Drifting into Darkness (25 page)

After lunch, he drove me to the stables in his truck.

“Are you still going out with your dad tonight?” he asked as he put the truck in park on the side of the building.

I looked over at him and smiled. “Yeah. As of right now, it’s still on.” I hopped out of the truck and we walked into the stables.

“Okay, so we’re still on for tomorrow then, right?”

I looked over at him and smirked. “Well…that depends,” I said, shrugging.

“Oh, really?” He stopped at the door to the office. “On what?”

I laughed. “Where you’re taking me.”

He shook his head with a smile. “I’m not going to tell you, so you’ll just have to wait.”

I loved surprises, but it never stopped me from trying to find out what they were. I’d asked him a couple of times where he was taking me and he still hadn’t given in, so I guessed I’d just have to wait.

“Okay, you win,” I smiled. “I’ll stop asking.” I walked up to him and rose up on my tiptoes to give him a kiss on the cheek. “I better get started,” I said, scrunching up my nose as I pulled away from him.

He opened the door to the office and gave me a kiss on the forehead. “I have some phone calls I have to make, so I’ll probably be in here for the rest of the day. Let me know when you’re done and I’ll drive you back up front.”

“Sure thing, boss man.”

I smiled at the look he gave me before closing himself into his office. I had joked around with him at lunch saying if he was joining the business with his dad, that he was technically my boss. He insisted, in no way was he my boss, but I disagreed. I told him from now on I was going to call him boss. It would probably take a while for him to get used to it. I laughed at the thought, knowing that would never happen.

After cleaning out the stalls and laying down fresh hay, I knocked on the office door and waited for him to call me in. I didn’t want to barge in if he was on the phone or something.

“Yeah, come on in,” he called out. I walked in and sighed at the cool air that was coming from the air conditioning unit in the window. It was a hot sticky day out and I couldn’t wait to get home and take a shower. “You ready to head up?” he asked as he shuffled some papers around on the desk.

I leaned down to the small fridge and grabbed a bottle of blue Gatorade. I chugged half of it before I replied. “Yeah, boss. I’m ready to go,” I said with a mischievous grin.

“Let’s go, you antagonizer,” he gibed as he grabbed his keys off the desk and walked out the door with a smirk on his face.

He dropped me off at the office and I worked with Lisa, bagging corn for another hour before it was time to head home. I was hoping to see Landon one more time before I left, but he must have still been in the stables because I didn’t see him when I got to the office. I was disappointed, but I sent him a text before I left, letting him know I’d text him later.

When I arrived home, I went directly to the shower to wash the sweat off from the day. I never realized how much I loved my shower until I started sweating profusely on a daily basis. I didn’t know how Landon and the guys worked every day in jeans. I knew they wore them to protect their legs from being in the fields, but the heat was so brutal.

After my shower, I relaxed on the couch and watched a little bit of TV before I needed to get ready. I had talked to my dad the night before about where he wanted to go. He mentioned a new restaurant called Blue Fin Grill, so we were going to go try it out.

I needed to get ready around five since dad wanted to leave around six. So, after just a few hours of watching TV, I got up to get ready. I wanted to take a short nap, but I didn’t want to oversleep or feel groggy for the rest of the night if I didn’t get to nap well.

As I got dressed, I thought about the many topics we could possibly discuss. I knew we would probably talk about the situation with him and Mom, but I wasn’t sure what he would have to say. I actually felt nervous about the whole thing, only because I didn’t know what to expect.

I dressed in a cap sleeved, yellow sundress and tied my hair into a low ponytail. After applying a touch of makeup and slipping on my sandals, I headed down to the main house.

Mom was in the living room on the brown leather sofa. She had the TV on with a book in her hand. It was something she did all the time. She’d told me a long time ago she couldn’t read without the noise. I never understood how she could pay attention to the words with all the background noise, but she insisted it was just the way she was.

“Hey, Mom,” I greeted as I took a seat next to her.

“Oh, hun, you look very pretty,’ she said, looking over my dress.

