Page 39 of Where It All Began
“Does Dad know?”
“Sweetie, you know your father doesn’t notice anything that isn’t a direct male threat to his daughters.”
“Are you going to tell him?” Phoebe asked in a bare whisper.
“Did I tell him about the time you skipped school to go to the Bangles concert?”
“No.”
“How about the time I caught you and Rudy Walther making out in his dad’s Camaro in our driveway?”
Phoebe cringed. “No, and I’m officially sorry for every terrible teenage thing I ever put you through.”
“Then I’m not going to tell him about this either.”
Phoebe wrapped her mom in a hug. “I love you, Mom.”
“I love you, too, sweetheart. So, are you sleeping with John?”
“What? Mom! No!”
“Well, why not?” Diane asked, sneaking a look at John who was laughing over beer with Phoebe’s father. “He’s way better looking than Rudy Walther.”
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John was relieved when the last guests left at eight, the benefit of hosting an event on a Sunday in a farming town. If they’d done this on a Saturday, people would have stayed until dawn.
He and Phoebe worked silently through the cleanup, and he could feel her waiting for him to bring up her parents’ surprise visit. She’d lied right to his face the day he met her, which, to his thinking, evened the score for his less than receptive welcome of her.
All her big talk about honesty and communication… He was enjoying finally being able to hold something over her head, and it was driving her nuts, judging by the confounded looks she kept sneaking his way.
He went up to shower, giving her a few more minutes to stew over her own deceit. And when he came back downstairs, she was at her typewriter, fingers flying over the keys. He slid his notebook paper out of the drawer, grabbed a ballpoint pen from the cup on the counter, and settled in across the table from her.
She raised her gaze, and he saw worried eyes behind the sexy red frames of her glasses.
Ignoring her, he set to writing. The tension pumping off of her was palpable, and he enjoyed it so much he thought about not saying a word until morning.
But she broke first. “Are you doing homework?” she asked, shoving her glasses up her nose.
He didn’t bother looking up. “Something like that.”
“We’re not back to those answers again, are we?” Phoebe groaned.
John put his pen down and studied her. “It’s something I do sometimes to unwind.”
“What is?” she pressed.
“I write.”
Now he had her full attention. He could feel her guilt over the lie move to the back of her mind, crowded out by curiosity. “Write what?” She leaned forward in her chair trying to see his paper over her mammoth machine.
“Just stuff,” he shrugged. “Like what happens during the day.”
“Like a journal?”
“This feels like badgering.”
She held up her hands in peace. “Sorry. Just forget I’m here. Go back to what you were doing.”
