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"I'm not trying to put you down here, darlin', but I'd prefer the club go to him by you forfeiting than see you get hurt in the process of trying to win it." I understand why he's worried. I'm worried and I'd be surprised if he wasn't. He's seen Gray and I go through so much pain that I can understand why he doesn't want to witness anymore of it, but despite how much Theo terrifies me, I know that I can't give up now. I know that I have to at least try.
"I'm not giving up to that," I say, my head nodding to the screen still held out towards us in his hand.
"I'm not letting the likes of him run the Cobras into the ground after years of them having us. They have us or they have nothing. He's not winning anything other than a trip to hospital," I tell them all with far more confidence than I actually have.
I remember my dad telling us that confidence is all you need. He said you could scare people with confidence. So long as they thought you could beat them, then you could. I've never put that theory to the test but now is as good a time as any, right?
Twenty
Charlie
“Will you stop fidgeting, darlin’, it’ll be fine,” my dad says as he gets his rucksack together for work. I untangle my hands and place them on my lap.
I’m meeting David today. He’s driven two hours to meet me for the first time, and it’s only because I don’t want to be rude and disrespectful to the effort that he’s gone through that I don’t bolt out the back door right now.
“I know.”
“What is it about meeting him that makes you so nervous?” he asks.
I ponder his question, not completely sure of the answer. In less than five minutes, David will be here. I can't decipher what I’m thinking, let alone put it into words. I don’t really know why I’m nervous, other than knowing that this meeting could go wrong, feel weird, or be a lot more tense than I'd like.
I’ve had different scenarios running through my head all night and every moment of the day since I woke up. This could go terribly. He might see me, see the scar on my face that I’ve done my very best to forget about, and wonder what happened, as any normal human being would. I don’t want to lie to the man the very first time I meet him, but there’s also no chance of me telling him the truth. He might meet me, begin talking to me, and decide that I’m a terrible person that he doesn’t want to get to know, and it’s not as though I particularly want to impress him or anything, but it would be nice for him to meet me and think that I’m not a bad person. I don’t ever try to be. I try to be the opposite, although I admittedly don’t always succeed in that.
“I don’t know. It’s just a weird situation. I’m just stressing,” I state.
“That it is,” he says with a chuckle.
The doorbell goes, and I’m sure I’m about to pee my pants as Dad gives me a warm smile before heading to open it. I follow behind him. He’s acting so chilled out, though I’m willing to bet at least some of that is for my sake because he can see that I’m nervous.
He opens the door and I’m presented with a man that if I wasn’t sure before that he was my biological father, then I am now.
I instantly see it, the resemblance between us. He has the same shade of grassy green eyes as I do, the same freckles under his slightly wrinkled skin. He’s older than Dad is, that much is obvious, though not by more than ten years I’d say.
I smile weakly at him and see an identical one trained back onto me. We have the same smile. It’s like looking into a mirror if I take away the fact that he’s however many years older than me and a man.
Ok, maybe not a very good mirror, maybe a blurry mirror or the strange ones you get at amusement parks for kids.
He’s wearing dark jeans and a white long-sleeved shirt. He looks smart, posh almost. He has no stubble, no beard or moustache, and has hair the same dull brown colour as mine cut neatly atop his head.
“Come on in. You can sit in the kitchen with Charl, I was just heading out,” Dad says as he leads us back through to the kitchen.
I take a seat in the same spot I was before, easing myself into the comfortable worn wooden chair as David does the same in the seat opposite me after Dad gives him the nod of encouragement to sit.
“I can see the resemblance between us already, you look just like my daughter,” David states as he smiles warmly at me.
“You’ve got a daughter?” The question I was about to blurt out comes out of Dad’s mouth instead. I like that he is just as curious as I am.
“Yes. Yes.” He smiles. “She’s just a few years older than you. I have a son as well.”
“Will you tell me about them?” I ask enthusiastically.
“You know what, I’m gonna head off to work, I’ll leave you two be. Liam and Crow are in the living room if you need them,” he reassures me with a small smile.
He walks over to me and gives me a kiss on the top of my head before saying a swift “love you" and running off.
“You can see that you two love each other a lot,” David says with what looks to be a genuine smile.
“I don’t mean to offend you when I say this but he’s my dad. It would probably be stranger if we didn't love each other.”
