“Hey, pumpkin,” Peter greeted his daughter with a warm smile. He set his suitcase down on the kitchen table, dressed in a sharp black suit as he looked over at his wife. “How was your day, honey?”
“Pretty good,” Kim told him. “How was yours?”
“Same old,” he answered, taking a seat next to Stacy while he turned his attention back to her. “You have no idea how much I missed having you around.”
Would it be safe to say that Stacy was giddy? She just loved Dad so much! And he adored her too! “I missed you sooooooooooooooooooooooooo much too, Dad. I’m really happy to be home.”
“Maybe you should commute to school next semester?”
“Really?” she asked, surprised by her father’s proposition.
“This house isn’t the same without you around,” he told her. “It felt empty.”
Kim rolled her eyes and walked over to the oven to check the chicken. No wonder why Stacy couldn’t find a boyfriend. Peter had spoiled her with attention for the past twenty years! Of course, no guy would ever seem worthwhile after a lifetime of being treated like a princess.
“Why isn’t the grass cut?”
She pulled the chicken out of the oven before looking back at the table. “What?”
“Why isn’t the grass cut?” Peter repeated. “Nick told me that he would do it on Monday.”
“I’m sure he’ll do it,” Kim spoke in defense of their son.
“It’s Wednesday,” he said, not concealing his annoyed tone. “Do you want to know why that kid is such a procrastinator?”
“Jesus, here we go…” Kim groaned.
“It’s because you baby him,” Peter said, revisiting a frequently discussed topic in their household. “You let him get away with whatever he wants, so he does whatever he wants.”
“He’s a bum,” Stacy added her two cents.
Unfortunately, defending Nick had become commonplace for Kim over the past few years. Peter and Stacy were both always so hard on him. “He’s not a bum. He’s very helpful around here.”
“Yeah right,” Stacy chuckled.
“I don’t see you cutting the grass,” Kim said to her daughter.
Peter decided to remind the kitchen of how things worked in their family. “Stacy isn’t responsible for cutting the grass. Neither are you. That kid doesn’t have too many responsibilities around here, but he puts all of them off until we finally nag on him enough. It’s because of you, Kim! You enable him!”
Her husband never had a problem with how little Stacy did around the house over the years, but he constantly nagged on Nick for everything. Even look at their vehicles! Stacy was gifted a new Jeep for her eighteenth birthday, while Nick received a used Ford Focus with plenty of miles on it. It was yet another example of the favoritism that Peter routinely displayed.
It drove Kim crazy how Peter refused to admit his nepotism as well. Somehow, he couldn’t see how differently he treated their children, but it couldn’t have been clearer in her eyes. Stacy was Peter’s perfect princess who could do no wrong, while Nick was his underachieving son who didn’t live up to his high expectations.
Disappointment was the last word that she would use to describe Nick. Her son was smart, funny, loving, athletic, and very handsome. He also helped her around the house whenever she asked him to, but it wouldn’t exactly be honest to pretend that she didn’t have a soft spot for him either. Was it because of how much Peter favored Stacy? Or perhaps she just adored him that much? Regardless, she struggled to find fault with anything he did.
The brown-haired, brown-eyed father of two absolutely didn’t share his wife’s feelings when it came to their son. “Nick needs to grow up. Otherwise, we’ll still be telling him to clean his room when he’s forty.”
“We were actually talking about you earlier, Dad,” Stacy revealed, changing topics. She would much rather discuss Dad than her brother.
His ears perked up. “Is that right?”
“Yep, I was telling Mom about how awful the guys my own age are,” Stacy said.
His curious look swiftly turned to one of disgust. “I don’t want to hear about your dating life.”
“No, Dad, I–”
“I honestly don’t, pumpkin,” he cut off his daughter, unable to hide his overprotective nature. Unfortunately, his little girl was a twenty-year-old woman now, so he didn’t have any say regarding who she spent her time with. “Discuss that stuff with your mother.”
“Dad, just let me finish,” Stacy said, using a firm stare to demand his compliance. “I told Mom about how I want to find a guy like you, and then she told me the story of how you guys met. I can’t believe what happened! You knocked out a football player!”
Everything came to a sudden stop for the forty-five-year-old dad. The horrifying visual of his daughter’s dating life, his fear that Kim had disclosed some of the more intimate details of their first encounter, and the steady reminder that his little girl was now a woman, all took a back seat to her initial statement. It was something he’d never imagined hearing either.
“You want to find a guy like me?”
“Absolutely,” Stacy confirmed without a moment of hesitation. “Wait until you hear this! Mom seriously thinks that you aren’t every girl’s dream guy! Can you believe that?”