My Boyfriend Is A Geek ✔️

25: A quest to find the father of her future kids

‘Dinner sounds fine.’

Those three seemingly simple words, were the reason for the torture I was currently undergoing. Oh, sorry, I meant, dinner.

Dinner with my dad – what could be more exciting? Well, let me see…everything!

Now though, I stabbed at my food, making my dad turn to stare at me. “Are you okay, honey?”

There it was again – that concern in his voice, that softness in his eyes that almost softened my feelings towards him. Keyword being almost.

Because my response came as a deadpan: “don’t I look okay?” But in the face of Carla's meaningful stare, I added, “I'm okay, dad.”

Carla seemed to relax at that, throwing me an encouraging smile before heading back to the kitchen.

“So, Hawk,” dad started, lips moving in a small smile. Hawk on his part, finally stopped from his concentrated effort at cutting his steak – way too concentrated if you asked me.

Not like I blamed him though.

Like every other thing that involved my dad and I, this dinner was awkward to say to least – even for me. Hence, I could only imagine how it must be for Hawk.

But then, he did bring it upon himself. I tried to save him from it, but he had to go and fall for one of my dad's pleading faces – which for the record, were pretty hard to resist. Well, except for me of course; I’d grown immune to those years ago.

“You and Brooke go to school together?” 

Hawk’s reply came as a polite: “yes, we do.” 

I, however, just downed my fruit wine, trying to deceive myself into thinking it was alcoholic. Because honestly, getting drunk seemed like a much better idea than playing father-daughter dinner time with my dad.

Talking about my dad, he was still on a questioning roll. “That’s nice. So, what colleges are you considering?”

That actually caught my interest; we’d never talked about that before. Curious as to what his reply could be, I stared eager-eyed at Hawk who was seated right opposite me.

And it seemed he was just as eager to tell. “Well, I've sent out applications to UNC and Berkeley. Although, I'm really hoping to get into Berkeley.” His features seemed to light up as he added, “it's been my dream college for as long as I can remember.”

“Really? That's Brooke's dream college too.”

“It is?” Hawk asked, eyes moving towards me, lips moving in a pleasantly surprised smile which I was quick to mirror. 

I mean, I never would have guessed that Hawk and I had applied for the same college. 

Now, however, my dad was saying, “yeah. She's been in love with it since she was nine.”

Though, it was for a fleeting moment, something about his remark caused a certain warmness to course through me. And despite my best efforts to keep up the indifference game, I soon found myself asking, “you remember that?”

But no sooner had I asked, than I already regretted asking. And it didn’t exactly help that he was now holding my stare with a soft smile, his voice soulful as he said, “of course, honey. It has to do with you, so how can I forget?”

For a long second, I didn't break our stare. There was just something about the look in his eyes, the way they seemed to express so many emotions all at once – including ones I’d chosen to not acknowledge through the years. In the end, I looked away, using the excuse of  sipping my drink to avoid having to reply.