Just One Kiss, Please Daddy

Chapter 3

Livia’s POV

“I’m sorry you have to wear my dad’s sweater,” Nadine says as she slides a steaming cup of tea in front of me. “I didn’t know I had nothing clean.”

“It’s all good,” I whisper, lowering my head and getting a lungful of the scent rising from the neckline of the sweater. “Once my sweater dries up, I’m changing back.”

“It’s okay, you can wear that when I drive you home.”

I’m about to take a sip of tea, but that makes me stop. “Your dad won’t drive anymore?”

“No, he had to leave for an emergency,” Nadine says casually.

“What?” I splutter. “What happened? Is everything okay?”

“Yeah.” She smiles and takes a sip of her tea. “He’s a doctor. He disappears all the time whenever something comes up. His clinic is like, two blocks from here.”

I stare at her, stunned. “I don’t know how we’ve been best friends for almost four years and I just know this about you now.”

“Well, you barely hang around after school.” She sounds genuinely sad about that. “I’ve invited you over many times. You always refuse.”

I don’t say anything.

The last thing I want is for my stepbrother and stepfather to hurt Nadine too, just for being associated with me,

“Well, you know I have to study,” I just say. “I really want to get into a good school and make something of myself. But this is nice, right?”

Nadine smiles and rests her head on my shoulder. “It is. I just wish you don’t smell like my dad.”

We both laugh, finishing our tea.

“Let me show you around!” she says excitedly, taking my hand and taking me away from the kitchen. “I’ve been looking forward to doing this since we met.”

With that, she takes me everywhere. To the basement that they turned into a little home theater. The pool, which is now covered with a tarp due to the rain. The back garden with a greenhouse. To her bedroom, which looked more like a presidential suite in some fancy hotel than a teenager’s bedroom.

“We can have a sleepover if you want,” she offers, giving me one of her plush toys. “We can both sleep in my room. Maybe Dad can have a day off, so we can all make tacos. It’s going to be amazing!”

“Maybe,” I just whisper, noticing something on her nightstand.

A framed picture of Ford… with another woman.

The woman is beautiful, breathtakingly so. She looks exactly like Nadine. Only now do I realize that Nadine barely got any feature from Ford.

This must be her mother.

Ford has his arm wrapped around her shoulders, pressing a kiss on her cheek. He looks so happy. Her belly is swollen, and he has one hand placed on it. She was pregnant with Nadine here.

I turn around to ask about her, but Nadine snatches my hand. “Let’s go to my favorite part of the house!”

We go up the stairs until we get to the attic. Except that it’s not unlike any attic I’ve seen in all the houses my family has moved into.

This one is open, with an entire section of the wall dedicated to bookshelves. There’s a skylight that extends to the opposite wall, showing the sky and the rain and the trees. The floor is covered in a plush carpet, and over on the sides are fluffy couches and bean bags.

“Wow,” I breathe out, rushing to the shelves to check the books. “Your house is amazing.”

“See? That’s why you should stay the night.”

“That wasn’t a part of the plan,” I point out, then I see a bunch of little gold statues occupying an entire section of the shelves. Ford Callahan, they all read. They’re all awards, I realize. “Damn, your dad is an achiever. This is a lot of awards! Patient care, research, contributions to medicine… he’s an amazing man!”

I clamp my lips together. I didn’t mean to sound so enthused about Ford. I glance back at Nadine to see if she noticed my weird gushing tone, but she’s too busy staring at a picture.

I look over her shoulder.

It’s another photo of her family. This time, it’s her mother with her. She’s still a little baby, swaddled in a fluffy pink blanket.

“Your mom is beautiful,” I say. “Your parents are so in love.”

“They were,” she whispers.

“Were?”

“Yeah.” Nadine smiles at me, shrugging. “She died before I could even turn one. Cancer.” She turns back to the picture. “It’s the one thing my dad couldn’t achieve, no matter how much research he did. No matter how much his community adores and praises him.”

My heart sinks. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s so long ago, so it’s alright,” she says, her tone casual. But with a drop of wistfulness. “It’s just been my dad and I ever since. It’s a shame I don’t remember anything about her, but I do remember the many nights Dad spent alone. I really want him to be happy. He deserves it. He deserves to be happy again.”

“He’s very happy, it seems,” I point out.

But Nadine shakes her head. “No, not the way he should be happy. I want him to find love again.”

For some reason, that statement makes my face heats up.

“Your dad is very loyal,” I say, looking away from the picture.

“Yeah, maybe to a fault,” Nadine says with a laugh. “I’m half tempted to set him up on a date. What do you think?”

Her question catches me off-guard. I flinch, bumping into a shelf and sending a small sheet of paper soaring to the carpet. I hurriedly pick it up and hand it to Nadine. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine, I know it’s a bad idea.” She takes the paper and looks at it, then she hands it back to me. “You can keep that. It’s my dad’s business card. You can call him for anything health-related. I’m sure he would love that.”

I stare at the card, running a finger over the embossed name.

So he’s been alone for years….

My thoughts start to wander, but then I feel my phone vibrating in my pocket, drawing me out of my forbidden reverie.

I take it out, and my stomach lurches when I see who’s calling.

Tyler.

I turn to Nadine, my body nearly sagging with dread. “I need to go home.”