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“I’m good. I’m happy. I’m doing well. There’s no need for me or anyone, meaning you, to mess it up,” I said.
“There would be no messing things up, just making things better. I’m sure your brother and sister would agree, having someone you love in your life makes everything better.”
“Yet, I’m sure one brother would think you don’t need to love one when you can love as many as you want,” I said, mentioning my middle brother, JD, who was a bit of a player.
“You haven’t done that either. You’re worse than Walker when it comes to dating.”
“I am not. I’ve been the most responsible of all of us, even Bailey,” I said.
My father glared at me when I mentioned Bailey ever being with anyone. As the youngest and only daughter, my parents were more protective of her than the rest of us. My father never wanted to think of her being with any man, even the one she married.
“Leave Bailey out of this. You haven’t dated at all. How is that responsible?” my father asked.
“I think that’s the textbook characteristic of being responsible.”
“And boring,” my father muttered.
“Boring? Is that what you call me? Thanks,” I said and shook my head.
Looking away from him my eyes caught a movement at the bar. For a split second I thought I saw Hope sitting there, but I knew my eyes were only seeing what I wanted them to see.
I didn’t want to admit it, but my father was right. While neither Walker nor JD were into getting involved with women and were happier with the love them and leave them type of situation, I had never been like that. I was a man who liked to be in a relationship. If I was with a woman, it was because I wanted to be with her. I didn’t see the point in just spending an evening with a woman and then never talking to her again. It wasn’t who I was, despite my brothers trying to get me to change my ways. Which, like my father said, made me boring.
The truth was, the only reason I didn’t date or at least not much was because there was only one woman that I wanted to be with. If I couldn’t be with her, I didn’t want to be with anyone.
It was stupid, and I knew that. If I wanted to be with Hope Sinclair, I should find a way to be with her. There just had never been the right time or the right moment to ask her out. There was always something going on in my life, either with the company or my family, and I didn’t have the time I needed to spend with her.
The last time I saw her at MoMA we had talked about how busy she was with finishing her dissertation and I knew that wasn’t the time to ask her out. Hearing that she was done with school and she might have some more time to want and possibly consider being with someone, made me optimistic she might consider dating me. I just needed to find the right time and way to ask her.
“Maybe boring isn’t the right word. Cautious, might be better. Usually, it’s the younger siblings that learn from the mistakes of the elder, not the other way around,” my father said.
“Nothing that this family has ever done has been normal, wouldn’t you say?”
My father laughed and put his hand affectionately on my shoulder. “I wouldn’t have it any other way,” he replied.
“No. You wouldn’t. Considering you like to orchestrate everything that happens in this family.”
“I do not,” he said but I could tell even he didn’t believe what he was saying.
“Really? Like you didn’t try to push Morgan and Walker to be together, or put the fear of you into Luke so that he would propose to Bailey?” I asked.
“Luke was going to propose, he just needed a push to know he was welcome into the family. You and Walker certainly didn’t make him feel that way.”
“He was a man we had never met who ran off to a private island with our little sister without our knowledge. Excuse me if I wasn’t too forthcoming on welcoming him into the fold. If I remember right neither were you initially.”
“Your mother and I weren’t sure if he was the right man for Bailey. We were just protecting her and doing what we thought was best for her. As we will and have done for all our children.”
“I know, Dad. We appreciate it, even as it infuriates us too. We know you mean well, that it’s coming from somewhat of a good place,” I said.
“Somewhat?”
“We’re all doing fine. You need to just learn to leave us alone.”
My father laughed so loud that people around us looked at him like he was crazy.
“There isn’t anything you can ask of me that I won’t do for you, if it is within my power. However, understand and hear me when I say this; I have never, nor will I ever, leave you or your siblings alone,” my father stated.
As he spoke, his eyes held mine and I could tell that he was completely serious about his statement and he wanted me to know he was. My father was a hard man, a strict man, but he was also a loving man and had always raised my siblings and I with more affection than discipline. Still, there were sometimes, like that moment, when he was deadly serious.
