Page 93 of Dirty Pool

No.

Just her da.

He was the man who used to tuck her in night after night as a young girl, and would play tea party with her no matter how many times she asked. He was the man who she remembered vividly next to her bedside in the hospital when she was five, and her sugars were so out of control that they thought it might do organ damage because they couldn’t get it stabilized. He cried for her then, too.

But he was also the same man who wouldn’t let her grow up. He was the same man who made choices for her when she was perfectly capable of making them herself. He was her father, and she loved him entirely, but she couldn’t love the part of him that wanted to control every aspect of her life more than he wanted to see her flourish on her own.

And right now?

He was hurting her in a new way.

She wasn’t okay with that.

“Gabbie—”

“Unless you’re going to give me my phone so that I can talk to Michel, or let me go home, then I don’t want to speak to you, Da.”

Silence echoed.

She got her answer.

Gabbie went back to reading her book, all the while, quite aware that her father was still lingering in the doorway of the living room. He stayed there, too, as she read through a whole chapter of her book. He didn’t move or say anything the entire time. She almost wondered if he was just going to stay there all day because she had no plans to speak to him again.

Not now, anyway.

“I only want what’s best for you,” her father murmured. “That’s all I have ever wanted, Gabbie.”

Dammit.

She didn’t want to talk to him, but … “The problem with that is you think what’s best for me are things you chose for me, and that’s not how it works.”

“I think you’re wrong. I don’t think you understand the dynamics I face day to day with a single child … a woman who people constantly look to because I have not yet chosen a path for you in this life.”

Gabbie stilled on the couch. “What?”

“See, I tried to let you be as normal as you could possibly be, lass. You deserved as much freedom as you could have, and I gave you that, didn’t I? But that does not change the fact that we both live a life where expectations come along with it. I was fine to let you go on like you were, until you stepped out of line, and people looked to me for the answers as to why.”

“You can’t really mean—”

“Had you just picked an Irish lad,” her father said, his tone thick with something she couldn’t decipher. Glancing up, she found her father’s gaze to be dark and pained, but he was still cold in every other aspect. The same way he was to the rest of his people, she knew. And now, it was her turn to see this side of him and face it. He had to be this man to her now, too. “But you didn’t … and I couldn’t let you pick when you wouldn’t pick someone that was appropriate to our people, too. You forced my hand.”

She didn’t think so.

Those expectations he talked about had never been a prominent figure in her life because he didn’t make it so. And now he expected her to just … fall in line?

It wouldn’t happen.

“And I know you have this wee idea in that crazy mind of yours that the Italian man is the person for you—that you love him—but he is a phase,” her father said, clearly not realizing how much he hurt her with every word that passed his lips. He was wrong … so wrong. “After a period of time, you will realize how silly this all was, and you will be grateful that I forced your hand to keep you from making another mistake.”

Gabbie shook her head. “It’s not a phase, and he isn’t like my diabetes, Da. You can’t treat him like he’s a piece of food I might shove in my mouth, or a missed sugar check. He’s not something you can control. My feelings aren’t something for you to decide whether or not they are valid. I make those choices.”

“Except you aren’t right now, are you?”

She quieted.

He wasn’t wrong.

Charles cleared his throat, and turned to leave the living room. But not before tossing over his shoulder, “I have done my very best not to go to the last resort on this issue, Gabbie, but if you continue to push my line here … I will remove the man from your life permanently so that it’s clear. There is no choice. There is only my choice.”