I smiled and smoothed the dress down my legs. “Is Dad still…” I cut off my question as my dad walked into the room wearing a blue polo and khaki pants. He looked really nice. It wasn’t something I normally saw him wear. When he went to work, he was usually wearing button-ups with slacks. I didn’t understand why he had to wear that to work every day when all he was going to do was change out of it as soon as he got there, to put on his scrubs and white lab coat.

“Hey, Sadie. You ready? I’m starved.”

My mom smiled at my dad as he fixed his shirt so it wasn’t tucked in so tightly into his pants. “You look lovely too, dear,” she beamed up at him.

I watched them interact with each other on almost a daily basis, and I had to admit, things had started to seem like they were back to normal. Just watching the smile spread across my dad’s face at my mom’s endearment, made me smile.

Standing up, I brushed down my dress and grabbed my small satchel from the couch. “I’m ready when you are,” I stated as I walked up to stand next to him.

He smiled down at me. “You look really nice.”

“Thanks, so do you.”

“All right, well, I guess we’d better be on our way,” he leaned down and gave Mom a kiss. “We shouldn’t be gone too long.”

“Don’t worry about it, just take your time and have fun,” she said as we walked out of the room to the front door.

We took Dad’s BMW to the restaurant and had little conversation on the way there. A part of me figured he really didn’t know what to say to me. I’d like to say my parents knew me well, but the truth was, they didn’t know me very well at all. Mom has gotten better at talking to me recently, but Dad had been in his own little world for years now. I didn’t blame him for it. He had a career he loved and I would never hold that against him. He had been providing for his family, something some people didn’t have. I just wished he knew me more. I wished they both knew me more than they actually did. Maybe then we wouldn’t bump heads so much, especially on the school matter.

Arriving at the restaurant twenty minutes later, we made our way into the Blue Fin Grill. We stopped at the hostess’ podium and I looked around as we waited to be seated. It looked really nice on the inside. There was an oak finished bar in the center of the whole restaurant that was surrounded by tables with booths against three of the walls. You could tell it was new, but the décor had an older look to it. There was a huge rusted looking anchor on the wall on either side of the bar. On the other walls were pictures of the sea or pictures of fish.

I nudged Dad with my arm. “You’ll need to bring Mom here.” I looked up at him. “She could definitely get some ideas for her project room.”

He nodded with a laugh. “Yeah, she most definitely would.”

“How many?” the brown haired hostess asked.

“Just two,” Dad replied.

She walked us to a booth and set down two menus after we sat down. “Your waitress’s name is Melanie. She’ll be with you in just a few minutes,” she smiled and walked off.

I opened up the menu and looked over what they had to offer. I wasn’t a big fish eater, but I loved shrimp and was happy to see they had a lot of choices.

“Good evening.” I turned to see a short Asian lady with the name tag Melanie. “I’ll be your waitress tonight. Can I start you out with something to drink?” she asked, looking at me.

“I’ll just have a coke, thanks.”

“Sweet tea, please,” my dad added.

“Great,” she smiled. “I’ll be back in a moment,” she said and walked off.

“So,” I drawled, as I looked over the menu, “it’s been a long time since we’ve had dinner.” I looked up to see him studying me over the top of his menu.

He rubbed his lips together and set his menu down folding his hands on the table. “I’d say it was long overdue, yeah?”

I nodded in agreement. “I always liked our dinner dates, but I understand you go…”

“No,” he said shaking his head. “Work shouldn’t have been an excuse.”

I looked at him surprised.

The waitress interrupted us by dropping off our drinks and asked if we were ready to order. I ordered a shrimp pasta and Dad ordered a salmon dish; she then left us to continue with our conversation.

He stared at the table for a moment and frowned in thought. I watched him as he had a battle in his head, before he finally looked up at me. He looked sad, and although I’d been angry for months, the look on his face tore at my heart.

He took a deep breath and then he finally spoke. “There have been so many things that have happened, that I wish I could change. One of those being my recent actions.” I opened my mouth to say he didn’t need to explain, but he held his hand up to cut me off. “I’m not proud of what I’ve done,” he said, diverting his eyes to his hands on the table. “I’m actually quite sad. I’m sad I’ve disappointed and hurt not only your mother, but you too.” He looked at me with remorse. I could see it plain as day. I could see what my mother had been talking about. I wasn’t used to seeing my dad this way. In my eyes, he was the rock; the one who never faltered, the glue that always held us together. Yes, he shattered my vision of him, but he had always been that man, even after the infidelity. Now, he just looked broken.

