Maybe I should tell him another time. Fuck, I should at least wait until after Jia tells me she wants to be with me before I spill the secrets. What if she decides she doesn’t want me?
What would I do then? What point would there be in telling him and potentially ruin my relationship with him?
Shit… I shouldn’t say anything yet. Not yet.
“No, I… was just thinking about work. I won’t take up any more of your time. I know you’re busy,” I answer feeling like a coward.
He raises his brows and straightens up. “Okay, well, I guess there’s little point asking you if Jia’s bag is still at your place?”
My lips part, and I freeze mid-motion. I was just about to get up.
“What?” I ask.
“Her bag. That was her bag I saw at your place the other week. I got it for her birthday. I had it made for her birthday, so I know it’s definitely hers.” He tries to bite back a smile.
“Oh… okay. Well, no, it’s not at my house.” Fuck, what the hell am I? Some kind of idiot? I feel like a child who’s just been caught getting up to shit. Not like an ex-marine who should know how to handle himself.
“Gonna tell me what it was doing at your place when you two supposedly hate each other?”
“Well, we don’t hate each other…”
“So, you’re back together again?” The smile he was trying to hold back tips the corners of his mouth as he continues to stare at me.
I’m sure that either I’ve gone pale or very red. I don’t know which. What I know, though, is that it’s time to come clean.
“You knew?” I ask, and he nods. “How did you know?”
“Son, I don’t think I got to where I am today, by not paying attention. Also, I’m her father. I think I should know when my child is in love and when she’s in pain. I took you as my own too, and I think I should know the same about you.”
There it is, plain and simple. He knew the whole time, and he knows now. I am the idiot for thinking I outsmarted him.
“I’m sorry, Ethan… I didn’t mean to keep such a secret, or be with her.”
He surprises me with a chuckle. “You can apologize for the secrets. I hate secrets. Don’t apologize, though, for being with her. Nobody had any control over that. I’m not going to tell you that I was overly fond of you guys sneaking around when you were stepsiblings, but it is what it is. You’re hardly the first people that’s happened to.”
“You don’t look like you’re mad.”
“Paul… I’d be real proud to see Jia with a man like you. I can’t be mad for that reason.”
His words pull heavily on my heart, unearthing the uncertainty of my thoughts about myself.
“Really? Me?”
“Why would you be so surprised? Of course, I would be. You’re a good person. Paul, you’re a good man. There’s no way my daughter would be with you if you weren’t.” He nods like I should know this myself.
I guess I should. “Thank you, I appreciate that.”
“No more secrets.”
“No more secrets,” I promise, but it feels like a lie.
It feels like a lie because I still hold on to one secret. One he knew. It was him who told me what my father did. What he’ll never know is how it affected me. All the times I said I was fine and coping, I wasn’t. I was far from it.
* * *
I’m supposed to meet Jia in an hour at The Dark Odyssey. I called her earlier and told her that Ethan knows about us. I figured I should give her a heads-up in case she saw him.
I always imagined her being worried that her father would find out, but she wasn’t like worried years ago, and she wasn’t now.