Hooking Up With My Dad's Best Friend

“It’s nice to meet you,” I lie.

Jenna raises a perfectly arched eyebrow. “She didn’t answer the question though, did she Marcy? Are you dating Bryce?” Her tone is disgusted and aggressive, the way she’s looking at me confirming that she doesn’t think I’d ever attract his attention.

“Stop being stupid. Katti is way too young for my brother. He would never date someone that’s younger than his baby sister. Stop terrorizing the poor girl.”

Jenna is still pinning me with a glare, but the other two shrug and walk away, champagne glasses in hand. “Don’t mind them,” Marcy says. “They didn’t mean anything by it.”

I blink. “It’s fine.”

Does she think that I’d be offended by the idea of being with him?

She rolls her eyes. “I swear, what my brother does to women. The very idea that he’d date someone half his age is laughable. And gross. I’ll make sure I give them a talking to. If they’re too young for him, they don’t need to ask stupid questions about people who are even younger.”

Someone across the room calls her name, and she flits away, completely unaware of the knife that she’s just plunged into my chest.

Coming here was a dumb idea.

In fact, it might be the single stupidest idea that I’ve ever had in my life.

Laughable. Gross. Absurd. Stupid.

Those are the words that were used just now. That were assumed because of the difference in our ages, and it was just in reference to the idea of our being together. Not the reality. The reality would be far, far worse. They’d look at Bryce and see some kind of creep—or a monster. They’d look at me and see an idiot or a victim. And gross would be the kindest of the words that they used.

I was right.

Suddenly, it feels like the room is closing in on me. I need space. Air. I make it to the front door before the tears hit, welling up from a place I’ve been pressing down and trying to ignore. But it’s there and it’s real. I have everything I want and I can’t have it. Because the world will think we’re awful and ugly and we’ll lose the people we love.

I open a ride share app on my phone, the need to leave so strong I swear I can feel it gripping me around the ribs.

“Katti,” Bryce calls from the front door. I look before I can stop myself, and he sees my face. It’s too late, and he comes for me, almost running. “Katti, what’s wrong?”

He catches my shoulders in his hands and moves to pull me close, but I resist. “We can’t do this,” I say, my words watery with my tears. “We can’t.”

“What happened? A minute ago you were smiling. I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what happened.”

“Nothing happened, Bryce,” I say, a fresh wave of tears spilling over. “Just… what’s going to happen if we let ourselves go through with this? Our families will flip out. It’ll be an explosion bigger than the Montagues and Capulets. I don’t know why I was so stupid.”

Bryce shakes his head, but he doesn’t reach for me again. “I don’t care about that,” he says. “I’ve told you. I care about you. We’ll make it work.”

“We can’t. You know it deep down, and I do too. I could never live with myself if you lost everything because of me, Bryce. I should have known that it was too good to be true.”

“Katti,” Bryce says, his eyes wild and his voice desperate. “Don’t do this. I don’t care about any of it. Nothing but you.”

I close my eyes, and look away. “I know you think you do. But that’s easy to say when we’re alone and nothing is going wrong. You won’t feel the same way when my father is screaming at you for ruining his daughter and calling you a monster. You won’t feel that way when Marcy doesn’t let you see her baby because of me.”

At the curb, the car I called pulls up.

He pulls me to him before I can push away, voice fierce in my ear. “That won’t happen. I won’t let it. Katti, please.” His lips connect with mine, and in my weakness, I let myself take one last kiss. I can’t stop myself. I want it too much.

“Let me go, Bryce,” I say.

He does, but his eyes are full of pain. “Don’t do this.”

I force myself to smile through the pain. “One of us has to.”

And then I walk away, even though it feels like knives are carving into my feet with every step. Even though I can feel his gaze on my back like a magnet trying to pull me back. Even though it feels like I’m tearing my own skin off my body. I get into the car.