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The hospital director was stunned. My clinical trial patients and fellow research team were even more so. I signed a two-year contract and bailed after six months. It cost me more than some professional reputation, too. They don’t hand out research grants and expect the head of research to quit on the spot without good reason. The hospital already told me they’d be taking legal action for breach of contract.
Thanks for playing, Doctor Bigg, but we’ll have all our money and then some back now. Thank You!
I’ve got a reason, and money be damned. They can have every cent of mine if they want. I couldn’t go one more day, one more second, withouther. It’s stupid. I know it is. I’m having a midlife crisis, and all this will become painfully clear once I’m stateside again—once I see the girl I’ve somehow convinced myself all this is really about.
Beth…my daughter’s best friend and my best friend’s daughter, to boot.
At first, it was her friendly hug goodbye at the airport when I left. I was ashamed for two weeks, even seeing a therapist in a foreign country. I spilled my guts about how hard a girl young enough to be my daughter made me, and she still does, more than ever.
It only got worse, or maybe that’s better, from there on. Lucy’s always sending me selfies of the pair of them. I called Lucy most mornings, always hearing what she and Beth were doing and knowing Beth was feet away during each call. I could never get to speak to or see her unless Lucy was in the shot, making one of her stupid faces and clowning around, pictures I had to edit her out of and keep in a separate file in my phone I still pretend doesn’t exist.
All photos of Beth. Just Beth, to begin with, anyway. Then there were the others. There were photos I edited to put myself next to her. Photos I look at every chance I get, always trying to stop the urge and fight this feeling, but it’s too late.
It was too late the second I left for London. The longer I spent two feet away from Beth, the worse I felt by the day, so I quit. It was Brad’s idea, Beth’s dad, that we keep me coming back early a secret, but it’s only another deception on my part. I came back early because I paid a small fortune to share a private charter flight, so I didn’t have to wait extra time to see her again—another expense, but it’s only money.
It should make me mad to have some girl make me act like a teenager again at my age. If I’m not careful, my career and reputation will be over. All over some stupid crush I have because she hugged me half a year ago. Now pulling my dick raw five times a day while thinking of her isn’t cutting it anymore.
I had to come back. I couldn’t and still can’t face another night alone without seeing her. I’ve come around the world and haven’t even showered or changed. I dropped my luggage at the front door as soon as I got here, needing to see Beth. Needing to…
What? I dunno. Tell her Iwanther? Tell her she’s all I can think about day and night and that the past six months have been a living hell?
Brad thinks I’m just as eager to see Lucy as he’d be to see his only daughter. So he doesn’t flinch when I make a direct path to Beth’s room, wanting to surprise them both. As much as it pains me to say it, I’m looking forward to seeing Beth’s reaction to our little surprise more than Lucy’s. Worse than that, my supposed “surprise” has Lucy and Beth looking at me as if I’m from another planet, clearly interrupting something between them.
The air is already thick with something—the long silence made worse when Brad spots me unable to take my eyes off Beth. I can’t stop myself. It’s taken every ounce of sheer will not to go mad the whole way back home. Now she’s within my reach, and it hits me like a rock that I can’t even touch her. I can’t hold her like I need to and how she needs me to. Lucy finally snaps to her usual self, breaking the weirdness with the “welcome home” her dad deserves.
If she only knew what I was thinking about doing to her best friend—right there on her bed.
I’m glad to see Lucy again, of course. I tell her so, but dammit, if I can’t keep my eyes away from Beth. As I hug my daughter, I stare at Beth and think I see a wounded look, just enough to give me hope as if possibly, Beth might actually—
Just stop it, Bowdie! She’s eighteen, and she’s not interested.
“I-I was gonna go out, is all,” Lucy finally says, breaking my churning thoughts.
“Huh?” I ask, holding her back so I can look at her. “I just got here. Where were you going?” I ask her, both of us lapsing into father-daughter mode as if I’d never left. I’ve just walked in the door, and now I’m asking her why and where else she suddenly has to be that’s so important.
It’s not a great start to my homecoming, and Lucy doesn’t appreciate my attitude. “You meanamgoing,” she corrects me with a fierce look of defiance.
“I just arrived from a six-month—” I start to inform her, feeling my irritation rising, but she’s quicker off the mark, speaking over me.
“And I made plans long before you walked in!” Lucy says in a way that’s just a bit too loud for my liking.
I exhale loudly, reigning in my real frustration, embarrassed now because Lucy’s making me look like a fool in front of Beth.
“Lucy? I’m sorry,” I murmur, almost grinding out the words until Brad pipes in, doing good work to break the tension in the air.
“Alright, alright,” he says cheerfully. “Bowdie’s had a long flight, and you two girls don’t handle surprises like ya used to. I get it, but can we all calm down?” he reasons aloud.
Lucy looks at her feet and me. Of course, I’m staring at Beth again, frozen to the spot and flushed red in her round cheeks. The T-shirt she’s wearing hugs her curves and ample chest that she hurriedly covers with folded arms. She catches me red-handed, peeking, but as I said, this is getting out of control and nothing like I imagined.
“Lucy?” Brad asks, drawing my attention from the only thing I’ve come three and a half thousand miles to see again. I look over at Lucy, who seems suddenly pale, almost gray. She opens her mouth to say something before her hand shoots over it, and she pushes past Brad and me, racing for the bathroom. The door slams and the sound of her throwing up should have me going after her making sure she’s okay.
Beth moves first, shooting off her bed and giving me a final snapshot in my mind—the space between her legs in her sweatpants and the moving shapes of her breasts under her T-shirt. I almost let out a low groan before I feel the jolt of Brad’s hand clapping heavily on my shoulder.
“That went well,” he sighs, “but trust me, buddy. I’ve had six months of those two together, and I gotta tell ya, they’ve been nothing but angels, mostly.”
I turn and face him, almost not recognizing him, feeling like I’m in a nightmare where I can see and hear Beth but can’t touch her. I can’t be with her the way I know I need to be.
“You look like you could use a drink,” Brad announces. “Welcome home, Dad!” he adds with a hint of his trademark sarcasm, clapping my shoulder again, almost humoring me into thinking my bizarre frame of mind must be from the flight. With both hands on my shoulders, he pivots me toward the kitchen, both of us purposefully ignoring the sounds from the bathroom.
