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CHAPTER TWELVE
Lyra sat at her deskin the dining room that was now an office, doing her social-media-manager thing. In the extremely gendered division of labor at Haddon Restorative Cleaning, Lyra did most of the customer-facing, off-site work and her father and brother did most of the actual cleaning. She did plenty of that as well, but Pop definitely wanted her away from the most gruesome jobs if he could possibly manage it. Mostly, he could.
As for admin work, she did social media, advertising, and customer relations. Reed did the books, and Pop did the contracts. Yeah, the boys got the ‘boy’ work, and she got the ‘girl’ work. But their HR department was Pop, and he was the one with the Mesozoic-era notions about who was fit for what kind of work. What was she going to do, sue her own father?
Besides, the gruesome cleanup jobs were seriously gruesome. Posting memes, witty observations, and meaningful insights on Twitter was vastly more pleasant.
She worked on her Mac. Pop sat at his own desk squinting at his desktop computer screen, his half-lens readers at the end of his nose. Reed wasn’t working today; he was playing disc golf with friends. Saturday was one of their busiest days, usually—people made violent messes more often on the weekend—but today they were gigless.
“You’re in a good mood today,” Pop observed.
“Am I?” Lyra asked, looking over her shoulder at him.
“You’re over there singing to yourself. You only do that when you’re happy.”
She hadn’t realized it, but yes, she’d been singing. And yes, she was in a great mood. An excited mood, even.
“You really like the Jessup boy, don’t you? You two’ve been talking a lot since he was here.”
And he’d be here again tomorrow night. Yes, she was very happy about that. But she and her father hadn’t talked about him almost at all yet. Considering that it was her intention to grab that boy by the kutte and drag him straight to her bed tomorrow night, she figured she should talk to Pop before then. And he had just kicked that door wide open.
She turned in her chair and faced him. “I do, Pop. We have been talking a lot since then, and we’ve gotten close. We’re together. Unless you tell me I can’t, I want to ask him to stay with me tonight.”
She was a grown woman, but she lived at home and her father was ... Pop, so her heart shuddered a little to tell him that.
He reacted by doing that thing with his face where it looked like the whole thing was going to cave into his nose hole. When that happened to the face of a stoic man like Ben Haddon, it was not a good sign.
But Lyra screwed her courage to her spine and added, “If not, I understand. I’ll just stay with him at his motel.”
He stared at her for an uncomfortably long time. Lyra made herself bear up under its heat.
“I don’t know this boy, Lyra. I don’t know you’re safe with him.”
“He’s a man, Pop. And he’s going to be one of your brothers. Right? That’s how this’ll work? We’ll be family with the Bulls, because you and Reed will be Bulls? There’s no one you’re supposed to trust more, right?”
He took a long, slow, deep breath and set his readers on his mousepad. “It’s not an on-off switch, baby bear. Yes, that’s how it’ll be, but I still got to get to know these men. I don’t trust anybody I just met.”
“I’ve been getting to know Zach for weeks now, though. I know him. And I trust him. All you need to do is trust me.”
“You know the guys from Tulsa are just the setup crew. They’re not making a commitment to stay with this charter. They’re recruiting men to do that. Are you really interested in a guy who won’t stay?” His expression changed suddenly—went wide as a new thought occurred to him and closed tight again when he felt the feeling it provoked. This really had him rocked. “Are you thinking of leaving with him? Are you thinking of leaving home?”
“No, Pop. I’m not.”
She almost said she promised, but that wasn’t quite true. At this point, she couldn’t imagine moving to Tulsa, but after being really, truly with Zach, and then if he decided to go back? If he asked her to go back with him? She didn’t know for sure what she’d do then, because they’d decided not to think so far out. They were focused on finally getting together for now.
Rather than make a promise she wasn’t sure about, she said the truth. “I can’t imagine leaving home.”
He smiled then, but not happily. He understood precisely the wire she was trying to balance on. “Now, you mean. You can’t imagine leaving homenow.”
She dropped her gaze to the floor between them, unable to look at him as she nodded.
Before either of them could say more about it, the front door flew open and Reed stood there, still sweaty and flushed from his play. But his expression wasn’t full of the peace of a day spent in fun. He looked shocked and scared.
