By the time we showered, towelled off, and got dressed into comfortable clothes—Noah chose a fleece hoodie and a pair of green plaid pyjama pants from my dresser—I felt really damn good. I didn't notice it until Mom was home, but my whole physical being had transformed.
"Look at you," she said as she started boiling water to cook lasagne noodles, when Noah was in the washroom. "Shoulders back, chin forward."
My cheeks immediately caught fire. She was right. I didn't know if Mom knew she was now happily cooking a family dinner within a few metres of where my headboard had made new dents in the wall, and I didn't want to know.
"Do you like him?" I asked her.
"Of course," she said. "He's very sweet."
"He is, isn't he?" I sighed.
She giggled. "You're silly over him."
She was right. I couldn't hide it, either.
Noah returned from the bathroom and we were talking about school—our feet nudging and stroking each other under the kitchen table—when the front door opened. The sound of it always brought me right back to my early childhood. A creak, the roar of wind and rain filtering in from outside, and then a slam and the sounds of Dad setting down his lunch kit, kicking off his steel-toe books, and shaking off the day's stress.
All of those sounds used to make me excited—heart in my throat, legs ready to run, arms ready to hug. Now, my heart was definitely in my throat, but it wasn't because I was excited for my dad to be home.
Dad ducked his head into the kitchen.
"Hullo, all," he said. "Noah, hi! Nice to see you!"
"Hi!" Noah said.
Dad went to have a shower, and my stomach clenched the more I anticipated the moment he would join us. Mom and Noah chatted away about all kinds of things, mostly leaving me out of it. I set the table, letting the silverware clatter as I laid it out. The sounds somehow eased my anxiety. Mom's hair audibly swished as she shot me looks.
Finally, Dad emerged from the shower, wet hair tied back in his signature ponytail. Despite all that had happened, when Dad entered the room, the evening truly started. When we each had a plate of lasagne and a bowl of Mom's famous Caesar salad, we sat down for a wholesome family dinner.
Well, wholesome for everyone else. Everything about Dad bothered me. The way his fork scraped against his plate, his tiny bites, the way his accent stretched the word "mechanic" to five syllables. Everything grated.
It was different, somehow, when I knew that Chloe had always felt something for him. I could understand a young girl being impressed by an older man, especially one like my dad, who was basically just an old teenager. He was laid-back, a hippie through-and-through, an eighties punk all grown up. I got it.
But when I thought about it from his side, everything was cast in a sleazy, grimy kind of light. From the other perspective, my dad, a man in his forties, had always lusted after a teenage girl. And not just any teenage girl—his son's girlfriend. Somehow, a girl liking her boyfriend's dad was a world away from a father thinking of his son's girlfriend in that way. Especially if he felt it strongly enough that he had to break it off with his wife of nineteen years.
Did Mom know?
She had been the one to initiate the divorce, I remembered—she must know. She must have felt the same disgust I felt now, but she hadn't said a word to me.
I felt ten thousand things all at once.
At eight-thirty, we were a few episodes deep in a Netflix comedy. I was sitting on the couch, Noah on the floor with his head resting against my knees. I was mindlessly combing my fingers through his hair, and it kind of shocked me how little I noticed what I was doing. The feeling of my fingertips dragging against Noah's scalp had lulled me into a kind of meditative state. The repetitive motion soothed me a bit, but Dad's laughter and comments about the show made me bristle.
After the fourth episode, Mom said, "Maybe you should take Noah home. It's almost nine."
"Yeah, you kids need your sleep," Dad said.
I wanted to tell him to shut up.
Noah craned his neck to look at me. "Shall we?"
I nodded. We got up, said goodbye, and Noah gathered his things. Moments later, we were in my rustbucket of a car. The engine roared as it tried its best to drive up the mountain.
"I love your parents," Noah said, voice raised slightly. "They're super cool."
I grunted as I coasted to a four-way stop. I tapped the gas pedal a few times—if I came to a complete stop, we might roll backwards when I took my foot off the break.
"You okay?" Noah asked. "You're quiet."
"I'm..." Finally, the other cars cleared the intersection and I could stomp on the gas pedal, accelerating up the hill. "I'm fine."
"They seem like they still get along," he said. "I would never have known they're getting divorced if you hadn't told me."
"They're okay," I grunted.
"You know you can tell me if there's anything bothering you, right?"
I guided the car up a hairpin turn, tongue stuck between my teeth as I concentrated. Why did he have to live at the top of a damn mountain?
My car's engine was working its ass off. We were almost at his house. If it died, I didn't think my masculinity could handle it.
Was that why I wasn't talking to Noah when I knew goddamn well I needed to? He had truly seen me, that day—my house, my car, my body... did I feel too vulnerable?
Yes. Yes, I did.
"I'm fine," I lied.
I pulled up to the lower gate of his property. I felt a little like a chauffeur, following his orders, but when I shifted the car into park and he kissed me forcefully, I knew I liked feeling powerless against him.
He finally broke apart and whispered, "See you tomorrow."
Tomorrow. Thursday. The night I'd go for dinner with his family.
"See you tomorrow," I echoed.
One last kiss and he was gone. I drove back down the mountain, back down to my own domain. I went to bed early, but I couldn't sleep. All I could hear was Dad's voice in the living room, gabbing on the phone to my grandma back in Australia.
He laughed and joked like nothing was wrong.