“Dad,” I started, but stopped and looked at him. I was going to say it was okay, that everything was fine…but I couldn’t. Everything wasn’t fine. So I asked what I’d wanted to ask since we found out about the other woman. “Why’d you do it?”

The waitress brought our food and set it down on the table. “Can I get you anything else?” she asked with a smile.

I shook my head no and she quickly walked away.

Taking the silverware out of my cloth napkin, I placed it on my lap and watched my dad do the same. I could see the frown lines on his face and he picked up his fork to start eating. Maybe he was trying to figure out how to answer my question.

Setting his fork down, he looked at me with a sigh. “I honestly don’t know, Sadie. I don’t have a good excuse. I could say it was the fact I was working long hours and wasn’t getting attention from your mother. I could also say it was all Susan’s fault for throwing herself at me at every turn. But none of those are good excuses. I love your mother. The problem is, I wasn’t thinking. I didn’t think of the consequences of my actions. I acted on impulse. I can’t even remember what was going through my head. But I do know you don’t realize what you have until you lose it.” He stopped talking to drink some of his sweet tea. “When I thought your mother was going to leave me, I lost it. She’s everything to me. Of course I wouldn’t have blamed her if she left. I would have left. But your mother,” he said with a smile, “is the most loving person I’ve ever known. I’m thankful and grateful that she has forgiven me and that she is willing to work this out with me. But you…I’m so sorry I disappointed you,” he said, shaking his head to himself. “A part of me feels like I lost your love and respect.”

I shook my head as my eyes filled with tears. “You didn’t lose anything, Dad. Yes, I was disappointed in you. But I couldn’t just stop loving you. You’re my dad.” I was sad that he had been thinking this whole time that I’d lost any love for him.

He gave me a small smile. “That really means a lot to me.”

I ran my fork through my food to mix the sauce with the noodles. “Let’s start eating before it gets cold.”

He nodded his head and started eating.

“I am glad that Mom is happier. She does actually seem to be her old self again.”

“Yes, she does. I know it will take some time, but things are in a good place.”

I smiled at my dad. “I’m happy to hear it.”

We ate our dinner in silence for a few moments before Dad spoke again.

“I did want to bring something up your mother had mentioned to me. I don’t want you to be upset that she said something to me about it either.” I looked at him confused and waited for him to continue. “She told me about Jason.”

I rolled my eyes and sighed. I had said that I wasn’t going to tell my mom about what I’d found out, but during our time bonding, I had let it slip. I eventually told her everything that I’d heard. And that with Jason and Dad now both cheating, I’d lost my trust and faith in men. She told me not all men were the same and just because one man had his head up his ass, didn’t mean they all did. I understood what she was saying. It was my motto to never judge a book by its cover, but sometimes, the cover gave too much away, making it difficult to dive right in. And that’s exactly how I felt about Landon.

“Yeah,” was my reply, as I continued to eat. I waited to see what he had to say about it.

“You know your mother and I weren’t fans of Jason’s,” he started. Which was actually kind of a surprise because he never gave an opinion about him one way or another. “I’m not happy to see you hurt, but I am happy that it’s over. And please don’t judge all men by either of us. I hate that I might have ruined your outlook on men.” He took a bite of his salmon and then wiped his mouth. “Your mother did say that she liked this Landon guy though.”

I smiled. Of course she did. “Yeah, well, he’s a very likable person.”

“If you’re happy, sweetheart, I’m happy. That’s all I want for you.”

I nodded, swallowing my food. “Thanks, Dad,” I smiled. I was happy. Even though so much had happened, I was happy. There was no reason for me not to be. “I do love you, Dad. Please don’t even think that I would ever stop, okay?” I stated in an even tone. “Even if you and Mom got divorced tomorrow, you’re still my dad.”

He reached out and grabbed the hand I had resting on the table, giving it a small squeeze. “I love you too.”