Page 33 of The Holidays with Mr. Mitchell
“Addy, who’s the young man who ruined my daughter’s mood for this evening?” I asked, watching as she picked the breading off her chicken.
“Seriously, Dad, it’s nothing.” She brushed me off after giving Izzy a glare of warning.
“Bullshit, it isn’t,” Avery said. “And you girls know I never curse at the dinner table unless it’s warranted.” She looked at Addy, “Spill it, child. We’re all here for you.”
“Ugh,” she practically swore into her plate of food. “I don’t want to talk about it!”
“Addison Mitchell,” Avery snapped, “spare the theatrics, please. What happened at school today? You don’t get to march into the kitchen, proclaim you hate school, and then withdraw, leaving us all to guess why.”
“Spillit, Addy,” Izzy taunted.
“I don’t need you antagonizing her, Izzy,” Avery said, seemingly even more agitated about the Christmas numbers than I was.
Perhaps her planning with Cat wasn’t going as well as she thought. I smirked into my freshly poured wine glass and then resumed my fatherly duty of offering a concerned and supportive expression toward Addy. Looks like I wasn’t the only one under planning pressure, and Avery’s lack of patience with the girls’ dramatics was giving me a little insight into that.
After a long inhale, an even louder sigh, Addy finally looked between me and her mother. “I just don’t understand boys,” she finally said.
“Get in line with every female on the planet,” Avery said, eyeing me, smirking, then looking back to Addy. “But what didthis onedo to cause this attitude we’re getting from you tonight?”
“Hold up,” I said. “What was that look you gave me just now before asking Addy that?”
“What look?” Avery said as if she were innocent. “I didn’t give you a look, baby.”
“The look you most definitely just gave me was as if I’m just as guilty as the kid who hurt our daughter,” I answered, hearing Izzy’s hushed giggle.
“Mom gave you the look because you’re Scrooge, Dad,” Izzy said.
“Not anymore,” I winked, taking another chicken nugget and crunching into it. “You already know what we’re planning, and it’s far from what Mr. Scrooge would be doing for his company.”
“That’s true,” Izzy said, remembering that we were bringing everyone to the North Pole through our event.
“There you have it. Confirmation from our daughter that I’m not carrying the Christmas title of Mr. Scrooge,” I said to Avery. “So, pull me out of the drama of Addy’s frustration with a boy, I’m well on my way to being a Forbes 500 Man of Christmas after the papers I signed off on today.”
“You could never be a bad guy, Dad,” Addy said, eyes filled with tears. “You didn’t break up with Mom to date one of her best friends.”
“Oh no,” Avery immediately softened. “Okay. Yeah, that’sbullshit,” she answered. “How long were you going out with this kid, who none of us knew about until tonight?”
“Since Thanksgiving,” she answered. “And then today, Matthew said he just wanted to be friends. Then I saw him holding Emma’s hand after school.”
“I want to dismiss this all as nothing,” I cut in, “but emotions at your age tend to run very high. This is exactly the reason why I was all for theno boyfriends in schoolrule.”
“That doesn’t help, Dad,” she let out a broken-hearted sigh.
“It really doesn’t,” Avery said. “God, Addy, if you only knew all the heartbreak I’ve been through, and how happy I finally ended up, you’d brush this off.”
“But I’m never going to find anyone like Dad,” Addy said. “Never.”
“Your dad isn’t perfect,” Avery said. “He pisses me off all the time.”
“Thanks,” I looked at her deadpan.
Being in a family of all women could suck sometimes, especially when one of their own was hurt by another male.
She rubbed my knee. “See, guys are more sensitive and emotional than we ladies,” she winked at me to play along, “and sometimes they’re not thinking when they act.”
“Like Dad and the cheese trays,” Izzy added as if she were part of this pep talk with Dad’s mistakes against Mom and his company this year.
“I know,” Addy confirmed.
