Page 19 of Silver Player

“Okay, well, dating is gross, like I want to hurl.” I’m definitely pulling out vocabulary from a past era and showing my age here, but I don’t know what the kids say. “And you shouldn’t do it until you’re thirty...five.”

“This isn’t the eighties,” she states, shaking her head like I’m an idiot, but when I laugh, I catch the corner of her mouth curling upward—just a teeny bit—but it’s more than the straight-line frown she’s been wearing in that deep, dark lipstick. Her clothing ensemble matches the jet-black hair that’s obviously a dye job. I wonder what her natural coloring is. Does she have brown hair like me, or lion-red like my sister, or is it blonde like I remember her mother having?

“Besides, I’ve already been on dates.”

“What?” The pot I’m scouring slips from my hands and suds splash up on my shirt. “You’re only sixteen.”

“Exactly. I’m sixteen, and I’ve been on dates.”

What the…? I can’t be a father. I won’t be able to handle these things.

“So spaghetti is your favorite, huh?” I ask, attempting to shift the conversation. I normally don’t struggle with things to talk about. I’m good with women as long as they are over thirty, but teens, not so much my speed, and I don’t want to discuss her dating history.

“Not really but Aunt Roxie makes salads all the time, and I don’t love vegetables.”

Huh, maybe we do have something in common.

“Right, who needs foods that are good for you?” Of course, I should talk. I’m more of a protein man. “Can I tell you a secret?”

She shrugs.

“I don’t like vegetables much either, but I don’t like spaghetti at all. Those noodles look like worms, and just ew.” I force a full-body tremble and leave out the part where I was hungover once as a teen and my mother made pasta. My dad knew I wasn’t feeling great, and he knew why, and he made me eat the entire plate. Scarred for life from revisiting that dinner shortly after eating it.

“Then why’d you eat it?” Sadie asks, taking a pot off the soaked towel on the counter.

“I didn’t want to hurt Roxanne’s feelings, and I was trying to impress you.”

“Maybe you just wanted to impress Aunt Roxie?” What is this kid getting at? Sadie tweaks up a brow at me, giving me a knowing look, but she knows nothing. There’s nothing to know.

“Think it worked?” I tease. I mean Sadie, not Roxanne. I don’t care what Roxanne thinks of me.

Lying liar who lies…

“No.” Sadie snorts like only a teenager can pull off.

“I meant with you.” I try to keep my tone light, but my voice catches on the seriousness of what I’m asking. I want to impress this girl. I want her to like me.

“The jury is still out on that,” she states, sounding wise beyond her years, but I have to agree with her.

The jury is still out on a lot of things, kid.

+ + +

The next day, I meet Roxanne and Sadie at the clinic for the swab test. True to his word, Jordan hasn’t said anything to my brother, and I am relieved even though I really need someone to speak with about the next step, and I’m not only thinking legally.

What am I going to do with a teenage daughter?

“Are you nervous?” I ask Sadie as she sits next to me in the orange plastic seats of the waiting room. I rub my hands down my jeans-covered thighs.

“Are you?” Sadie sits with her hands under her upper legs, dragging the toe of her black Converse absentmindedly back and forth over the tile floor. Roxanne sits on the other side of Sadie, acting like she’s interested in some magazine, but her hand shoots out and covers Sadie’s knee, halting her from the slide of her feet.

“Yes,” I admit. “But it isn’t the test that’s making me nervous.”

“If you aren’t my dad, you’re off the hook, you know?” I turn my head to look over at her, but her eyes remain on her now still feet. Roxanne peers at me over Sadie’s head. Her eyes soften. The silver sparkles like well-polished candlesticks, and my chest does that strange clenching thing.

“Maybe I don’t want to be off the hook,” I say, keeping my eyes on Roxanne who quickly looks away. I glance down at Sadie to find her peering over at me. “But if I am your dad, you’re stuck with me.” I bump her shoulder to lighten the mood, but she reacts like my touch electrifies her. She covers her shoulder with a hand and shifts away from me.

“Yeah, that would be yucky,” she mutters but another hint of a smile like the one from the other evening appears. I’ll take it.