Page 9 of The Match Faker
Miranda, the type A super-mom who has been able to read a lie on my face since I was old enough to deny that I’d supplied it. Not currently employed but married to a guy rich enough for her to be a stay-at-home mom.
Then Claire, a lawyer, also married with a kid. This one’s hard for Dad to reconcile. On the one hand she gets points for being a working mom, on the other a mother should be home with her children.
Alex and Rob never get this kind of hypocrisy because Rob is the one who stays home with Tilly and the new baby, and he is neither a woman nor my father’s child.
I’ve got a long day of work ahead, regardless of what my father thinks about my job or relationship status, and I’ve had enough of this conversation. Like a coyote, I’m willing to chew off my own foot to get out of this trap.
“Dad.” I cut him off before he can list the reasons Charlie, my closest sibling in age, is a better son than I’ll ever be. Spoiler alert: it’s because he’s the youngest and he can do whatever he wants. “I got to go, but I’ll be in Muskoka for your anniversary weekend.”
“Alone,” he says with the contempt of a health inspector ticking off multiple health code violations.
Fuck this. “Nope.”
“I thought you broke up.”
“You’ll just have to wait and see.”
“What’s her name?” His tone is skeptical, and rightfully so. I have no girlfriend or date to speak of.
“So sorry. You’re breaking up. I’m going through a tunnel. I ran out of minutes,” I yell into the phone.
“Nicholas, I know you’re not?—”
I hang up and toss my phone across the bed. Then I press the heels of my hands into my eye sockets. Anything to relieve the pressure built from another friendly conversation with Mr. James Scott.
“Shit.” I do this every time. Win the battle, lose the war. Maybe Dad is right. Maybe I am a loser, because after a decade of arguments like these, one would think I’d know how to stop having them. But without fail, by the end of another round with him, I’ve reverted into a seventeen-year-old, begging his dad to let him apprentice as a carpenter or take a gap year or apply to culinary school. Anything but the Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Toronto he expected of me.
Now, I’m a thirty-one-and-a-half-year-old lying to his father about having a girlfriend, just to get the guy off the phone.
The shower helpsthe smell I’m giving off, and a load of laundry helps the T-shirt.
Working nights for my entire adult life has gifted me the magic power of sleeping at any time of day. After a long nap, I tackle the schedule and the beer and booze orders for next month. Before I go downstairs to start prep, I schedule social media posts for the bar and lie in bed daydreaming about what it would be like to own the place myself one day. The business is probably valued around eight hundred k. Throw in property taxes, bank loans, and insurance, and there’s no way it’ll happen in the next five years. Though it’s a nice ten-year goal.
Maybe fifteen.
I started working here as a barback when I was nineteen, in my first semester at U of T. By summertime, Ed, the owner, promoted me to bartender and I quit school to work full-time. My dad didn’t know until he tried to pay my tuition for the upcoming semester and was informed by some poor bastard in the accounts department that they had no record of my enrollment.
He didn’t speak to me until Christmas and then it was only to ask me to pass the mashed potatoes. As if the silent treatment was a punishment. Dad thought he could keep me under his sphere of influence if he kept paying for my school, so I made sure I’d never need his money again.
Rocco shows up half an hour before their shift with an early dinner for us and their plans to pitch expanding the cocktail menu to Ed at tomorrow’s staff meeting. Their easy company and excellent cooking ease the tension from my shoulders. I can once again pull off Nick, The Man, who’s friendly, if not a littleapathetic, instead of Nick, The Kid, who really needs to talk to a therapist about his daddy issues.
Despite the modicum of comfort I’ve found, I still don’t know who to bring to my parents’ anniversary party.
I sneak a peek at Rocco, who’s cutting limes next to me.
“What?” they ask without breaking the rhythm of their chopping.
“I like your nail polish,” I say, because Rocco needs buttering.
They pause their work, stretch out their fingers to show off the dark red, glittery paint, and smile at their hands. “The color is called Blood of Beelzebub. It’s a good choice for Valentine’s Day, don’t you think?”
I think it sounds positively occult, but I plaster on a grin. “Yeah. It looks great.”
They flip their shoulder-length hair out of their eyes so I can get the full effect of their cocked brow. “I’ll ask again, Nick. What?”
“If I needed a date, would you have someone to set me up with?”
They smirk. They’ve got the kind of smile that draws blood, and I’ve been left bleeding many times. “Absolutely not.”