The Unexpected Everything - Morgan Matson Page 0,54

was still looking at her, so she glanced at me, then tried, “Alexander?”

“Mr. Walker’s fine,” my dad said, giving her that practiced smile he used when he was working a rope line. “How are you doing, Palmer? How are your parents?”

“Oh, they’re fine. Thanks for asking.”

“Palmer was just leaving,” I said, before my dad could start asking about her brothers and sisters—I could practically see him slipping back into concerned-candidate mode, wanting to show her that he remembered her siblings’ names, that he’d held on to tiny snippets of information. We didn’t have time for that. It was going to be tight, but I was hoping I could get her out of here—and my dad back in his study—before Clark arrived. I had never ever done the guy-parent introduction thing and I really didn’t want to start now. I raised my eyebrows at Palmer, and she nodded.

“I was just leaving,” she repeated back, matching my inflection and shooting me a tiny smile. “Talk to you later,” she said as she opened the door. I pulled it back for her and she mouthed, Oh my god! to me before turning back to my dad, her face composed and polite. “Nice to see you again, Mr. Walker,” she called.

“And you as well,” my dad said, his voice warm and sincere, like she was just the person he’d hoped to see in his house unexpectedly today. “Please give my best to Mark and Kathie.”

“Will do,” she said, giving him a tiny wave before she headed out the door, pulling it shut behind her.

I looked at my dad in the sudden silence of the foyer, trying to figure out how I could get him back to his office without letting him know that’s what I was trying to do. Or maybe I could drive down the street and meet Clark at the gatehouse to avoid any possibility of overlap. “So—” I started, just as my dad said, “Are you going somewhere?”

“Oh,” I said, then nodded. “Yeah . . . I’m . . . going out to dinner. A friend is picking me up.” As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I regretted them. Why hadn’t I just said I was meeting someone? I didn’t have Clark’s number, but if I was out by the street early enough, I could have flagged him down from out there.

My dad nodded, and silence fell between us again. I had just taken a breath to say that I’d see him later when he asked, “Which friend?”

“You don’t know them,” I said, then heard, from somewhere on the second floor, a clock begin to chime. Was it seven already? I pulled my phone out from my bag and saw that the clock upstairs must have been fast—it was five to. But either way, I needed to wrap this up now.

“I don’t?” my dad asked, folding his arms, and again I cursed myself for not just saying that I was meeting Toby or Bri at the diner.

“I don’t think so?” I said, letting the sentence rise in a question as I started to edge toward the door. “I’d better get going.”

“Wait a second,” my dad said, running a hand over the back of his neck. He looked distinctly uncomfortable, like he was an actor in a bad play, speaking words he hadn’t totally memorized. “I, uh . . . Should you be going out with someone I don’t know?”

I looked at him for a second, trying to decide if the question was rhetorical, or if he actually wanted an answer. Also, I didn’t understand why he was suddenly acting like a father in a sitcom. I hadn’t asked my dad for permission to go anywhere in years. He either hadn’t been around to ask, or if he happened to be home, he’d nod and wave at me, usually while taking a call, as I yelled that I was going out. This had to feel as weird for him as it did for me. “Look,” I started, just as I saw a slightly dented Jeep signal and then pull slowly into our driveway.

I tried as fast as I could to think of something, then felt my pulse start to pick up when I realized I no longer knew how to get out of this. But the last thing I wanted was for Clark to be here, in my house, talking to my dad. I hadn’t realized how much I liked keeping these worlds separate until it appeared they