“About me?” I interrupt, hanging on his words and wondering if my father could really do this to me.
“Yes, but no. I didn’t think it was you and I asked if your dad had a wife, figuring that’s who my investigator found, and he said yes, but that she had passed away.” Elliot shakes his head, a pained expression painting his face. “I knew your mother had died, but I never put the two together,” he adds quietly and I hate that he is suddenly feeling like he failed somehow. I can feel it in the air between us, and when I reach out and take his hand, I feel it in the limpness of his grip.
This situation is taking its toll on both of us and this is just a small moment in all of this. I wrote a damn book about it all and the press will have a field day when they realize I found him. That we found each other.
“I thought it was another dead end. I was so used to finding dead ends I didn’t bother to ask any more questions.”
“Elliot,” I whisper, my hand now resting on his cheek as I step closer to him. I lay my head against his chest, his arms wrapping me in a comforting embrace and I do the same to him. We both need a few minutes before we walk into my father’s house and are hit with a million prying and judgmental questions. It’s coming, I can sense it, but we need to be stronger than this and any doubts we have will shine through. I don’t doubt Elliot’s intentions or his attempts to find me, but I do understand feeling defeated. “I understand dead ends and I also understand giving up,” I add, letting Elliot know what he did when he met my father wasn’t his fault.
“I didn’t give up, Nora. I won’t ever give up on us.”
Chapter Thirty-One: Elliot
We eventually head inside and despite having briefly met Nora’s dad before, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous now. I hadn’t been nervous when I’d met Bridgitte’s parents and even though I know I can’t compare what I had with her with what I have with Nora, it’s the first thought that pops into my head as Nora closes the front door and calls out, “Dad?”
Nervous has to be a good sign, right? It means this is important to me and I want this to work. I want her dad to like me.
“In here,” he calls back, his voice gruff.
She looks up at me, squeezing my hand as she gives me a nervous smile. I smile back at her, trying to give her the impression that everything’s fine as she leads me down the hall to a huge kitchen at the back of the house.
“Dad,” she says, as she walks into the room.
I watch as her father closes the fridge door and turns to face us, that same strange expression on his face as when he opened the front door and saw us standing on his front lawn. As soon as we’d pulled up outside this house, I was transported back to a year ago, when the PI had given me this address and I’d shown up here, hoping this would finally be the day I found her.
More than ten years after I’d lost her.
Only I hadn’t found her. Well, I had, but not in the way I realized.
But her dad’s reaction to seeing me today has left no doubt in my mind that he remembers me showing up here, too. That he knew about our searches for each other and he understands what the two of us standing on his front lawn means
We’ve found each other.
After all these years, we’ve finally fucking found each other.
“Dad,” Nora says again, stepping into the kitchen, her hand in mine, squeezing tightly and a huge smile on her face. “This is Elliot. Elliot, this is my dad, Walter.”
Her dad turns to me, his face still a mask to what he’s really thinking as he sticks out a hand. “Nice to meet you,” he says, although I can’t tell if he really means it.
“You too,” I offer, returning his handshake with a smile.
We drop hands and a silence settles over the room, the three of us standing awkwardly looking at each other. Nora still holds my hand in hers, but she’s fidgeting now and her smile has gone, as though she’s nervous about what comes next.
“So, Dad, I understand you’ve actually met Elliot before,” she starts, moving closer as she wraps an arm around my waist.
Her dad looks at me quickly before turning back to his daughter. “Yeah,” he says sharply. “Although I didn’t realize exactly who he was.”
Nora smiles, but it looks forced as she says, “No, we realize that.”
Her dad nods once before turning back to the fridge. “Drink?” he asks.
This whole situation is getting weirder and weirder, an obvious animosity in the room that’s making it hard to relax or figure out exactly how her dad feels about us being here together. Without waiting for an answer from either of us, he grabs a couple of beers and hands us each one.
“So,” he starts, taking a long pull of his beer. “How’d you end up finding each other then?”
It’s a simple question but one that’s loaded with so much insinuation, it’s hard to know where to start. I turn to Nora, who smiles at me before turning to her dad. “Elliot read my book,” she says. “He recognized our story and he came to New York to find me.”
Her dad glances at me before turning back to Nora. “So what’s happening with Ryan?”
“Dad!” Nora bites out, even as she squeezes my hip.
“It’s okay, Nora,” I whisper. “It’s a fair question.”
Nora shakes her head. “No, it’s not,” she says, glaring at her dad. “Ryan and I are over, Dad.”
He nods curtly as he takes another sip of beer. “So Elliot walks back into your life and that’s it, you just throw Ryan away?”
Nora exhales, rolling her eyes as she steps away from me, placing both hands on the kitchen counter as she faces her father. “It isn’t like that,” she bites out and I can feel the anger radiating off her. “Ryan and I were over long before Elliot came back into my life, because I’ve never gotten Elliot out of my life.”
He takes another sip of beer, barely acknowledging her response as he turns to me now. “And what, you’re here to stay now then?”
I glance at Nora before turning back to him. Trying for a smile, I nod and say, “Yes, I am. I’m in love with your daughter, sir. I have been for the past thirteen years.” It’s the first time I’ve actually voiced my feelings out loud and even though this isn’t the way I wanted to tell Nora, it doesn’t make it any less true.
“I see,” he says, but I can tell by the way he says it that he doesn’t believe me. “And you know this after one night together over a decade ago?”
“Dad!” Nora yells again. “Stop! Why can’t you just be happy for us for like five seconds? God!”
Her dad lets out a long breath before taking another sip of his beer. He watches his daughter like he’s trying to decide how to say whatever’s on his mind, which makes me think whatever it is, it’s not good. Just as I open my mouth to say something, Nora turns to me, takes the beer from my hand and says, “Come on, let’s go.”
“Nora, wait,” I say, even as she grabs my hand and starts pulling me toward the front door.
“No,” she says without looking back. “We’re not doing this now.”