He was talking to me like he had bad news and wanted to break it gently. I didn’t like the tone of voice and I frowned softly, looking him up and down.
“Yeah, I uh, I was out late last night,” I murmured, looking away as I wandered into the kitchen to make coffee.
His chair creaked under his weight as he pushed himself up and followed me into the kitchen, leaning against the door frame.
“I was surprised that you weren’t home last night.”
I glanced over my shoulder at him and shrugged a little, stirring the milk into my coffee.
“Yeah, a friend wanted to go out and celebrate. She just finished her finals and she wanted to unwind,” I explained, not feeling too bad about lying to him.
I’d spent most of my adult life lying to my dad, I didn’t see why I should stop now. Besides, I didn’t want him to know I was at the biker bar. At the end of the day he was my dad and I felt some guilt about ignoring the note he’d left for me.
He just nodded at my explanation and glanced at my coffee. “Why don’t you put that in a to-go cup?” he said, his voice strangled and weak.
I frowned deeply and glanced down at the coffee. “Why? Are we going somewhere?” I asked curiously.
He took in a sharp breath and nodded. “Yeah, we’re actually going on a trip. We’ll be staying overnight at a hotel. ”
I blinked, surprised by the statement. Mike and I avoided each other at all costs the majority of the time, and it was strange that he seemed to be showing a sudden interest in me. I furrowed my brow and looked down at my coffee, hesitant in giving my answer. I was like any other girl, honestly. I’d always wanted to be a part of my father’s life; he just wasn’t interested in me being part of his. At least, that’s how I felt.
As I tapped my spoon on my cup I felt hope well inside of me. Were my dad and I finally going to patch things up? Was he going to try and be the dad he should have been all this time? I turned to him and smiled, finally nodding.
“Yeah, that sounds nice. I’ll go pack a bag,” I said, running back up to my room and throwing a few pieces of clothing and my shampoo in my backpack.
I didn’t even care where we were going. It would be nice to finally have some time with dad that didn’t include him smoking, drinking, and shooting up. Maybe we’d go fishing or do whatever normal families did.
He offered a strained smile and I didn’t put much thought into it. He was probably hung over and crashing. He always looked just a little bit uncomfortable, mostly when he’d gone too long without a beer. I was used to the strained tone, so it wasn’t strange to me at all.
I poured my coffee into a travel mug and followed him out to the bike but he shook his head and pointed to his work truck.
“We’re going to be driving a while. I don’t think taking the bike is the best idea,” he said softly.
I was a little shocked and gave the bike a second glance but shrugged and smiled a little. “Okay,” I said softly, hoping into the truck and leaning against the window, a happy smile dancing on my face.
He looked at me, face full of guilt. I could only assume that it was over all the days he’d lost with me and all of those times he left me on my own.
He put the truck into drive and headed down the road. “Let’s get going, Kiddo.”
Chapter Eight
Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. It was a quiet summer day and the birds and bees were fluttering through the trees. Everything was so green here. I hummed and tapped my fingers against the door of the truck, watching the trees flash by. After a moment I turned to my dad and smiled.
“So where are we going exactly?”
“We’re going to a small town near the Tennessee border,” he said, his voice stiff.
“What are we going there for?”
“There’s some, uh, good camping,” he murmured, keeping his eyes fixed on the road.
I frowned a little and sat up in my seat, eyeing him up and down. “Camping?” I asked, putting my hands on the dash. “What do you mean? We didn’t bring any camping gear.” Actually, come to think of it, we didn’t own any to begin with. “And you said we were staying in a hotel.”
“We’re renting a cabin,” he said, his tone harsher than I expected.
I frowned but leaned back into the seat, closing my eyes. The sun was warm and I was still a bit sleepy from the night before. It wouldn’t hurt to catch a few more hours of sleep. We were still quite a ways from the Tennessee border.
I wasn’t sure how long I dozed off for, but when I opened my eyes, the car had come to a stop and I could hear muffled voices outside. I lifted my head and was shocked to see that we had pulled over into what looked like an abandoned farm. A group of bikers stood around my dad, chatting and smoking. Anger flooded every inch of my body.