The Secret Family by S.L. Harker

Author:S.L. Harker [Harker, SL]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-07-13T23:00:00+00:00

19

I tap on the doorframe of Katy’s room before cracking the door open and sticking my head in. I’m trying to give her some space, some privacy, but I have to talk to her about Theo before their relationship grows more complicated. If what Andrew said is true, anyway.

“Katy, can you come downstairs? I’d like to talk to you.”

Katy is propped against the headboard of her bed, her phone in her hand. She glances up from the screen and sighs. “Yeah, I’ll be right there.” Then she turns back to her phone and smiles before clicking the screen off and heaving herself off the bed. “After you,” she says with a gesture.

In the kitchen, Katy drops into a chair at the breakfast table and immediately tabs open her phone. I know kids are into their phones these days, but it’s becoming an obsession with her now. And as much as I want to know what her and Theo’s text messages say, I want to give her the privacy I think a seventeen-year-old girl deserves. So I refrain from asking her for her phone.

“You want some tea, honey?” I fill up the kettle and bustle around the kitchen. I figure it might be easier for Katy to talk to me if I’m not confronting her in some kind of interrogation—just a casual conversation. “Some toast maybe?”

“Uh, no thanks, I’m good.” Her eyes are still on her phone, her fingers tapping at warp speed across the screen.

“I think I’m going to have some,” I say.

She doesn’t respond, buried in her phone again. I give up on the tea and grab a beer from the fridge instead. I pop the cap off and bring it to the table, where I sit down next to Katy.

“Hey, Katybug, let’s talk.” I sip the beer and try to look calm. “Can you put the phone down?”

“Yeah, sure.” She sets the phone aside and gives me a fake smile. “That okay?”

“Uh huh. Listen, I’ll just get right to it. I spoke to Theo’s father, and he says you and Theo have been in contact with each other.” I tap on the side of my beer bottle with my wedding ring. The clinking sound reminds me that I should take it off soon—no sense in wearing it any longer.

“I mean, yeah. I’ve been talking to Theo. So?” Katy’s eyes slide to her phone.

I have to stop myself from reaching over and snatching it when it dings with a text alert.

“I don’t know how comfortable I am with that,” I say. “And I think he’s… troubled.”

“Troubled isn’t the same thing as trouble, Dad. And he’s not, really. He’s just misunderstood.” Her eyes slide back to her phone. “He’s been through a lot.”

Great. She’s only seventeen and has already got a guy convincing her that he’s not bad—it’s just that no one understands him. Such a classic bullshit line. And it’s even worse that it’s Theo. I know that if I try to explain that “I’m misunderstood” is a classic guy tactic, she won’t believe me.

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