“No,” I answered.
Dad sighed. “Well, that leaves the most important questions. Does he take care of you? Does he make you happy?”
His words hit me in the gut. There was emotion there. Sincerity. The promise of acceptance if I answered correctly. I couldn’t lie to my father, wouldn’t. Beside the fact that I never had, he’d know it the second the words left my mouth.
Jay made me a lot of things, but he did not make me happy. That was not his goal.
Then I thought of that night. That terrible night.
“You are whole. You are safe.”
“He takes great care of me, even though he thinks he’s not possible of that,” I assured him.
Dad made a grunting noise that might have been accepting. “And does he make you happy?”
“It’s more complicated than that,” I conceded, feeling rather helpless because I knew my honesty would damn Jay in my father’s mind.
My father sighed at the other end of the phone. “I’d always known with you, that it would be more complicated than that.”
Oh, he had no fucking idea.
And somehow, as easy as that, Jay was coming to Thanksgiving. Without a single argument from my father, despite what I knew he’d heard in my voice.
I called Jay after I spoke to my father to let him know that the arrangements had been made. As the phone rang at my ear, I realized I’d never called Jay before. Not once. Had never initiated contact with the man I’d been sleeping with for months.
“Stella.”
That’s how he answered the phone. With my name on his lips. I felt it in my bones.
“I just got off the phone with my father,” I told him. “He’s aware that you’re coming.”
“Separate rooms, I assume,” Jay stated, not a question. A forgone conclusion. Even though this was over the phone, even though his voice was the exact same as it always was, I knew he was pissed.
Which was insane. Because I had not forced him in to this. To the contrary, I had done everything I could to stop this from happening.
“No,” I replied, a little pissed myself.
A beat of silence pulsed between us as Jay remained silent.
A first for Jay. He was never lost for words, nor did he ever have to use time to find them.
“Something wrong?” I asked, unable to hide the little bit of sweet satisfaction in my voice. It was my personal mission to crack Jay, to be the person who got to see something other than his steel façade. To be the one who got something from Jay no one else had.
I was a woman among countless amounts of women who had entered in to an arrangement with this man. I wanted to be special.
“Your father is a Midwestern man, born and bred, yes?” Jay confirmed.
“Yes,” I replied.
“He’s a retired boxer. You’re his only daughter. And yet he is going to let you sleep in the same room as the man you’re bringing home for the first time?”
Ah, of course. He knew everything about my father. Through whatever research he’d had done. Jay had the knowledge, thought he had the information, to understand exactly what he was getting in to. It was incredibly satisfying to know that my father was nothing at all what he looked like on paper, that Jay would have no idea what he was walking into.
I grinned. “If you hadn’t noticed, I’m a grown woman of almost thirty.”
“I would imagine that your father will always think of you as being a girl. His girl,” Jay countered.
“He’s progressive,” I elucidated, moving through my kitchen to make myself a calming cup of tea. Yes, I needed something calming. Like fifteen Valium. “Obviously more progressive than you. My father knows I’m not a virgin. He was the first person I told when I lost it. He’s well aware that I have had sex with the man I’m bringing home.”
“When did you lose your virginity, Stella?” he asked.
I blinked at the abrupt change in the subject. At Jay asking me a personal question. I was pretty sure this was the first time he’d done that, asked outright about my past, about me.
“I was seventeen,” I replied, even though I knew I should’ve hedged. Should’ve guarded that information more closely. There had to be things I didn’t give him so easily. For my own safety.
“Late for most young women,” he commented.
I smiled, leaning against my kitchen counter, waiting for my water to boil. “I guess. But I was raised by a strong man who made sure I knew my worth and that it was not attached to my virginity. I had no urge to be loved by teenage boys, I had sex when I was ready.”
“Did you enjoy it?”
Another question. I should start marking them in some kind book.
“No,” I answered honestly. “Women don’t enjoy their first time. Popular culture often represents it that way to make men look better, make young girls feel broken or inadequate because they don’t enjoy sex for the first time.”