I stared back.
“Will Emerson be joining us?”
“I told her we were fine on our own.”
He nodded. “Should I take that as a compliment? Or is that a by-product of something else?”
“The fact that I’m here is a compliment. But yes…it’s also a by-product.”
“To what?” he asked. “If you don’t mind my asking…”
I shrugged. “Last time we spoke, you asked a lot of questions about her.”
“Did that make you uncomfortable?”
“No.” I propped my knuckles against my cheek.
He stared at me for a long time, as if he were studying my features for secrets. “But the answers did…”
I didn’t confirm it.
“When Emerson walked me to the elevator, I asked if the two of you have a romantic relationship. She said no.”
“Because we don’t.”
“Do you want that to change?”
Now I became uncomfortable. “I thought we were supposed to work on absolving my guilt for the Odyssey 3?”
“That’s going to take time. It’s not like a nail you can strike until it’s embedded in the wood. This is a slow process, and rushing it is only going to make that nail crooked and unstable. Also, that’s not how humans work. Our consciousness is complicated and complex. And the fact that you’re deflecting the question makes me wonder if it’s relevant.”
“I don’t think a person wanting to keep their personal life private means anything.”
“But you’ve already confessed there isn’t much of a personal life to keep private. It sounds like the acknowledgment of your feelings for Emerson is what you don’t want to talk about, which is why you won’t answer with a simple no, why you no longer want her present at these meetings. But the real question is why would those feelings be a problem?”
I stayed quiet.
“Especially when it’s obvious she feels the same way.”After my father and I embraced, we took a seat at the table. He’d already ordered a beer for me, the same kind he was drinking himself.
“The machine still working?” I grabbed the bottle and took a drink.
“No problems.”
“Good.”
“I didn’t expect there to be, not when the world’s best engineer already fixed it.”
I rolled my eyes. “Come on…”
“You are.” He smiled. “And I’m very proud of that.”
I looked at my beer because the attention made me self-conscious. My father hated the same kind of attention, so it was ironic that he did it to me. “What’s up with you and Mom?”
With his elbows on the table, he considered the question. “We’ve both been working a lot lately. Nothing too exciting.”
“Maybe you guys should go on a vacation.”
He was about to drink from his beer when he changed his mind and return it to the table. “Vacation?”
“Yeah. You know, when you take time off work and travel somewhere…”
“I know what a vacation is. I’m just surprised you suggested it.”
I shrugged. “Emerson tells me I need to take one.”
“Your mother and I are both so devoted to our jobs that a vacation is the cabin or the beach house. But when it’s just the two of us at home, it feels like a vacation anyway.” He raised his beer and brought it to his lips for a drink, his wedding ring on his left hand. Whenever the two of us went out, people mistook us for brothers, and I’d seen women buy him a drink a few times. It was weird because he was my dad, but to everyone else, he was more. Whenever it happened, he seemed truly bewildered by the event and didn’t know how to react to it. Most of the time, he ignored the drink and didn’t bother to look at whoever sent it to him. His actions weren’t actually a sign of his commitment to my mother; he was just perplexed by the offer. He was so literal that it was inconceivable to him that someone would make a pass at him while he wore a wedding ring, so he just assumed it was a mistake. “You and Emerson seem to get along well.”
“We do.” She wouldn’t continue to work for me if I was still unbearable.
He stared at me, holding the beer in his fingertips.
I held his gaze, knowing he was trying to solidify his thoughts in order to express them.
“I haven’t seen you in a good mood like that for a long time.”
“I wasn’t in a good mood.”
“Trust me, you were. She seems to bring out the best in you.”
I took a drink of my beer. “Maybe I was happy to see you, Dad.”
He gave a slight smile. “Nice try.”
His observation was correct because I was much happier when I was with her than when we were apart. I spent my free time alone in my penthouse, debating if I should text her or not. When she took that day off from work to help her father, my entire day was upside down. It was ironic because when my mother had forced Emerson on me, I’d just wanted to get rid of her.