Regretting You(14)

Clara finally walks into the house in the middle of my self-deprecating thought. She stops about five feet from the table, ignoring everyone and everything around her as her finger moves over her phone screen.

“Where have you been?” Chris asks her. She’s only about thirty minutes later than usual, but he notices.

“Sorry,” she says, placing her phone down on the table next to Lexie’s. She reaches over Jonah’s shoulder to grab her plate. “Theater meeting after school and then one of my classmates needed a ride.” She smiles at me. “Happy birthday, Mom.”

“Thank you.”

“Who needed a ride?” Chris asks her.

Jenny and I look at each other right when Clara says, “Miller Adams.”

Shit.

Chris drops his fork to his plate.

Lexie says, “Excuse me? Where was my phone call about this?”

Chris looks at Jenny and then at me like he’s about to scold us for lying to him. I grip his leg under the table. A sign I don’t want him to mention we were talking about it. He knows as well as I do that Jenny is a good source of information for what’s going on in our daughter’s life, and if he reveals Jenny was telling me about their conversation, we’ll all suffer.

“Why are you giving Miller Adams a ride?” he asks her.

“Yes,” Lexie says. “Why did you give Miller Adams a ride? Don’t leave out a single detail.”

Clara ignores Lexie, responding only to her father. “It was barely a mile. Why do you seem so bothered by it?”

“Don’t do it again,” Chris says.

“I vote do it again,” Lexie says.

Clara looks at Chris in disbelief. “It was hot out—I wasn’t going to make him walk.”

Chris raises his eyebrow, something he doesn’t do very often, which makes it all the more intimidating when he does. “I don’t want you involved with him, Clara. And you shouldn’t be giving guys rides. It isn’t safe.”

“Your father is right,” Lexie says. “Only give hot guys rides when I’m with you.”

Clara falls down into her seat and rolls her eyes. “Oh my God, Dad. He’s not a stranger, and I’m not dating him. He’s had the same girlfriend for a year.”

“Yeah, but his girlfriend is in college, so it’s not like she’ll be in your way,” Lexie says.

“Lexie?” Chris says her name as more of a warning.

Lexie nods and runs her fingers across her mouth, like she’s zipping her lips shut.

I’m a little in shock that Clara is sitting here acting like she didn’t just call Jenny and slightly freak out that this kid was flirting with her. She’s acting like she doesn’t care, to both Chris and Lexie. But I know she does, thanks to Jenny. I stare at Clara in awe of her ability to pretend otherwise, but that awe is accompanied by a slight disturbance. I’m equally as impressed by her ability to lie as I am Jenny’s ability to lie.

It’s scary. I couldn’t lie if my life depended on it. I get flustered, and my cheeks flush. I do whatever I can to avoid confrontation.

“I don’t care if he’s single or married or a billionaire. I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t give him another ride.”

Lexie makes a move like she’s unzipping the imaginary zipper on her lips. “You’re her dad—you shouldn’t say it like that. If you make a guy off limits to a teenage girl, that only makes us want him more.”

Chris points his fork at Lexie and looks around the table. “Who keeps inviting her to these things?”

I laugh, but I also know Lexie is right. This isn’t going to end well if Chris keeps this up. I can feel it. Clara already has a crush on the guy, and now her father has made him off limits. I’ll have to warn Chris later not to bring it up again unless he wants Hank Adams to be Clara’s future father-in-law.

“I feel out of the loop,” Jonah says. “What’s so bad about Miller Adams?”

“There’s no loop, and there’s nothing wrong with him,” Clara assures him. “It’s just my parents, being overprotective as usual.”

She’s right. My mother didn’t shelter me as a child in any sense, which is part of the reason I ended up pregnant with Clara at seventeen. Because of that, Chris and I take it overboard with Clara sometimes. We admit that. But Clara is our only child, and we don’t want her to end up in a situation like we did.

“Miller is a good kid,” Jonah says. “I have him in class. Nothing like Hank was at that age.”

“You have him in class for forty minutes a day,” Chris says. “You can’t know him that well. Apples don’t fall far from their trees.”

Jonah stares at Chris after that response. He chooses not to continue the conversation, though. Sometimes when Chris wants to make a point, he doesn’t let up until the person he’s arguing with gives in. When we were younger, I remember him and Jonah always going toe to toe. Jonah was the only one who wouldn’t give in and let Chris win.

Something has changed since he’s been back, though. He’s quieter around Chris. Always lets him get the final word. I don’t think it’s a show of weakness, though. In fact, it impresses me. Sometimes Chris still comes off as the hotheaded teenager he was when I met him. Jonah, however, seems above it. Like it’s a waste of time to try to prove Chris wrong.