Daddy Dearest

*New* Chapter 31

Ben

I should probably stop drinking Harry's scotch as I am well on my way to getting foxed, and Waverly has been giving me concerned looks. Instead, I asked the new bloke if he wanted some. I figured I was supposed to talk to him since I was the only other adult male in the house and felt like it was expected of me.

"What are you drinking?" he asks as we go up to Harry's living room mini-bar.

I really do worry if Melody drinks without Nancy's knowledge, since Harry has an extensive collection of fine liquor outside of his treasure trove of scotch, and they're out on full display in a cherry oak shelf behind Harry's mini-bar.

I had the feeling that she only drinks scotch when I'm around because that was one of the things that Harry and I had in common: we both enjoyed good scotch. That doesn't mean she doesn't drink on her own outside of that, but I've always known her to be a sensible young woman. She and her friends don't do parties with underage drinking. She doesn't go out and get plastered every weekend. But Harry was an alcoholic, so maybe it's something I should bring up with Nancy.

"Lagavulin thirty-year-old single malt scotch, straight out of Islay, Scotland." I look at my third drink of the evening and decide that it doesn't count because Melody drank the last mouthful of the second one. "You like whiskeys?"

He picks up the bottle on the bar to read it. "Is it any good?"

"If you like whiskey." I wasn't going to drink a forty-five-hundred-dollar bottle on my own.

He turns it over. "Ah, it's for Ben. Is that you?"

Earlier, Nancy showed me the twelve bottles that Harry left me, and I asked if she could store them for me for now, as Harry had a unique climate-controlled safe for them. The value of my newly inherited scotch collection is in the neighborhood of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, so maybe Harry didn't secretly hate me in the end as I suspected. Or maybe he did because he knew I'd drink myself to an early grave. Touché, old fellow.

"Quite. Harry and I were very close friends for a long time when he was alive." I uncork the bottle and pour him a half of a shot into a Baccarat crystal tumbler.

"Nancy has told me a lot about you and your wife and how well you've supported her and Melody over the years." He reaches for the glass and brings it up to his nose. "Wow, that is smoky."

I laugh a little. "It's Islay, so yeah, it's got some peat to it."

He takes a sip and sets the glass back down on the bar. "It sure does. So, Ben, Nancy tells me you're a writer."

In the seven years that Harry has been dead, Nancy has never bothered to introduce any of her new beaus to us, and Melody says she doesn't go out on dates. This bloke is the first one she has ever brought around. "I am. I also teach high school English where my wife is the headmistress."

"So your family is from the U.K., huh?"

A fairly nondescript fellow, this Ken Harris. I wonder how serious Nancy is about him and if she's looked into his background. With the kind of money she and Melody have, one can never be too careful. "My wife and I are, but all four of our kids were born on U.S. soil."

"Is the tall one of yours?"

"Who, Alex? No, he's Melody's boyfriend and someone else's problem." I smile to show I'm kidding. "My teens are the two blond ones. They're twins."

"Oh, I thought he might be one of yours because he has a British accent, too," Ken Harris says before picking up his drink again for another sip. "So, what kind of books do you write?"