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“It means that I can understand why she would be uncomfortable with you staying here. It’s not exactly ideal.”
She shoots me a look. “I can leave if that’s what you want.”
I raise an eyebrow. “You want to leave?”
“Not really. But I’m tired of doing this little back-and-forth mood swing dance with you.”
Mood swing? What is she talking about? “Me?”
"Yes, you.” Her eyes blaze. “Because honestly, I don’t understand. One minute you're begging me to stay here and the next you’re throwing low blow shots like you want me to leave.”
“Now, hold on.” I have to hold up my hand. "First of all, I don't throw low shots, and I’m not saying I want you to leave."
She still looks pissed, holding on to the mixer like she's about to toss it. I try not to laugh as I continue, "I guess I'm just bad with words, but what I'm trying to say is that I understand why as a parent she wouldn’t want you to be staying here. I mean, if I was a dad, I wouldn’t even want to hear that my daughter was spending time with a strange old man.”
“Strange old man?” Her eyebrows furrow in confusion. "Would that be you?”
“Yeah,” I say and smile at the half astounded half enraged face she has. “Or did you not think about me like that?”
“I would never think such mean things about someone. Especially not someone who's helping me."
Which means she probably did think about it, just in a different way. I don't blame her. It's hard not to question a few things about our relationship.
I'm questioning them myself. Regardless, there is no way she doesn’t look at me that way.
"Yeah, right,” I say, and the disbelief in my tone seems to piss her off even more.
“You’re determined to believe the worst about people, aren’t you?”
I shrug. “I’m just being honest.”
She bites back what I’m guessing is an acerbic reply, and turns back to cutting shapes on the dough. I eat my food in relative silence, but now I’m irritated too. I know she’s somewhat right and I do believe the worst in people, but I have a reason to. I've never been wrong about my reservations. It's always when I go against them that I regret it.
I don’t give in to the urge to apologize or make further conversation with her. Even if I wanted to, I wouldn't have. I'm a bastard and she should find out now rather than later. Plus, I can’t help thinking about what Melly said.
"She might welcome it now, but when she's my age, she's going to look back and wonder what she was thinking, dealing with a creepy old man like you."
But then the silence gets too tense. And I feel like I can't just leave without at least finding out how she is.
"How's the job hunting going?"
“Fine,” she says with a clipped tone and that tells me everything. I laugh.
"I'm going for an interview tomorrow, actually," she adds.
“Which one?"
“It's none of your business,” she says
"What's the pay?" I ask.
"That’s none of your business either."
This tells me that it's below fifty thousand, which is the exact opposite of what I asked her to look for.
"You’re not going to that interview," I say, which pisses her off so much that she spins around and glares at me. She walks over, jabbing her index finger at me.
"I don’t know who died and told you that you can tell me what to do, but news flash, you can’t."
