Click to Subscribe - By L. M. Augustine Page 0,58
GOD YESSSS! ICE CREEEAAAM!” She stands up on the counter and starts shouting at me.
I hide my smile. “I take it you want ice cream?”
“Oh yes, West Ryder, I so do.”
“Then that’s where we’ll celebrate your birthday.”
“Good. Feel free to invite that hot shirtless stranger as well.”
“I will,” I say, leaning in to kiss her on the cheek. I shiver at the touch of her skin, but it’s a good kind of shiver. A happy shiver. “Now if you’ll excuse me,” I say, and start heading upstairs to get a shirt and the rest of my things, “I should go. We’ll go later?”
“Yeah, okay,” she says, and I run up the stairs.
“Hey, West?” Cat calls when I come back down, opening the front door.
“Yeah?”
“You’re the best birthday present anyone can ask for,” she says.
I only smile at her, step through the door, and walk out. “I could say the same about you.”
***
Dad is waiting by the door when I come home. His arms are folded, and the instant I lay eyes on him, my grin fades. For a second, as I stop in front of him, I think he’s going to scream at me for leaving for the night. But he doesn’t.
“Dad, look, I’m sorry—” I mumble as I step inside, preparing for another drunken rage. “I should’ve told you I was leaving, but please don’t—”
He stops me, holds up a finger, and shakes his head. “It’s okay,” he says softly, in a way that almost sounds like he... cares?
I freeze, surprised. This is totally strange. But he has to be pretending again, because my father does not care. Not anymore.
“I didn’t come here to yell at you,” he continues. “I came to give you this.”
I watch him carefully as he holds out his hand, offering me a glass bird of some sort.
I frown at him, trying to determine what exactly he’s trying to pull on me this time. “What is this?” I don’t mean to say it so bluntly, but it comes out of my mouth before I can stop it. I’m not used to having much of a filter around my dad, I guess.
He smiles vaguely. “This,” he says, “is a phoenix pendant. It was your mother’s. I gave it to her on our first date.”
“Oh,” I say. My heart sinks a little, and I feel suddenly uncomfortable talking to him, like I have to get the hell out of there right now. I don’t want to talk to my dad, especially not about Mom, especially not after all this time. So I sigh and look past him into the hallway, debating whether it would be worth it to slip under his arm and run straight to my room without responding. I decide to wait it through.
“‘Oh’ is right,” Dad says, taking a breath. “I even remember when I first gave that to her. It was our fifth or sixth date, then, and I said something entirely cheesy and stupid when I handed it to her. I think I told her that phoenixes matter because they rise from the ashes, so when time gets tough I wanted her to wear this to remind herself to be the phoenix—and to rise above the ashes. I know, I was such a geek, but you know what she did when I told her that?”
“What?” I say, not really caring. Whatever gets me away from here and back to my room thinking about Cat fastest works for me.
“She laughed at me,” Dad says. He sighs at the memory, a glimmer of happiness flickering across his lips. “But she still took it. She wore it as a necklace but tucked it under her shirt, and it was like a secret glass bird only the two of us knew about. It was nice, I guess. Nice to have something between us.” He hands me the phoenix. “Take it, West. It’s yours.”
I hesitate. “Why are you giving me this?” I say, knowing there’s got to be a catch, especially because it’s Dad. And anyway, what father gives his son jewelry? Maybe this phoenix has the world’s tiniest bomb or something attached to it? I wouldn’t be surprised, honestly.
“To give to that special someone, of course.”
My stomach clenches. “What are you talking about?”
“If I can’t tell when my own son is in love, I’m a horrible father.” He laughs to himself, and I feel the heat creep into my cheeks. Vaguely, I wonder if he knows about Cat, if even he has known how in love