AllFreeNovel
Share Us
CON
Halley’s visit was excruciating for a number of reasons.
One, I’d never needed to lie to my daughter before. Now it was all I was doing. Answers to simple questions had to be lies.
Where were you out so late, dressed so nice?
Work shit.
What actress is trying to become my stepmother this week?
No one special.
Don’t you love Lily?
She’s fine.
Her visit also made it so I couldn’t see Lily for three days. Not really see her, anyway. I had to settle for staring at the back of her head on Friday instead of focusing on the contract I was negotiating. Friday night and all of Saturday were shitty, empty hours because I was used to filling them with Lily. Then there was the truly brutal Sunday night when all three of us went out to dinner. I hadn’t seen her since she left work on Friday, but I couldn’t really look at her now. Not the way I wanted to. It was like laying out an all-you-can-eat buffet in front of a starving man and telling him not yet.
We went to Halley’s favorite steak house, the one I’d taken Lily to the first time for lunch. Our gazes crossed briefly, both of us silently acknowledging the connection. A soft smile tugged at her lips. It went downhill from there. Halley and Lily sat on the same side of the table while I sat across from them. I heard myself saying banal shit like, Order whatever you want. It’s on me.
Halley gave me a funny look because of course it was on me. I was the dad, after all.
Lily looked miserably uncomfortable, but she tried to cover it up for Halley’s sake. The two of them fell back on conversations about people they knew from college that I had zero interest in. I ordered a second beer and tried not to let my gaze linger on Lily too long. I missed her. I missed the physicality of her in my space, in my bed. The halo of sunshine her hair created in my peripheral vision. The warmth of her legs tangled in mine. It wasn’t just about sex though. I could have gotten that somewhere else. It was galling to realize, but I was fucking lonely without her. Not once in the last three years since Halley left college had I missed having someone in the house. I’d always been a loner who never got a chance to be alone. Now the emptiness of the penthouse mocked me. I wanted to order food with her, bitch about my latest negotiation to her. I wanted to celebrate how I’d finally gotten Sienna Birch signed onto a career making movie. I even wanted to listen to her talk about her day, and that was a new feeling.
But I couldn’t, because Lily wasn’t in my penthouse where she belonged. She and Halley were out hitting the nightspots or curled up on that pink couch watching movies and doing face masks or some shit. I imagined she was having to lie a lot too. I bet she liked it about as much as I did. Neither of us were liars. I’d never cared enough to deceive someone, and Lily was too honest.
The only thing that rescued the miserable dinner was the knowledge that it was Halley’s last night in town. I was going to drive her to LAX tomorrow after my morning meeting with my lawyer. Lily and I would have another four weeks or so before Halley came back for Thanksgiving. I half hoped that by then, whatever this thing was between us had run its course. As shitty as it was to miss Lily, it was just as shitty to wish my daughter back across the country.
Lily and Halley were going out for Halley’s last night. Halley had someone she wanted Lily to meet. Lily avoided both of our eyes and said she didn’t want to meet anyone.
“Still all work and no play?” Halley clicked her tongue, exasperated. “Dad, tell Lily she can’t work her youth away.”
“I actually highly recommend it,” I said, grateful that they had decided they didn’t want dessert and that we could finally end this sham. “That’s what I did.”
Lily’s eyes flickered up to mine, amusement in the blue depths. Halley rolled hers. “And look at you now. Going home alone to your plants every night.”
“Haven’t you hated every girlfriend he’s ever had?” Lily asked, her eyes back on the table.
Halley elbowed her. “Well, yeah, but I had reasons.”
Lily and I both paused, waiting for her to go on. Halley had already lost interest though. She was texting, her thumbs flying furiously across the keyboard. Lily’s gaze brushed across mine again. I felt it like a physical touch. The expression in her eyes was so clear I could read her mind.
By this time tomorrow, we were both thinking.
After we left the restaurant, Lily and Halley’s plans had them going the opposite direction I was heading.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Dad,” Halley said, giving me a quick hug goodbye. “Call me when you’re outside.”
“I will. And I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow,” I said to Lily, careful not to look her in the eye. I knew Halley would take the comment as the directive of a boss to an employee and not what it really was.
My daughter groaned dramatically. “Come on, Dad. Let Lily live a little.”
“I don’t want to live a little,” Lily said, and then looking at me, “I’ll be there.”
The exchange was brief, but it felt so intimate and loaded that I couldn’t believe Halley didn’t look back and forth between us suspiciously.
But she didn’t, and I walked away feeling better than I had in days. This fucking interminable dinner was over, and I would get Lily back tomorrow. I hadn’t gotten a chance to get her alone since she threw herself back into the elevator, just saving us from having to make some extremely unpleasant explanations to Halley. The look on her face as the elevator doors closed had haunted me though. Her eyes had been wide with shock and fear, but there had been pain in them, too. In that moment, it had hit me again how wrong I was for her, and how unfair that was to her. Over the last three days, I’d tortured myself with thinking about how many men in this city could treat her the way she deserved. And then I’d thought about how I’d maim every last one of them if they so much as looked at her.
