CHAPTER FIFTEEN
MY DAD SHOWED up out of the blue, which was never a welcome development. I saw him about once a year for two to three days, and it was always a wonder that I was still speaking to him at the end of it.
Ro answered the door, as she usually did, and led him back to my office. She looked a little shell-shocked and I glared at him, wondering if he’d already managed to say or do something awful in the short trip from the front to the back of the house.
“Hello, Carson,” I said to my father, already feeling hostile.
He smiled at Ro and winked at her.
I felt my hands curl into fists.
“Get me a cup of coffee, doll,” he told her.
“She’s got a great rack under those conservative clothes,” were the first words out of his mouth, before she was even out of fucking earshot.
“Don’t even think about it,” I told him, voice low and outright mean. “That one is so off-limits, you don’t even want to know.
He looked intrigued. “I beg to differ. No one’s off-limits.”
He was still effortlessly bagging anything with legs and a vagina from the ages of eighteen to twenty-six, and showed no signs of slowing down. My shameless, womanizing genetics were stellar.
For some bizarre reason women rarely turned him down, and that included the one woman I had ever foolishly committed to.
“I’ll rearrange your face if you so much as look at her wrong,” I said, and I absolutely meant it.
He was in his late fifties, but the bastard just seemed to be getting more handsome and distinguished with age, and he’d always liked his face, so it was a good threat.
Still, he just looked even more intrigued. “So you’re bagging her, and it’s serious.”
I cut my hand through the air. “Knock it off.”
“Where is that sexy secretary with my coffee? She’s taking her sweet time. Maybe I’ll go find her myself.”
“Is your wife with you?” I asked him.
That put him in his place a little. He suddenly looked disgusted and annoyed. He waved behind him, and I could not begin to guess what he was indicating. “She’s somewhere close by. You know she never lets me get far.”
We continued to catch up in our antagonistic way and when a full half-hour had passed, and I realized that Ro had completely ignored his request for coffee I was as tickled by her as I’d ever been.
“Do you ever miss Mom?” I lobbed out idly.
That was me picking a fight. He didn’t, but he should. My mom had been a saint.
But he was a sinner, so of course he didn’t care.
My dissolute father sighed like I’d just disappointed him. “For your sake, I do. But for mine, no. I’ve told you, son. Women are all the same. One’s as good as another when you’re on top of them.
“Misogynist asshole,” I remarked casually.
He continued, unfazed, “She did make great crepes, but you know, so does my chef.”
“I can’t believe she gave you the time of day. She was so much better than you. You weren’t even worthy to kiss her fucking feet.”
He shrugged, trying to look unaffected, but I could tell by a new tightness around his mouth that I’d gotten to him. “That’s what every boy wants to think about his mother. Tell yourself those lies if you must.”
“And you keep telling yours.”
It was about that time my father’s wife arrived.
She was my age and still a real stunner. Red hair complemented by lovely tan skin, sky high legs, curves for days, lips made for sin, and the kind of strikingly beautiful face that inspired poetry.
If I was brutally honest about her, which I emphatically was, she’d peaked in her mid-twenties. Probably too much time in a tanning bed.
We were both well into our thirties now.
They’d been together for over a decade, which I think we’d all have agreed was a small miracle. Neither of them were cut out for marriage. It was possible that they’d only lasted so long out of pure apathy. Why would you end something that you’d barely ever let affect your lifestyle in the first place?
I smiled unpleasantly at her. “Hello, Ida.”
She smiled warmly at me, far happier with our little family reunion than I was. “Turner, aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?”
I rolled my eyes at that. She was as incapable of charming me as my father was, which was an impressive feat.
I didn’t hate her, though I used to. These days I just kind of pitied her and was embarrassed about our past together. I’d never understood her motives, but surely she couldn’t have wanted her life to turn out this sad.
“Where is that secretary?” Carson asked the room at large.
“Get your own fucking coffee,” I told him blandly. “You know where the kitchen is.”
He waved vaguely toward his wife. “Ida, get me a cup of coffee.”
She was unfazed. “Cream and sugar?”
He looked at her like she was a particularly fascinating bug on his windshield. “You don’t know how I take my coffee?”
She sent him a sultry stare. “We both know you didn’t marry me for my skills in the kitchen.”
It was almost impressive how seductive she looked and how unaffected he was by it. Same for me, to be frank.
“Black,” he told her. “Fucking blow up doll,” he said when she was out of earshot. That was downright polite, for him. He waved between us. “She’s useless for anything else. Guess we both look silly for falling for that one’s little tricks.”
“Speak for yourself. I was too young to know better when I met her. What’s your excuse?”
“If I divorce her now, she’ll take half. I’d rather be miserable with all of my money.”
I’d heard him tell that joke at least fifty times. I wondered how many times he’d told it in total. It had to be in the thousands.
Ro bustled into the office, setting a stack of papers on my desk. “Sign these at your leisure, and let me know when you’re done so I can send them out.”
She left promptly and without acknowledging my father.
He was baffled. I was delighted.
“How long are you staying?” I asked. He always stayed for at least two days, and I wasn’t looking forward to it.
“However long I feel like. Tu casa es mi casa, son. You certainly have the room.”
I let out a heavy sigh.
“Pretty sure you got that saying mixed up,” I pointed out.
“Well, you’re the fancy writer.”
Going by his answer, I figured I’d be kicking them out in about two days. I’d had to do it before. My dad liked to push his luck.
I started reading and signing the contracts Ro had brought in.
“Contracts are signed,” I yelled automatically when I was done. I didn’t like to text her. It was more fun to shout down the hall and annoy her.
Ro came back and gathered the contracts.
“Too good to make a cup of coffee, eh?” my dad asked her as she passed by.
“For you, most definitely,” she said without missing a beat, already out the door.
“She’s got a mouth,” Carson said, looking like he’d tasted something sour. “You put up with that kind of insolence?”