Page 2 of Good Girls Beg

He wasn't doing any of that now. His gaze slid to the customers, lips pressed together. Eyes that looked, if not defeated, then at least troubled.

"Things have been better." He seemed to hate saying those words as much as I hated hearing them, but I appreciated his honesty.

"Things have been worse," Dad argued, his brow creased as he frowned at his husband.

"I know you're trying to keep me from stressing about you," I said. "I appreciate that, but you practically raised me in this place. Of course I'm going to worry about you if you're going through a rough patch."

I decided Dad wasn't going to give me the whole truth. He'd do anything to protect me. I loved him for it, but I wanted to know what was happening. How could I help if I didn't?

I stepped over to Pop and placed my arm over his shoulders.

"Ah, you're wet." He looked me up and down and stepped away, playfully annoyed.

"Yeah, it's raining outside," I said as if he couldn't see for himself the water trickling down the windows, and the persistent thrum on the roof.

"I knew we put you through college for a reason." Pop grabbed the hem of his shirt and shook it out to dry it from where we'd briefly touched. "So you can tell us when it's raining and when it's not."

"Ha ha," I said, with a laugh. "What's really going on here?” My smile faded and I gave them my best serious face, hoping they'd take it, you know, seriously.

They exchanged a glance. Dad looked like he didn't want to tell me anything; Pop, like he wished he had nothing to say, but knowing I'd keep asking until he told me everything.

"Why don't we sit down?" Pop gestured to a table away from the customers, although none seem to be paying us any attention. The woman with the laptop in front of her, the edge of the sandwich in her mouth, her eyes still on her screen.

My ass squelched as I sat in a chair. I winced and leaned forward, my elbows propped on the table.

"Okay, what's going on?" I fixed my fathers with a purposeful expression, as though I was the parent here, and they were a pair of errant boys.

"If things keep going like this, we'll lose Loams," Dad said reluctantly. "It's not just the new bar across the road." He took a breath before his words came out in a rush, "The landlord put the rent up again."

I leaned back, letting his words sink in. "Again? Didn't they just put it up?" How much rent do they possibly need?

Dad shrugged. "Yeah, but they put it up even more. When things were going well, we could afford it. But now…" He lifted a hand off the table to gesture around.

"Have you tried talking to them?" I asked. "Maybe they'll reconsider. You two have been renting this place for the last twenty years. Longer."

They’d moved down here to Saltgrave Cove from New York City when I was still in diapers, for a slower pace of life to raise me. Sometimes I felt bad for the things they'd given up, but they’d tell me they'd do it all again in a heartbeat.

"They don't care," Pop said in a bitter tone I couldn't remember having ever heard from him. "If we move out, someone else will move in. The landlord only cares about getting paid."

"I know you don't like the idea of borrowing money from anyone…” I said slowly.

"No, we don't." Dad cut me off before I could finish.

"Don't bite her head off." Pop put a hand on Dad's arm. "She's only trying to help. Right, Teds?"

"I know she is," Dad said wearily. "I'm sorry, Teddie. It's just… We're in enough debt."

He glanced down toward the tabletop and lowered his voice. "I don't know what we'll do if we can't hang onto this place."

"Maybe they'll give us a job over at Nefarious," Pop said with cheerfulness that wasn't forced. Bouncing back was what he did. If anyone found the upside in anything, it was him. He was the perfect balance for Dad, the realist in the relationship.

"We always draw a crowd on drag queen night." He pretended to fluff the back of his brown hair.

"I don't think a place like that has drag queen night," Dad pointed out, although he clearly didn't like doing it. After all, who didn't enjoy drag queen night?

"Of course not, because we're not over there," Pop said. "They're just a boring, stuffy old bar." He exaggerated a yawn.

"Brand new, state-of-the-art. All the latest everything," Dad said. "They don't need drag queens."