Speaking of my father…
I answered on the second ring.
“You got another letter to the house.”
I grimaced. “Throw it away.”
“You can’t skip this, and you know you can’t,” he said. “You’ll hate yourself.”
I sighed.
“I know.”
The baby strapped to my chest chose that moment to reach for my coffee.
I easily held it out of his reach and kept walking and talking.
“This is your best friend from high school’s wedding,” he said. “You have to go. Cerise would never forgive you.”
He was right.
Cerise and I had once been the best of friends.
Life and time had separated us slightly, but I still checked in with her through text—at least now I did. When I was recently postpartum, I’d pulled away a bit.
But she’d been a good sport about everything, and we’d grown our relationship quite a bit.
When she’d moved to Washington, DC, a few years ago, I’d been devastated.
I’d never met the man she was going to marry, but I suppose I would be soon.
“She asked me if it was okay if her family invited Joey, and I said yes.” I sighed and stepped to the side to allow a biker to pass. “I should’ve said no, and this would all be a moot point.”
“Joey’s family and hers have been best friends for a long time. Way before you were ever in the picture. That would be awkward for her, which is why you said yes in the first place,” Dad pointed out.
He was right.
“You just need a date. And you know exactly who to ask.”
That would be a big, fat no. I wasn’t doing that.
I couldn’t.
Wasn’t it bad enough that I thought of him, day in and day out, but now I had to remember what it would feel like to be close to the man?
Yeah, I was thinking it’d be the best idea to stay far, far away from him.
“That doesn’t mean I need to ask him,” I pointed out. “I can ask anyone. Maybe Audric would go with me.”
“If you don’t ask Copper, I will.”
I groaned into my hands, “Dad…”
“You are not going to that friend’s wedding, where you damn well know Joey will be in attendance, without Copper. Unless you want to take me as your plus one.” Dad perked up.
I groaned and leaned against a faded wall with blue paint.
My head dropped to the side as I tried to come up with a valid excuse for my father that might actually persuade him to not push me on this.
