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“You wanna tell me what’s going on between you and Luce?” he asks point-blank, returning the takeout menus to their home under a large medical company logo magnet on the fridge door.
I don’t have to fake my puzzled look and risk being as much a diva as Lucy’s being today. I don’t hide my irritation, either. “Why don’t you ask her yourself?” I exclaim angrily, clenching my jaw. “I’m sick of you always asking me what’s up with her, Dad. If you ever took the time to look, you might see I have enough problems of my own!” I declare passionately, hearing how stupid my outburst sounds as it echoes back to me off the kitchen walls.
“Hmm,” Dad hums to himself knowingly, his cheek pinching and brow wrinkling. “You don’t have a job. You have no expenses or responsibilities and get to stay home all day doing whatever the hell you want, andyou’vegot problems?” he fires back with a double dose of sarcasm. His eyes widen as he delivers his ultimate “Dad has you pegged” speech.
It hurts whenever Dad puts it like this, and only because I know he’s right, but what else am I supposed to say? That I’m madly in love with Bowdie and wish I could be sent to live withhimfor six months instead of having his brat of a daughter helping herself to all my stuff? Plus, Lucy snores and worse. Any man who shares a bed with her will have to keep a window open if he wants to have enough air to breathe and keep living before morning, but I know what my dad’s getting at.
He could sense the moment Lucy and I were having just as Bowdie arrived—herbig secretthat she was priming me to keep quiet about. The secret she never got to tell, and now she’s taken off to who knows where.
“Sorry, Beth,” Dad mumbles, running both hands straight back through his short hair as he puffs out a breath of exasperation. “It’s just… Well, Lucy’s never been sick the whole time she’s been here, and the second her dad shows up, she’s got Montezuma’s Revenge,” he exclaims.
“I think that’s different, Dad.” I educate him. “She was throwing up, not spraying diarrhea,” I add, which is about as much medical speak as I can manage with my high school diploma.
“Beth!” Dad scolds me, screwing up his nose and reminding me why he picked sports medicine over being a “proper doctor,” as I like to call it. He hates the sight of blood, so anything else shooting out of the human body is enough to make him squirm.
“Is it that Josh guy?” he asks, giving me a weird jolt in my belly. Even the mention of that creep is enough to set me on edge.
“Like I said, Dad, I really don’t knowwhat’swrong with her. Can we change the topic, please?” I ask until it occurs to me that if Lucy has taken off, then it’s most likely her dad will soon go out looking for her, which means less of her dad for me. Being stuck playing board games, eating ribs, and listening to Dad belch beer all night isn’t part of my Bowdie fantasy.
I need to make sure I keep Bowdie here somehow. Get him alone so I can… I dunno. WhatwouldI do? Ask him out on a date? Hurl myself at him and hope for the best?
Nope, that’s a stupid idea.
Or I could… It hits me like a thunderbolt—a brain wave so unique and incredible it just has to work. I sway on the spot for a moment, fluttering my eyes maybe a little too much, but it’s enough to catch my dad’s attention.
“Beth?” he asks, scrutinizing my sudden and feigned attack of dizziness.
“Y’know what, Dad? I don’t feel so great,” I lie, “I think I might go lie down for a while.”
My poor dad, but I need to do this. It feels like the only way I’m gonna get Bowdie alone is if I can call for him from my sick bed. He is a doctor, after all. He is aproper doctorin all the right places if his resting pant bulge is anything to go by. He’s just the man a sick girl needs to slip something under her tongue… to take her temperature, of course.
My dad’s technically a doctor too, but I haven’t sprained a hamstring. I’ve got some sudden and incurable disease. It’s the burning heat Bowdie gives me between my legs, so who better to help fix it? I know. It’s a half-baked plan that could very well backfire or not happen at all, but I have to think of something to draw a little more attention to me from Bowdie if he’s ever gonna find out how I really feel about him.
The screen door creaks, making both Dad and I pivot our heads. “Lucy!” my dad cries with relief. “We were just talking about you. Are you okay? Beth said you were throwing up,” he stammers, not sure how he should approach things once he notices her red eyes and sniffing nose—the picture of a girl who’s been crying way more than she’s been throwing up.
“I’m fine, Mr. Peters. Really, I am. I just had to go for a walk and get some air. I’ll be all right,” Lucy says weakly, making me roll my eyes for real this time before they narrow with annoyance.
“And perfect timing, too,” I pipe in, making sure she catches my mood, but it’s useless. Lucy doesn’t look like she cares about anything right now. She’s miles away from the Lucy who wanted to share her innermost secret with me about a half hour ago.
“I think I’ll just grab some things and head home if that’s alright,” she murmurs, focusing on my dad instead of me. “I can always come back for the rest, and thank you again for having me stay for so long.”
“You don’t have toleave, Luce. We’re all gonna have dinner together and have a game night,” my dad says, sounding hurt, making me half wonder if he doesn’t have a thing for Lucy himself.
Nah, he’s just itching to beat us all at his favorite board game. I know he is, and he wants to spend the evening with his best buddy, catching up over old times and sucking beers while I just quietly go insane.
Not everyone’s harboring a forbidden crush, Beth.
The thought makes me wince as I even try to picture my dad and Lucy together. Much like my original feelings regarding my chances with a man like Bowdie, it’s laughable. Like no way, no how, kinda laughable, which makes my shoulders slump and my sick feeling real as I discover I don’t have to act so hard anymore. I feel sick to my stomach, so maybe curling up in a ball in my bed really is the smartest thing to do right now.
“I dunno,” Lucy murmurs, shrugging and making an uncomfortable face, finally hugging her elbows until my dad plays diplomat.
“Well, I’m not trying to tell you what to do, Luce. Just saying that we’re all gonna make a night of your dad’s coming home, so it would be great if it were all four of us,” he sighs, the strain of his “day off” so far making him look like he’s worked two weeks straight in an afternoon. Usually, when Dad makes his plans known, and it includes all of us, Lucy plays along, but something is different about her.
She wrinkles her nose and shakes her head. “I think I’ll just be going,” she says, but Bowdie’s deep voice makes us all jump, and I gasp when I turn and see him filling the door frame. He’s wearing nothing but a towel and a thousand drops still making tiny rivers across his rippling, chiseled body. He has a tan that makes me wonder if he’s ever been to London at all.
I start panting involuntarily. That rising need I mentioned earlier feels like it just broke the yolk, and the space between my legs is so wet it feels like I’ve been used to dry Bowdie after his shower—something I’d be willing to submit myself to any day of the week.
“Going where?” he asks, his clear but serious-looking eyes on Lucy’s. The stern tone in his rich, natural baritone voice gives me an extra shiver, a cherry on top of my cherry if you will.
