Jack looked between us with suspicion. “Yeah,” he cleared his throat. “You doing okay, Mags?”
Like it was meant to deter me from going outside with Marco, the sound of glass breaking directed my attention across the room. A blur of red hair rushed from behind the bar with arag. I shouldn’t have been surprised to see my father flailing his arms dramatically in conversation with a woman in front of him. He looked embarrassingly intoxicated. Of course, he didn’t apologize to Jared, the sweet bartender who rapidly picked up glass shards from the floor and wiped spilled beer with a rag.
“Who isthat?” Marco asked with more judgment in his tone than I appreciated. “Looks like one of the old-timers is past his prime and making up for it with too many Coronas.”
A hot flush of embarrassment washed over my face. It was shameful enough that I usually had to drag my dad out of these parties way earlier than what was appropriate to leave a party drunk, but at least the regulars here weren’t making comments to me about it. I was pretty sure they pitied me too much to say anything. Obviously, Marco wasn’t a regular and didn’t know any better, but it still didn’t help the Maggie on my shoulder yelling at me to get my dad out of here before he made a big scene.
I dashed over to Jared, my dad, and the mysterious woman he was still speaking to with theatrical gestures. I was pretty sure I heard the wordsfuck youfrom Jack to Marco before footsteps followed behind me.
“Maggie!” Dad exclaimed, eyes lighting up when he noticed me. “Come, meet Julia. Julia, this is my magnificent Maggie.”
He was slurring his words, per usual. More embarrassment shot through me when Julia looked between Dad and me with wide eyes. Mine pricked with tears as a cold sweat broke out on the back of my neck.
A few soft mumbles from below me caused me to look down. Jack had followed me over here and was helping Jared pick up the broken glass. My fingers shook. Jack knew my dad. He knew his situation. But his helping out didn’t make me feel any better.
Fuck. I felt out of control. All I wanted—all I hadeverwanted—was for my dad to get better. To fix himself. To not have to feelashamed of whose daughter I was in situations like these. When I looked into his distant eyes, I knew he was as miserable with his vice as I was.
“Nice to meet you, Julia,” I managed. “But I think my dad needs to go home now.”
She nodded with an obvious glare, as if I had just told her the sky was blue, before turning to find anyone else to interact with.
More cold sweat on my neck. Now my toes curled with humiliation.
“Come on, Dad. Let’s go home.” I placed my hand on his shoulder and tried to guide him away from the bar and out the door.
“No, honey. Not ready to go yet. So many more people to talk.” My stomach hurt. He didn’t speak in complete or correct sentences when he had too much to drink. I had to learn how to speak Drunk Richard as my second language growing up.
“I know, but I’m tired and don’t want to leave you here tonight. Can we go home, please, Dad?”
He looked reluctant to believe me. I used this excuse every time, and it was painful that he never put the pieces together that we were never going home because I wanted to leave.
“I mean…are you sure you can’t let me stay a little longer?”
Jack rose from his kneeling position on the ground. He brushed his palms against each other, likely to remove any small grains of broken glass. “Come on, Richard. Let’s go.”
I turned to Jack with a twinge of humility and indignation. This wasn’t his problem to deal with. It was mine. “It’s fine. I’ve got him.”
Jack’s eyes, stiff from looking at my dad, softened when they reached mine. “I want to help.”
Shrugging him off, I began ushering my dad toward the door. “No. I’ve got it.”
This was my problem. It was humiliating enough that I had to walk through the crowd of partygoers with my drunk father—I didn’t need Jack chaperoning us, whether he knew the situation or not.
But it didn’t matter, because Jack trailed behind us as we walked—or, more like meandered—to the exit, shoulder-checking Marco on the way out. We walked into the cool night, each member of our trio in the exact opposite situation we wanted to be in tonight.
“Come on, we’ll take my truck.” Jack motioned. It was closer than my dad’s and my golf cart, which was further down the gravel parking lot.
But I protested anyway.
“Seriously, Jack, we don’t need your help.” I shifted as my dad began to lean some of his weight on me. Great, he was falling asleep, and we weren’t even home yet. He was drunker than I thought.
“I know you don’t, but he’s so fucked, you won’t even be able to get him inside.”
It wasn’t his place to be inputting himself in our shit, but he was right, and I was exhausted. If we could get him into bed and forget about this night, I could get over it.
“Fine.”
We drove the eight minutes from the Forrest Hills clubhouse to my dad’s and my farm, me in the front seat, and my dad passed out in the back. A terrible feeling knotted in my stomach. I was on edge tonight, first with the comment about my mom, and now everything with my dad. Jack was detached from the situation, saying nothing as he guided my unconscious father into the dark, quiet house and deposited him in his bedroom.
