Dirty Rowdy Thing (Wild Seasons, #2)(13)

“We only got here fifteen minutes ago,” I tell him, slowly turning. Slow, and cool. “Shouldn’t we stay a little longer?”

He looks around meaningfully. “This place is packed. Friends show up to these things to fill space.

We’re just in the way now.”

I should go with them, and I’m sure it would be fun, but I really want to be home, pretending not to hover over my mom.

“Are you leaving tonight or tomorrow?” I ask him.

“Um.” He glances at Ansel, who has tilted his head and is wearing the world’s most hilarious expression of amused expectation. Mia is staring at me wide-eyed, as if I’m a grenade and Finn is about to remove my pin.

He reaches up to scratch his jaw. “I’m actually staying with Oliver for the next couple weeks.”

MY THOUGHTS ARE stacked like a deck of cards and I have to continually shuffle the top one to the back of the pile.

I can’t obsess about Mom’s surgery on Monday. I can’t think about the possibility of more sexcapades with Finn. I don’t want to shop. I don’t want to surf. I don’t want to eat. And my part-time job is a joke. So, I go to my parents’ house on Saturday afternoon, change into my bathing suit, and head out to the pool to swim until my limbs are like noodles. At least there I can be close by, but not hovering.

Apparently Dad had the same idea. He finishes his lap, surfacing when he sees me and folding his arms at the edge of the pool. Water drips from his salt-and-pepper hair onto his tanned skin and he pushes his goggles onto his forehead before closing his eyes, tilting his face up to the sky. I would do anything to not have to see my father this worried.

I sit down, sliding my feet into the water next to him. We sit in easy silence while he catches his breath.

“Hey, Tulip.”

“Hey, dude.”

I slip the rest of the way into the pool, relishing the mild chill of the unheated water in September.

When I break through the surface, I ask, “You hanging in there?”

He laughs without much humor, stripping his goggles off completely and tossing them onto his towel a few feet away. “Not really.” He’s still breathless. Dad is in unbelievable shape; he must have been swimming like a maniac. “You?”

I shrug. For some reason, I don’t feel like I have a right to be as shaken by all of this as Dad is.

After all, he in particular has always been my most involved parent. Mom’s career exploded when I was only two and tapered just as I was entering college. Dad’s took off my sophomore year of high school, the first year he won an Oscar. He loves us with a ferocity that amazes me, but I know without question that Mom is his sun, moon, and stars.

“Did you go into the office this morning?” I ask.

He smiles, clearly noting my diversionary tactic. “Only for about an hour. Thinking about getting involved with Sal’s next project. It’d keep me home until April, at least.”

Salvatore Marìn is a producer/director who is Dad’s closest friend and most frequent work colleague. I know the question of work has to have been weighing on Dad: how to balance his career while still being there for Mom in every sense of the word. Dad’s never in one place for long, and so I’m sure the idea of having to leave right now, of missing anything with Mom, must be terrifying.

“That sounds ideal,” I say simply, going for light.

“I think you’d like this one.” His smile changes into one I haven’t seen for a while, genuine and mischievous. “It’s about a bunch of guys on a boat.”

“Very funny.” I splash him. I’ve missed his laughter and his easy smiles, so if letting him hassle me about Finn, or any other boy, makes them happen more often, he can do it as much as he wants.

“So what’d you end up doing last night?”

I dunk underwater quickly, slicking my hair back. “Went to Lola’s.”

I can feel him watching me, waiting. He’s used to getting every detail. “And? Was it fun?”

“It was okay,” I hedge and look at him, squinting into the sun. “Funny thing, actually . . . Finn was there.”

His eyebrows slowly inch up. “Finn, huh?”

I’ve always relied on Dad’s brain to help me sort through my day, my frustrations, my adventures.

So of course he knows the PG-rated details of my Vegas trip: We met at a bar, got drunk and married.

After a sharp cut-to-black in the version of the story he got, I told him about how we went together to get the marriage annulled the next afternoon.

But he also knows I flew up to visit Finn for less than a day. So when I mention that he was at the party last night, I’m pretty sure my dad puts two and two together.

“It was a good distraction . . .” I mumble, even more quietly admitting, “not that much happened.”

His eyes dance with restrained teasing. “He’s in town for the grand opening?”

I nod, leaving out the part where it seems Finn is staying for a couple weeks. I can’t decide if I’m excited about this news, or irritated. As if I don’t already have enough to think about, now I’m going to be forced into seeing him every time I want to socialize?

Dad watches me as I doodle in the dry concrete with a wet fingertip. I’ve never had to hide my interest in boys, my distress over girl-dramas, or my fears and anxiety about life from him. Growing up, our deal was that as long as I always came to him first with the big things, he would do his best not to lecture, judge, or go into what mom calls his Protective Latin Rage.