Unrequited

Chapter Five: Father's Day

Soon enough, the father-daughter dinner began to quickly approach, so I reminded Josh of his promise to go with me.

"I'd hoped you'd forgotten," he grumbled when I brought it up over dessert one night.

"Don't you want to show off your amazing parenting skills to the other dads?" I teased. "You can brag about how well you did raising me even though you're only young."

"I just know that me going will bring up unwanted questions," he sighed.

"Like what?" I pressed, unsure of what he meant.

"Like how a single eighteen year old male was able to adopt a fifteen year old girl without any background checks."

I paused. "I never even thought about that," I pointed out. "How did you manage it?"

"It's complicated," he told me with a frown. "Maybe one day I'll explain, but just know for now that I have my ways of getting things done."

"No one had to die, did they?" I asked, gasping in mock horror. He chuckled.

"Don't be silly, Mer."

"So will you come if I promise to deflect unwanted questions?" I asked with pleading eyes.

"Fine. But only for you," he murmured, wiping chocolate icing on my nose from the half-eaten slice of cake on his plate.

"Can I have the rest of your cake?" I asked with a grin.

"What is it with you and chocolate?" he muttered, sliding the plate across the table to me.

"The cacao tree is my spirit plant," I joked, lifting a spoon of chocolatey goodness into my mouth.

"That's not even a thing," he retorted, rolling his eyes.

I just ignored him and kept eating.

***

On the night of the dinner, I stood in front of my wardrobe blankly, staring at its contents with no idea what to wear. When there were just five minutes until we had to leave, Josh walked into my room.

"Why aren't you dressed yet?" he asked, giving me a puzzled look.

"I don't know what to wear." Josh looked down at his own clothes, and I copied him. He wore a loose white button-down collared shirt and navy blue skinny jeans.

"How about this?" he asked, pulling out a baby-blue tank top that was very flowy and slightly too twelve-year-old-girl style for my liking. I had bought it when I was fifteen, before I knew what fashion sense was.

I shook my head, indicating that I wasn't going to wear it.

"What about this?" Josh pulled out a black and white striped top that was an off-the-shoulder, and was just short enough to show a strip of midriff above the hips. He also grabbed a pair of three-quarter black skinny jeans.

I shrugged, thinking that it could work, and he chuckled.

"I'll wear those," I agreed, and he grinned triumphantly.

He turned his back to me and began searching for shoes, and I took the opportunity to take off my pyjamas and pull on the clothes.

He threw me a pair of black ballet flats, and I slipped them on quickly, noting that the dinner had just started, which meant we were running late.

We hurried from the house, running across the road while covering our heads from the pouring rain and laughing our heads off. We finally reached the cover of the school gym, and then we composed ourselves and shook the water off our arms.