Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 130512 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 653(@200wpm)___ 522(@250wpm)___ 435(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 130512 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 653(@200wpm)___ 522(@250wpm)___ 435(@300wpm)
Fuck. She was me. Which I knew, but seeing it in a female body was something else.
She added, “Except maybe for Max, but that’d be different.”
Jesus Christ. “Maddy!”
She blushed, grinning. “Sorry. I just didn’t want to say something and do the opposite, like, later. You know. Moving on because we don’t need to have that conversation yet.”
She was giving me heart palpitations.
She waved her hand to the side, dismissing. “The normal girl stuff doesn’t work on me either—like the catty stuff, you know. Rumors. Cyberbullying. Things like that. I mean, no one would ever cyberbully me. They go online and see who my parents are and change their minds real fucking fast. I get trolls sometimes, but that’s because of you guys, and I don’t take any of it to heart. Half the trolls are people from another country trying to mess with us anyway.”
“Can you stop swearing?”
“Dad,” she scoffed.
I felt my face grow hot. “I’m aware of my propensity, but…for the sake of me being your father right now and you being the underage child, can we pretend I’m a good role model? Cut the swearing.”
“Fine.” She huffed.
This kid. She was so nonchalant about all of this.
She reached forward to grab a stapler but kept speaking. “So anyway. Yeah. The prissy girls, that’s what I call them—”
“Unless they’re the HB…”
“HBOTC and yeah, unless they earn that title, but so far, only Aurelia Avoy has earned it. Trust me, she’s even worse than you think. I’m pretty sure she’s going to bully that Stevie girl —”
“What?”
She ignored me, messing with the stapler. “But the guys don’t really know how to deal with me either. They can’t sexualize me. That’s what they do to most of the girls. They try to pressure them in group chats and demand nudes. They don’t do that with me because, hello.” She motioned to me. “And also, like, I’m too athletic for them. Do you know what I mean? I’m almost like a boy, but I’m not. I’m a girl. I have a girl’s body, but my athleticism is as good as a guy’s. I know, I know.” Another eye roll. “I’m you, Dad, in like, Mom’s body, and that’s so weird to say, but I watched the documentary on you guys. It’s true. It’s so weird. Can you imagine?”
She pulled the bottom of the stapler down, turned it around and began pressing on it. Staples flew out, landing on the floor.
“So anyway.” She kept clipping the stapler, using it like it was a gun. “It also helps that Uncle Logan taught me how to throw a punch, but—”
This was going nowhere except raising my blood pressure. “Put the stapler down.”
She paused, eyeing me.
“Can we circle back to the whole thing about your grandfather?”
She stopped and stared at me, owl-eyed, lowering the stapler. She’d forgotten the whole reason she came here. “Right. Yeah. So that’s what Aurelia—”
“Yes. The HBI—”
Eye roll. “HBOTC, Dad. It’s not head bitch in charge. She ain’t in charge of me.” Her head rolled with the last statement, some sass coming from her.
“Maddy,” I groaned. “The cursing.”
“Right. Sorry.” She cleared her throat. “But technically the B word isn’t a swear word. It’s a female dog, which is so offensive to women. Errr. Maybe not. Is it? I don’t know. Okay. Anyway, like, I don’t like what Grandpa did, but this isn’t me trying to process those feelings. I know you and Mom are big on those conversations, or Mom is. You do it if you have to because you’re a good dad, and that’s what good dads do if they have to, but again, Dad. You’re like me. You’d rather come across a two-hundred-fifty-pound lineman than talk about your feelings, if you had a choice.”
I suppressed a groan. She wasn’t wrong, but there was no controlling her thoughts. She’d get back to the point…someday. I sat back and waited her out.
Maddy talked for a while about Uncle Matteo. I have no idea how she landed there. That progressed to the difference between horses used for therapy and those who raced. Somehow that led to the migration of orcas and how they’re the bullies of the sea.
That went back to football.
Which went to running.
Then to her cousin Sammy.
She came back around. “That makes me want to know if the company’s going to be sold to Aurelia Avoy’s dad. I just want a heads-up. Because, like, if that’s going to happen, I need to prepare for war. I’ll have to cyberstalk her and find out any dirt I can because I’m not letting that HBOTC hold it over me that her dad’s taken over my grandfather’s empire. Hel—I mean, no way.” She stopped a moment. “So, is it? Are we going to be poor again?”
I’d lost the context for everything in the last hour she’d been talking, except a few things stuck out. One, was high school like this now? Were they worried about whose father was going to buy whose grandfather’s company? Two, had it been like that when I was her age? We only cared about business in terms of whether we had money or not, but the way she was talking about going to war, that was familiar.