Little Lies(98)

“Should we do this in the living room or at the dining room table?” my dad asks, draining half his beer in two long swallows.

Yeah, he’s definitely stressed.

“I would say the living room, but that’s where the guys hang out and play video games, so there’s no telling what’s stuck between the couch cushions.” Two weeks ago, it stunk to high heaven in there. I forced the guys to clean their shit up because I couldn’t even walk by the room without gagging. Turns out, it was a rotten hot dog that had ended up under the lounger.

“Dining room it is.”

Kodiak grabs me a cooler, likely out of habit. Plus, it’s the weekend. I take a seat beside him. His foot is tapping on the floor, and he keeps swallowing and blinking.

Our moms sit across from us, with a dad on either end. It reminds me a lot of the family meeting we had after the Courtney incident back when we were kids.

I link my fingers with Kodiak’s under the table.

“Is that alcohol?” my dad asks, nodding to the bottle in my hand.

“It’s a cooler, and it’s, like, two-and-a-half percent. I’d have to drink a case to even get a buzz.”

“You’re underage.” He glares pointedly at Kodiak.

“Pretend we’re in Canada, Dad. And I’m going to go out on a limb and assume you partook in some drinking when you were my age.”

“I lived in Canada when I was your age.”

“Exactly.”

“She’s not doing keg stands, Alex. Let it go,” Mom says.

He leans back in his chair with a frown. “Is this what’s going to happen if you go to New York? Is Kody going to be buying you alcohol? You know people make a lot of bad decisions when they’ve been drinking.”

My mom snorts. “Like making out in public with hockey players where people can take photos that end up on the internet for all eternity?”

I bite my tongue so I don’t laugh, or say something to make this situation worse.

My dad shoots my mom a look. “You’re not helping, Vi.”

She bats her lashes and arches a brow. “I’m not trying to.”

My dad turns to Rook, like he’s looking for him to weigh in. “Well, Kody has always proven to be fairly responsible, and Lavender has never gotten into trouble as far as I’m aware. So I can’t really see my son going out and getting your daughter sloshed for shits and giggles.”

My dad seems to realize this isn’t a great argument to start with, so he switches gears. “Moving in together is a really big step, even if it’s only for a short period of time. Merging your life with someone else’s isn’t seamless, and moving to a big city is another big change.”

He laces his hands and rests his forearms on the table, leaning in and using his soft dad voice, the one he used to pull out when I was having a particularly bad panic attack. “Maybe it would be better to wait a couple more years until you’re a little older, Lavender. This is the first time you’ve ever lived away from home, and New York isn’t within driving distance. I don’t want you to take on something you’re not ready for.”

I fully expected him to take this stance, and to pull the you’re-not-ready card again. “I appreciate your concerns, Dad, but I feel like I am ready. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and I may not have another chance to do it. As far as moving in together goes, Kodiak and I have pretty much been living together this entire semester. And if you remember, you all agreed that he could move in here with me and Maverick and River after the fire.” I arch a brow.

“Well, that was before the two of you were involved,” Dad argues.

Kodiak squeezes my hand, so I glance at him, thinking he’s giving me some silent moral support, but he mostly looks like he’s going to crap his pants.

I give him a look before I turn back to my dad. “I mean, come on, Dad. He lives down the street. We’re adults, and we’re being responsible. And let’s be real, I stayed home last year because you and Mom wanted me to, not because I didn’t feel ready to do this.” I motion to our surroundings. “And I would have gladly moved into the dorms if I hadn’t thought you and River would have had a coronary over it.”

My dad crosses his arms over his chest. “You tried the dorms, and it only lasted two days.”

Mom didn’t say anything to him about my brief attempt at living in the dorms, until Dad noticed the bank transactions, the withdrawal and the refund. By that time I was back in the house and things with me and Kodiak had changed completely, but he still likes to try to use it as leverage of some kind.

“My roommate was a whack job. If I’d applied for the dorms right from the beginning, I could’ve gotten a single, and it wouldn’t have been an issue. Anyway, that’s beside the point. I’ve been successful at college. I’m dealing fine, and I still have monthly sessions with Queenie. I get that maybe you didn’t expect this, but I think your hesitation is a lot less about me not being ready and more about you not being ready to let me go. I realize I’m always going to be your little girl, but that doesn’t mean I’m still a little girl. You need to let me grow up and make my own decisions.”

“She has a point, Alex,” my mom says.

He glances at her, his brow pulling down in a furrow that makes him look so much like River. “I know you’re not a little girl anymore.”