“What do you want to watch?” she asks.
I almost say you but catch myself in time. She looks like a girl who slaps. Hard. “Movie?”
“Sure.”
I pick up the remote and turn the TV on. A few more flicks and I’m at the movie listings. “Pick one.”
She picks the first one on the list, which tells me she doesn’t care what we’re watching. Unfortunately, she’s chosen my dad’s latest Oscar bait flick, but I don’t mention that. It’s a World War II epic with long battle scenes. Dad is particularly proud that he survived a Navy SEAL’s two-week-long training period to prep for this movie, and he’ll tell anyone who’ll listen about how he coulda been a SEAL if it wasn’t for his whole passion for acting.
The man can’t drink tap water, for Christ’s sake.
I don’t think what movie she picked registers with Vaughn. She doesn’t watch the opening credits, but instead spends the entire time with her nose pressed to her phone.
“What’re you doing?” I’m annoyed that she’s not watching the movie even though I can’t stand my dad.
“Checking my boyfriend’s Instagram,” she says wistfully.
Jesus. Again with the guy. I narrow my eyes. “You’re not supposed to have contact with him.” I sound jealous, but I’m really not. I just don’t want to break in another chick for this pretend gig. It’s hard enough with Vaughn. Who knows what kind of female I’d get next? With my luck, it’d be a stage-five clinger who thinks we’re going to get married. AKA April Showers but on emotional steroids.
“Public contact.” She juts her chin toward me defiantly. “No one said I’m not allowed to look at his Instagram. I do everything else Claudia demands, including quitting my job.”
“You have a job?” I’m paying the girl a fortune and she has another job?
“I did. I was a waitress at Sharkey’s.” She crosses her arms again.
Forcibly, I move my eyes to the coffee table. “Never heard of it.”
“It’s a chain. They serve steak.”
I roll my eyes. “Sounds like you loved it.”
“I made good money there.”
“Did Alphabet love it?”
She scowls. “No, why?”
I pluck her phone from her hand and scan the feed. W is attending college and his feed consists of his “crew,” a bunch of backward-hat-wearing bro dudes who are surgically attached to red Solo cups and too much plaid. “He looks like a douche.”
She grabs the phone back. “He’s not a douche. He’s great.”
“Okay, tell me what’s so great about him,” I challenge.
“He’s kind…he’s funny…” She trails off. “He’s kind.”
Kind? Man, if any girl ever describes me as kind in the same lukewarm tone, I hope someone takes me out back and shoots me. “You said that already.”
Her jaw snaps shut and she stares at the television.
That’s no fun. “Besides the fact that he’s kind,” I say sarcastically, “why him out of all the guys you could have?”
She casts me a dirty glance. “You make it sound like there’s a buffet of guys and I can just pick out anyone I want. It doesn’t work that way in the real world. The person you like has to like you back.”
“Are you saying you like W because he was your only choice?” I ask incredulously. I can’t believe that. This girl? She’s got to have a few of the high school guys after her. I never went to an actual high school, but Vaughn’s a babe in her own way. I’d totally want to tap that ass between classes.
“He wasn’t my only choice. I like him. I don’t have to justify my feelings to you.”
“How’d you meet?”
“Why do you want to know?”
Because I’d rather shave my legs than watch my dad act. “I figure the two of us should get to know each other, seeing as we have to spend an entire year together. Sitting in complete silence during all our dates doesn’t sound like a boatload of fun. Not to mention you may want to consider being a little nicer, considering that I’m paying you a fucking fortune for this gig.”
Her brown eyes widen and her plump lips fall open, forming a little circle—one that has me conjuring up some dirty ideas.
Then she scoffs. “Oh, come on, like you’re actually the one paying.”
“Who the hell else would it be? The tooth fairy?”
“I thought it was Jim.”
“Who do you think writes checks to Jim?” I scrunch my eyebrows. Is she that clueless?
“Oh.”
I guess so. “Yeah, oh.”
“What is it that you want to know?”
The question comes out as a sigh, as if it’s such a burden to talk to me, and suddenly I’m done. There are worse things than watching a film starring my dad, and one of them is trying to drag out boring details from an ordinary girl who has to be paid to sit and watch a movie with me.
“Whatever. Let’s just watch the movie,” I mutter irritably.
We both stare at the screen again, but I don’t think we’re watching the same film. Instead of seeing Dad point a gun at a Nazi deserter, my eyes conjure up the sight of him spotting my Double Platinum record on the mantel next to his Oscar. What the hell is this trash doing here? Mom titters. Honey, Oak’s second album sold another million copies. Dad sneers. He sings songs that preteens buy for ninety-nine cents. He pulls it off the mantel and shoves it at Mom. Find somewhere else for that shit. The scene flips from the living room to the deck, where I come home early from the studio to find him screwing his latest assistant over the edge of Mom’s balcony. No wonder she gets the place redecorated all the time. There’s a fade cut and a new action shot of Dad standing at the end of Jim’s conference table, telling me that I’m a dumbass if I sign the contract for three more records.
And I’d have killed myself if I stayed in that house one more minute with him, so I signed the contract. It takes money to fund a legal emancipation, after all.
“This movie’s kinda boring,” Vaughn remarks, breaking into the lame drama that’s replaying itself in my head. She tugs on her messy ponytail.
I stretch my arm across the back of the sofa until the ends of her rich dark brown hair brush the back of my hand. “I’ll make sure to pass that critique along to my dad.”
She pinks up immediately. “Oh. Oh, my God. I forgot Dustin Ford was your dad. Is your dad, I mean. That must be awesome.”
Unbelievable. The first sign of enthusiasm from her and it’s toward my asshole old man? “Yup. The one and only Dustin Ford.” Do I sound bitter? I clamp my mouth shut.
“Oh,” she says for the third time tonight. But her embarrassment lasts only a beat, because she rallies to add, “Well, I’m not going to pretend I like it just because he’s your father.”
I don’t tell her that it’s the one nice thing she’s said to me tonight. Instead, I reach for the remote and turn the movie off.
She picks up her bottle of water and rolls it between her hands. “Should we try the get-to-know-you thing again?”
“Sure.” I flip my hand over and rub a few errant strands of hair between my fingers. Her hair does seem unreal. It’s a deep mahogany and there are a dozen shades of red and brown in it. It’s probably from a bottle. Nothing out here is natural.
“Okay, me first. Why wouldn’t you shake my hand?”
“I’m not a fan of being touched.” Ironic given that I’m surreptitiously fondling her hair. I continue to do it anyway. “I’m constantly being grabbed when I go out, even though I have Big D and Tyrese at my side. When I’m in private, I prefer to be the one to initiate contact. It’s nothing personal. And now it’s my turn. Why are you doing this?”
“Money.” She looks at me under her lashes. “My parents were kinda irresponsible and left us with a lot of debt. Paisley’s held our family together and it’d be incredibly selfish of me to not step up when I had the opportunity.”