Dad scoffed. “I’m sure your bosses will understand and make arrangements if you tell them you need the night off for a dinner with the king. How could they possibly say no?”
I hesitated while I struggled to find another excuse and came up empty. “All right, all right. Fine. I’ll go, but I think it’s going to be a gigantic waste of time.”
“If you go into it with that mindset, you’re probably right,” Dad scolded. “Now bring me my computer.” He pointed at his old, loud laptop on the kitchen table where he usually kept it. He couldn’t move around the house much anymore, but he refused to sit in the recliner all day and waste away, so walking from the kitchen to the living room and back helped
“For what?” I asked as I reached for the computer and unplugged it.
“We have to find you something nice to wear. You can’t show up at the mansion in your work uniform, as much as I know you love it.”
“Dad, no, you don’t have to do that. I already have one of your old suits I can wear, and we really can’t afford anything unnecessary—”
“Unnecessary?!” Dad interrupted. “There’s nothing at all unnecessary about buying you a nice new suit to wear to what’s sure to be one of the most important nights of your life. I refuse to let you walk into that manor wearing my old rags.”
“But what about the bills? We’ve barely got enough for this month as it is.”
“Well, if whatever we buy helps you catch King Kenway’s eye, we won’t have to worry about bills anymore, will we?” Dad asked with a wink and held out his hands for the computer. Annoyed, I passed it to him.
“And if it doesn’t?”
“What’s another few hundred dollars of debt at this point? We have nothing left to lose, and everything to gain,” he said and opened the laptop’s lid to peck in his password. As much as he used the computer over the years, he should’ve been a better typist by now, but he still used just his index fingers.
I sat down on the couch next to his recliner, and we spent most of the rest of the evening poring over so many suits that they all eventually turned into a blur of fabric to me. When Dad wasn’t asking for my input, he forced me to watch old videos of King Kenway on my phone to get a better sense of him and what he might like.
After hours of torture, I dropped my phone in my lap, exasperated. “Why am I doing all this? I don’t know how he even knows I exist or what possessed him to invite me to this show of his, but the Kenway must like something about me, so shouldn’t I just be myself?”
“If your attitude tonight is any sign, I’d say probably not.”
I shot him a withering look. “Thanks, Dad.”
“Anytime,” he said and continued scrolling. The man could spend hours lost in research, though that probably shouldn’t have been a surprise; it was what he used to do for a living before his cancer forced him onto disability.
“In all seriousness, though, why do you think he picked me? Of the thousands of omegas in Gilmouth, how did I end up on his radar?”
Dad shrugged. “I have no idea, but they say the King has eyes everywhere, so someone must’ve brought you to his attention. Maybe you waited on a member of his staff without realizing it.”
I rolled my eyes. “Not likely. I think it’d be pretty hard to miss someone from high society like them strolling into either of my greasy restaurants.”
“Then I guess you’ll just have to ask the King yourself on Friday night,” Dad said, and I gulped at the thought. As much as I wanted to know, wouldn’t it be a bit too forward of me to ask? Then again, maybe being that bold would buy me a better chance at impressing him.
I shook my head at my own stupid thoughts. Who was I kidding? The only reason I was going to the reception was because Dad begged me to, and yet there I was already fantasizing about the night and how best to sweet talk the King — as if he’d ever pick me to be his husband, anyway.
“What do you think of this one?” Dad asked, thankfully pulling me out of my thoughts as he spun the computer around in