begin again | jack hughes

chapter four

they see right through me — taylor swift

Bailey Cameron
Wednesday, October 23

Brushing past Amelia, I took a quick glance at the clock on the wall to try and organize the dinner plan for the evening.

I was mostly done with the actual cooking part—Greek Chicken Marinade was in the oven to stay warm until dinner, and I was well over halfway through the short prep time of a matching Greek salad. My dad was supposed to be here forty-five minutes ago, but his Uber driver hit traffic on the way to pick him up from the airport, and the plans for the remainder of the night had completely fallen apart.

Amelia was sitting on the counter, picking at the charcuterie board that had been out for about an hour. "Why's your dad coming down again?" She asked, shoving a few grapes into her mouth.

"He has a work trip in NYC tomorrow and wanted to see me, so he's coming down a day early," I explained, tossing on a few generous pinches of oregano to finish it off. I set it in the corner of the kitchen, clearly not needing it yet. Now came the cleaning. "If you eat that whole board, you're not gonna be hungry for dinner."

"I'm always hungry," She shrugged, sliding off the counter to help clean up the mess we'd made over the past few hours. I took a deep breath, convincing my body to finally relax now that everything was done. The only thing we needed now was my dad, then we'd be set.

I just felt like I was forgetting something, but I had no clue what. My room was all clean and tidy, I'd cooked, I'd cleaned the kitchen and most of the house. Everything was done, so I didn't know what I could possibly have forgotten.

Deciding I was probably just overwhelmed from all I'd done today, I checked my phone to see if my dad had texted. Then I saw the little notification from ten minutes ago that read 'Game start: San Jose @ New Jersey' and remembered I had planned to turn on Jack's game.

"Oh, crap," I said, scrambling into the living room and grabbing the remote. As soon as I'd gotten ESPN open, the world seemed to start moving at a hundred miles per hour. The doorbell rang, and I knew it was my dad, but I wanted to get the game on so I wouldn't miss anything. Amelia volunteered herself to greet him, thankfully.

Now that the game was a stable event running in the background, I was finally able to actually relax.

"Bailey, Dad's here!" Amelia called from the small foyer. I rolled my eyes; she'd always called him Dad as a joke, but we had grown up together and he was basically her second father, so I always let it slide.

I was about to make my way down the hall to greet my dad, but they appeared before I could get that far. Both him and Amelia had big smiles on their faces, and my dad's only got bigger as he spotted me. "I almost forgot I had another daughter," He joked as I was quick to pull him into a hug.

"Like you could forget about me," I replied as we broke off the hug.

"Since when did you watch hockey?" My dad asked, trailing to behind the couch and watching the game on the TV. "I know I sure didn't introduce it to you. I don't know a single thing about how that game works."

Amelia snickered, plucking some more grapes from the charcuterie board. "Her friend plays for them—the team in the red jerseys. What number is he again, Bails?"

"I don't usually watch hockey, but I figured I might as well if I know someone who plays," I answered my dad's question first, then Amelia's, "I'm pretty sure he's number eighty-six."

My dad repeated the number under his breath, undoubtedly searching for him on the screen. "Is he any good?" He asked, and I wished I could give him a straight answer. I mean, I had Jack's word to go by, but I'd never seen him play until tonight.