Seasons Change

10.

Chapter 10.
It felt like my entire world was falling apart. In the last few hours, Ben had broken up with me, and I had cut ties with Dylan. After my conversation with Kelsey earlier, the last thing I wanted to do was to call her and complain about my problems, so she could tell me that it was all for the best and that I needed to focus on moving forward. And while Will and Madison were good casual friends, I didn't feel close enough to either of them to confide in them about something like this.

So, I did what any self-respecting college girl would do: I went home for the weekend. After everything that had happened over the last three weeks, seeing my dad sounded heavenly. I wanted him to take me into his arms and engulf me into a tight hug. I needed to hear that he was proud of me, and that he knew I had a great future ahead of me. I wanted to be daddy's little girl for just a while longer.

The two and a half hour drive back home passed by quickly, and I pulled into my father's driveway right around dinnertime. I had stopped to pick up pizza, not knowing if my father had bothered to cook anything. I sat in the driver's seat for a moment, feeling awkward. This had always been my home, and knocking felt wrong. But at the same time, I had moved on, and what if I accidentally walked in on something I could never unsee? Walking in on Avery and Will had made me reluctant to just walk into a closed room.

Deciding I was being silly, I got out of my car, grabbing the pizza box off of my passenger seat and closing the car door. I strode up to the front door and flung it open, not bothering to knock. This was, and always would be, my home.

"Dad?" I called out, heading to the kitchen to set the box of pizza down. "I decided to come home for the weekend, and I brought pizza."

I was fairly confident that my father was home, because his car was parked in the driveway. But he must not have heard me, because he didn't respond. There was a quiet murmuring of voices coming from the living room, and I walked quietly over, not wanting to disrupt my father if he had a guest.
Nothing could have prepared me for the sight of my father sitting on the couch next to none other than Luke Carters, chatting casually as if there was nothing weird about my father hanging out with my ex-boyfriend.

"Hi, Dad," I called, my knees feeling weak at the sight of Luke. It was the first time I'd seen him since his graduation day. The day I'd broken up with him. "Hi, Luke. Long time, no see."

The two of them fell silent when I walked into the room, giving me the awkward impression that they had been talking about me. But that was ridiculous, right? Why the heck would Luke Carters be talking to my dad about me? We hadn't even spoken in three years.

Then again, why was Luke even here at all? I'd never realized my father was still in touch with him. Somehow, that felt like a betrayal of sorts. Luke was my ex-boyfriend. It was weird that he was sitting in our living room, talking to my father, who had only been his former high school football coach. That didn't seem like the kind of relationship that one maintained after being offered a full ride football scholarship to a Division 1 school, but, what did I know? Maybe that was completely normal.

"Lilly," my father said, jumping to his feet and pulling me into a tight hug. "I didn't realize you were coming by for a visit." I could feel my eyes welling up with tears as my father squeezed me close to his chest, and I swallowed them back before I could give into the temptation of having a crying fit right here. I couldn't do that. Not in front of Luke.

I pulled back from the hug, my eyes still a little watery, and gave him a sad smile and a shrug. "I was having a rough day and needed to see you."

Luke stood up, crossing the room in a few short strides and placing his arm tenderly on my shoulder. He had been fit in high school, but had gained a lot of muscle since then, and he carried himself with a new confidence that he hadn't had back then. In the last three years, the all-American boy next door had been replaced by a very attractive man. "Is everything okay?" Luke asked, his voice filled with far more concern than I would expect him to feel for the girl who had dumped him.