My father was a lot of things: old, funny, and amazing. But never in my dear life has he ever been so happy to see me. I run over to the car, completing forgetting about Tyler and almost trip on a hole in the yard.
“Really now? You’re tripping to see me? I oughta teach you how to walk again, since your momma obviously ain’t doing a good job at it,” he calls out to me. I laugh and hug him as I reach the car door.
“Dad, you’re home!” I exclaim. I pull back from the hug.
“Girl, you best not hug me like that again or you might choke the living day lights out of me,” my dad comments. I smirk at him. You know how I mentioned a while ago that my dad was a lot of things? You can add southern to that list. It might as well be at the top.
“What are you doing home?” I ask. “I thought you were on that business trip for at least two more months.”
“What? And miss Christmas with y’all? I don’t think so,” he says, ruffling my hair.
“You know, it’s sometimes hard to believe that you’re a business man with that southern accent of yours,” I point out.
“It’ll be in your best interest not to point out my accent again, ‘specially not in front of this here boyfriend ‘a yours,” my dad warns. I raise an eyebrow and see him looking towards Tyler. “Your momma told me about this boy. Has he hurt you yet? I’ll kill him.”
“Nononononono dad. This isn’t Jace. This is Tyler. He’s my friend from school and church. He also doesn’t live to far from here and we hang out a lot. We were actually just talking when you showed up. Mom thinks he’s my boyfriend for some weird reason. I only went on, like, one date with him,” I start babbling and talking and realize that I just said one very unnecessary detail. One detail that could cause Tyler to stop living for a few seconds.
“You two did what now?” my dad asks with the most southern accent and the absolute most serious look on this face.
“We may or may not have gone on a date. In the back yard. At night,” I stammer. Words, why do you fail me when I need you most? This is a matter of life or death. Someone could die, and I am stammering.
“Let me get this straight. You two went on a date in the back yard. Was this before or after you started dating that guy… Chase,” my dad questions me.
“His name is Jace, daddy,” I correct him. My dad gets up out of the car and puts his hands on his hips.
“That, darling, does not answer my question, now does it?” my dad asks. I start to wonder if Tyler is still in the yard. If I was him, I would’ve probably run home by now.
“It may or may not have been during the time that I had, I mean have, been dating my boyfriend,” I whisper. I shut my eyes for a very long time, and I hear screaming from behind me. Very manly screaming. I turn around to Tyler running away from my father.
Wow, there’s joking protective fathers, then there’s my dad.
“Dad! Stop! You are embarrassing me!” I exclaim, and realize that is the worst of my problems. I see that Tyler is running in circles, which isn’t very smart, considering that there is a door to my house that has a lock on it. I jog over to them and get them to stop briefly. My dad is in front of me, and Tyler is literally hiding behind me.
“How dare you make my little girl look like a fool!” my dad exclaims.
“To be honest Dad, I was the one who agreed to go on a date with him in the first place,” I explain to him.
“I don’t care. He shouldn’t have dare tried to go for you if he knew that you had a boyfriend,” my dad reasons.
“That’s the thing. He didn’t,” I tell him, and he looks over me towards Tyler.
