Capturing You

Chapter 8: Bad Reception

     Quack. Quack. Quack.

     My eyes jolted open at such a jarring sound, ripped apart from my slumber. I first took in the sunlight beaming in through my living room windows, stinging my vision and burning me up under my blanket. Then, I remembered the sound — the annoying ringtone my dad had set his number to when he called my phone. I huffed, bringing a tired hand up to rub my eyes, and it was then that I felt the last element that made up the trifecta of consequences of accidentally spending the night on a $100 futon: My entire body ached.

     I gasped, though, realizing I hadn't been hallucinating the sound of my phone. I sprung up from the couch and scrambled to find my phone, rushing to the kitchen mindlessly before I circled back to the coffee table in the living room, where it was. I picked up the phone and answered it, finally able to take a breath once the harrowing quacking stopped.

     "Jesus H. Christ," I said.

     "No, this is your dad."

     Silence.

     Then, his laughter.

     "How's it going, kiddo?"

     Of course. It was Saturday morning, which was our usual slot for our weekly father-daughter phone call. It would seem like an inopportune time for a 23-year-old to be answering her dad's call — if I was any other person, I might have been crashing at my one night stand's place or something — but for someone like me, who hardly went out like that, it was perfect timing.

      "Fine," I mumbled.

      Except I didn't usually answer my dad's calls like this. A quick glance at the wall clock told me that it was 10 a.m.; at this point, I would have already been awake for a couple of hours, full from my morning smoothie and enjoying some light reading.

      "Whoa, Aves. Did you just wake up?" I wished he hid the surprise in his tone.

      "Yeah, I had a long night last night." Not wrong, but not the full truth. I ended up working some overtime as Burrow — Joe — and I got a little bit distracted playing video games at his place after our walk. He brought me back to headquarters just in time for me to clock out, but then I remembered I needed to have the photos edited and uploaded for Trish to use throughout the weekend. So, I spent a few hours doing just that, hoping to get in the girl's good graces after our debacle the other day. And when I got home late, I still cleaned, and after that...

      "A long night? What, did my Avery finally go on her first date?" He spoke in a louder voice than usual. A second later, fanfare erupted from the background, which told me he was at breakfast with his team.

     I gasped. "Dad, what the actual hell?!"

     Not wanting to raise my voice in my tiny apartment, I sighed deeply and muttered. "No, I did not have a date. And shut up, you know I've had my first date already."

      "Me chaperoning you to the prom with Dennis Milton, who was in the stage crew with you, does not constitute a first date," he pointed out.

     "Oh, what do you know about first dates? Mom told me you took her to, like, Greasy Pete's."

     "But did she tell you she enjoyed the hell outta those burgers?"

     I groaned in frustration.

     He chuckled. "Okay, kiddo, I'll drop it. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to embarrass you. Did you sleep well?"

      His words only reignited in me the memory of what happened when I got back to work this week. I had to confront him about the letters he had sent Joe.