I think an hour is a good enough amount of time. So I walk over to the guys and I tell them I'm about to leave.
“Nah, man. You haven’t been here that long,” Ben says.
“We've been here longer than you,” I say.
“Oh, don't leave on my account, Jordan.”
“No, that's fine. I’m meeting my girlfriend in a couple of hours anyway,” I say.
“Girlfriend?” Ben says.
“It's not your business.”
My father looks at him, then looks at me, frowning.
“Well, maybe it is. Xia and I, we just started dating.”
“Really? You and Xia?” His eyes widen with shock.
“Yeah,” I say, walking away from him and gathering my things.
“Now, when did this happen?” At any other time, this would be a big moment for us. I don’t know how Ben feels about it, and to be honest, right now I don’t care.
“I don't want to talk about it,” I say. “Have a good time.” I make two trips to my car—one with my cooler and chair, then I come back for my fishing pole.
“You guys can keep the fish,” I say, “See you later, Dad.” I walk past them both fisting my fishing pole and head to my parking spot. Footsteps move in behind me as I make it toward my car, but I don't turn around. No matter who it is, I'm sure one of them will want to just do nothing but piss me off even more. It's either going to be my father bitching at me for leaving, or Ben, and it better not be Ben.
“Jordan,” Ben says. I groan and spin toward him.
“I don’t want to talk to you, Ben. Just walk away,” I warn.
“Listen, about the other day in my office,” he says. “I understand you're pissed off at me. Fuck, I'm pissed off at me. I never wanted to hurt my girls.”
“Yeah, well you did.” I scoff.
“I know. I made a mistake. A stupid mistake. But I love them more than anything.”
How can you say that?” I ask, tossing my fishing pole into the trunk and slamming the door down. “You brought this shit on yourself.”
“It happened a while ago and I didn't know how to come clean,” he says. “There's a lot you don't know. At some point I feared it was better to keep this a secret than tell it, because of the repercussions.” He says, looking at his feet.
“Well, that sounds selfish as fuck to me. Are you telling me your wife deserved not knowing what you were doing behind her back all that time for her own good?” He exhales running a hand across his forehead.
“You just… you just don't know, Jordan. But I'm asking you, please just stay out of it. I'm begging you to stay out of it. Let me fix my family.”
My eyes narrow as I look at him with so much anger and disgust it makes my skin crawl.
“Thank you for checking on my girls,” he says. “I’m going to make this right or kill myself trying.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Sure.” Then I turn, get in my car, and drive away.
“We're doing everything backwards, J.” Xia laughs, pulling away from me. We're sitting in the car in front of my apartment getting ready to go inside. Well, we were about fifteen minutes ago. After I left the lake and went home to catch up on some rest, I was still a little pissed off, but I felt better by the time I woke up. Xia and I planned the day together. We walked around the peer, grabbed lunch, and caught a movie. But I couldn’t tell you much about the movie. The theater was close to empty, so we sat in the back row. I pulled her into my lap and we spent the two hours risking jail for indecent exposure.
I open my eyes slowly and look at her smile. “What do you mean?” I ask.
“Think about it. We fell in love before we even had our first date. Not to mention our first night together. Everything is so upside down,” she says.
“Does it bother you?”
“No.” She shrugs. “Not really. It's just something I noticed.”
“Well,” I say. “I think we were in love before we were even allowed to date. So that's one thing.” She laughs. “And sex. There's never anything wrong with sex.” I smile.
“True,” she says.
“Do you think this is moving too fast?” I ask with a pinch in my brow.
“No,” she answers quickly. “It's just us. It really feels… I don't know, natural,” she says. “like it's supposed to