Total pages in book: 139
Estimated words: 130380 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 652(@200wpm)___ 522(@250wpm)___ 435(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 130380 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 652(@200wpm)___ 522(@250wpm)___ 435(@300wpm)
I wrinkled my nose. “You guys celebrated a three-month anniversary?”
“Oh, we celebrated everything back then,” Dad said with a smile that said he was reliving a memory. “Every day I didn’t screw up my chance with your mother was a special occasion.”
“And I didn’t make it easy for him,” Mom added.
“Imagine that,” I mused.
My parents shared a knowing look.
“We had gone bowling,” Dad explained. “And long story short, some Ivy League prick kept hitting on your mom, regardless of the fact that we were clearly there together.”
“This guy was a smoke show,” Mom said.
“Hey!” Dad frowned.
“And he was massive. At least a foot taller than your dad and a hundred pounds heavier — all muscle.”
“I had muscle,” Dad said, taking an angry sip from his coffee.
“Anyway, this guy just kept on, but I was handling it. Look, if I didn’t want someone’s attention, I wasn’t afraid of them thinking I was a b-i-t-c-h when I told them to get lost.”
“You can say bitch, Mom,” I interjected.
She ignored me and continued. “But toward the end of the night, when I went to turn in our shoes, this guy caught me at the counter and put his arm around me. Your dad couldn’t see straight, nor could he think straight, because he just ripped the guy off me and plowed his fist right into his nose.”
My jaw dropped. “Dad?”
Mom looked almost proud as she nodded. “Oh, yeah. Laid him out flat and then we were thrown out of the bowling alley. We weren’t allowed to go back, either. The guy tried to press charges, too, but luckily for us the judge could see they were just a couple of stupid kids.”
“Not that the judge’s verdict helped me with your mom at all,” Dad piped in. “Because she’d completely written me off.”
“I was so done,” she agreed. “I told him I refused to spend my life with a pig-headed macho man who wouldn’t respect me when I asked him to back off and let me handle myself.”
My stomach turned with how familiar that sounded, and how being on the listening end of someone else’s story made me feel a different way about that decision.
“But you took him back,” I said, because clearly.
Mom sighed, smiling at Dad. “After taking a few weeks to cool down, yes, I did.”
“What changed your mind?” I asked.
“I didn’t really change my mind,” she said. “I still thought he was a big dummy for acting that way and I told him that. But I realized that as much as I was annoyed by what he did, I also found it kind of sweet. I liked that he wanted to protect me. I liked that he cared about me so much that he couldn’t think straight and that he’d literally punched someone in the nose.”
I smiled a little, remembering how I’d felt seeing Leo lay Nero out on the ground. I’d been horrified, angry, and yet…
It had also been quite hot.
“What she’s forgetting to say is that she finally stopped being so stubborn and ignoring my flowers and phone calls and desperate apologies enough to see that I was crazy about her,” Dad said. “Literally. I loved her so much I did crazy things, like punch dudes twice my size.”
“In the end, what I realized more than anything was that while it wasn’t the way I wanted the situation handled, it was how your dad showed he loved me. He didn’t punch that guy for his own satisfaction,” Mom said. “He did it because he saw someone touching me when I didn’t want to be touched.”
“I saw my girl being threatened,” Dad amended. “And I didn’t care about anything else but protecting her.”
“Ew,” I said with a laugh. “That’s so weird but also sweet?”
Dad beamed like I’d called him a superhero.
“Anyway,” Mom continued, turning to face me. “All I’m saying is that maybe in a weird, caveman way… this was Leo showing his affection for you.”
“He lost you once, remember?” Dad added. “Does it not make sense that, now that he had his chance with you again, he would be a little crazy at the thought of someone you trusted hurting you the way Nero did?”
I pressed a hand to where my chest felt like it was splitting in half.
Why did it make so much sense when my father said it? And why was I just now realizing that my stubbornness came from my mother — the very one I’d always dug my heels in to defy?
“Let me ask you this,” Mom said when I didn’t respond to them. “Do you still care about him?”
I nodded.
“And does it make you sick to think of losing him?” Dad asked.
My eyes filled with tears on another nod.
Mom chuckled, grabbing my arms in her hands and giving me a little shake. “Then forgive him, stubborn girl. And believe him when he says he’s learned his lesson. Trust me — you can do much worse than a man who loves you so much he can’t see straight.”