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“I know, I know,” he sighed, “I need to let you go—as your mother keeps reminding me—but you’re my first baby, Willow. It seems like just yesterday I was holding you in my arms in the hospital and kissing your tiny button nose, and yet now you’re gone.”
“I’ve been gone for the last year,” I reminded him, “what makes this so different?”
“I don’t know,” he breathed. “It just is.”
I frowned and rolled onto my side. “
I might be gone and I might be grown up now, but I’ll always need you. That isn’t going to change.”
“So you’re not replacing me with Dean?” He asked softly.
I laughed. “No, dad. He might be my boyfriend but you’ll always be my dad.”
He was quiet for a moment and I could feel him thinking. Suddenly, he said, “Boyfriend?”
My mouth parted in horror at the realization that I’d let that fact slip. “Igottagodadloveyabuhbye.” I slurred my words together and hung up, slinging my phone down on the bed. It quickly lit up with another call and I shut it off.
“Shit,” I cursed, turning to my back and crooking my arm over my eyes, “I am so dead.”
The door opened and I sat up to see Dean entering the room, loaded down with about five grocery bags.
“What’s all that?” I asked, standing to help him.
“Supplies.”
“Supplies?” I repeated, raising a brow as I took one of the bags and pulled out a plastic container of cupcakes.
“I thought you might need some sweets.” He set the bags down on the lone table in the room. “There’s cupcakes, donuts, lollipops since they had your favorite.” He pulled the bag of Dum Dums out and waved it around. “And a bunch of other stuff I thought you might need. Like medicine.” This time he grabbed a bottle of Midol and handed it to me.
“What are you?” I stared at him. “The Period Fairy?”
He ducked his head and his shoulders shook with silent laughter. “I have a mom and a sister, so I’ve learned to be prepared.”
“Mhmm.” I nodded, opening the package of cupcakes and taking a bite of the chocolate and buttercream goodness. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
Dean’s phone began buzzing in his pocket and he pulled it out. His brows drew together at the name flashing across the screen. “It’s your dad.”
“No! Don’t—” Answer it. But I was too late.
Dean’s eyes widened and I heard my dad yelling unintelligibly on the other end.
Dean hung up and threw his phone down like it had burned him.
“You told your dad?!” He asked, completely panicked. “He’s going to kill me! Like bang me over the head with one of his drum sticks, chop me up with his knitting needles, feed me to his hedgehogs, and bury the tiny bits of me left in the back yard, kind of kill me.”
“He’d never do that. It wouldn’t be good for the hedgehogs.”
Dean’s phone began to ring again and he let out a scream and jumped away like it was a live animal ready to attack him.
“Do you always act like this over the dad’s of the girl’s you date?” I asked, tapping my foot as I waited for a response.
“No, of course not.” He straightened his position and glared down at the still ringing phone.
“Then why is this different?”
His eyes widened and he stared at me for a moment. “Willow, this is completely different! You’re my best friend, and what I felt for them was nothing compared to what I feel for you. Was I nervous meeting parents? Yes, I was, but it’s not the same. Your parent’s have been a fixture in my life for as long as you have. Those other girls—and fuck that makes it sound like it was a lot, and it really wasn’t—I didn’t care if their parents liked me, but I want your dad to accept me and love me and approve of our relationship, because this,” he waved a finger between the two of us, “is the real deal. I don’t want any animosity. That’s why it scares me. I don’t want to say the wrong thing and make him hate me.”
I softened at his words and strode forward. I wrapped my arms around his neck and he was forced to tilt his head down to look at me.
