Chapter Seven
My tongue disappears down my throat as I meet Angus’s unflinching gaze. My sweater feels thirty degrees hotter than it did a minute ago. And ten times as itchy.
Piper, no doubt noticing that her boyfriend has turned into a monolith with ears, breaks the silence. “Dad, this is Bax. Bax, this is my father, Angus.”
Her voice dislodges some of the cement from my stomach. Angus knows perfectly well who I am—and vice versa—so she only performed the formal introduction to break the ice.
Darned if it worked.
I extend a hand to him, hoping my weak smile doesn’t betray my intense anxiety. “Nice to meet you, sir.”
He stares at my outstretched palm as if I’m holding a dead fish. Then he notches a ginger eyebrow at me. Finally, when I think I’m about to spontaneously combust, a broa
