For about as long as it takes for the two of us to get back upstairs, anyway.
She immediately picks up her phone and tries calling him. He doesn’t answer, not that this is surprising, given everything he’s just learned. There’s no giving up, though. Amelia calls repeatedly, leaving voicemail after voicemail until she can’t leave any more. This upsets her, and she tosses her phone onto the kitchen counter with a cry of anger and starts rifling through the contents of her freezer.
“I can’t believe he did that,” Amelia says angrily, digging around until she produces a small bag of frozen peas. “He didn’t even give us a chance to explain! And the way he just up and punched you? Ugh!”
“Amelia,” I groan, the cut in my lip protesting every time I try to get a word in edgewise between her frustrated rants. “He’s not the bad guy here.”
She flops down on her sofa next to me, her knees resting against my thigh as she gingerly presses the frozen vegetables to the side of my face that’s been throbbing non-stop for the last twenty minutes. “Well, neither are you! He had no right—”
I shake my head, replacing her hand with mine on the makeshift ice pack. “He had every right.” I stand up and pace the room, exhaling heavily. She looks hurt, clasping her hands in her lap while looking up at me beneath her furrowed brow, and now I’m feeling sorry for a whole different reason. I just keep fucking up when it comes to her.
I’m definitely on edge after what happened outside, but I’m letting my frustration rule me, which means I’m being short with her, and that’s not right. Alan’s reaction has put tension on our relationship, but I refuse to let this tear us apart; it’s detrimental for us to work through this together instead of letting our emotions toward Alan cloud how we plan to handle everything. I’m not about to lose Amelia now that I’ve finally got her in my life, so I plan to bury any remaining frustration as deep as possible and show her that no matter what happens, we’ll make it through this…together.
Dropping the peas onto the coffee table, I kneel in front of her and take her hands in mine, hoping to reassure her of us with my touch as well as with what I’m about to say. “Look, sweetheart, I don’t mean to sound like an asshole, or like we’re the villains in this, but you can’t just slough his reaction off as”—feeling weary, I swipe my hand over my face and groan—“unreasonable. He reacted the way any father would in his situation… Hell, how I’d have reacted in his position.”
Amelia sighs, dropping her gaze to our hands as she twists hers and laces our fingers together. She doesn’t say a word, leaving the floor open for me to continue. “Jesus, Amelia, if I’m so fiercely protective over you, can you entertain the thought that maybe your father might be too? Probably more so. And it isn’t going to matter to him that the man you’ve chosen is someone he’s trusted for over thirty years and knows would never hurt him or his family. Not right now, anyway. ”
It’s obvious when she concedes defeat, and I lean forward and kiss her hand. “Okay, yes, I understand that he’s just being my dad…but that still doesn’t make what he did okay. You guys have been friends forever, Owen. How could he just throw that all away without hearing our side of it?”
“He hasn’t thrown it all away,” I try to assure her, even though I’m not so sure I believe it myself. “But, as far as he’s concerned, I’m just taking advantage of you.”
“Yeah,” she grumbles, “he made that pretty damn clear.”
I chuckle, standing up and sitting back on the couch with her, even going as far as to pull her onto my lap. “Look, like you said, I’ve known him for years, and I’ve seen him like this before. He just needs to blow off some steam while he processes everything. Maybe he’ll come around on his own…maybe he won’t. It’s hard to say. What I do know is that we can’t force him to just be okay with it or to listen to what we have to say just yet.”
Pouting a little, Amelia’s eyes meet mine while her fingers toy with one of my shirt buttons innocently. “I’m not sure I like your logical approach to this. You should be pissed off right along with me.”
“Oh, don’t get me wrong. I am upset, but not necessarily at your dad. Sure, he should have called and given either one of us a heads-up instead of just assuming that he could drop in unannounced—and I’m sure he’ll realize this himself once the storm in his head has cleared—but I’m just trying to play Devil’s Advocate. We can’t place the blame solely on him. We were wrong to keep it from him this long—no matter how sound we felt our reasoning was.”