, um…”
I winced as she tried to find the right words, but I waited. I needed to know how she felt. Not put words in her mouth.
“It’s different. That’s all,” she said, her voice low. “I’m used to Preston being with other people, but this is taking a little bit to wrap my head around.”
I could understand that. It had taken me a second to wrap my head around it all too. None of that would matter, though, if Serena had a problem with any of it. So I needed to tread carefully here—make sure she really was okay, not just saying it.
“I just want you to know that before this happened, I never looked at Preston like?—”
Serena’s boisterous laughter cut me off mid-sentence, and as her burst of hilarity began to dissipate, she managed, “I know that. Geez. You think I wouldn’t be able to tell if you were perving on my boyfr—fake—boyfriend?”
I’d had no goddamn clue. I hadn’t even known Preston was gay, for fuck’s sake. So how was I supposed to know whether my daughter was brighter than I was?
Clearly she was.
“Granted, I should’ve seen this coming sooner with the way Preston would moon all over you. But seriously, Dad, I know you never thought about it, orwould’veever thought about it, if Preston hadn’t kissed you at the charity event.”
I coughed at the casual way she just threw it all out there.
Sweet Jesus.Was this what I got for raising an open-minded, opinionated daughter?
“Dad? Are you okay?”
