My father leaned back in his chair like he had all the time in the world, like we weren't sitting under the slow suffocation of inherited silence and embroidered drapery. His eyes got that glazed-over look again—half nostalgia, half regret, probably. I didn't ask. I never do.
But I did prod him. Because I'm nosy. Because it's genetic. Because if he got to play patriarch and dump all this ancestral destiny crap on me, the very least he could do was give me the gossip. The messy, ridiculous, scandalous kind that makes you cringe-laugh and feel secondhand embarrassment in your marrow.
"Come on," I said, all fake sweetness and daughterly charm, which is just manipulation with better PR. "You've told me all the serious parts. I want the real stories."
And oh, the way he arched his brow at me like I'd just proposed crime at the dinner table. "Real stories?"
Yes, real, as in: the awkward, the stupid, the ones that end with mud on your face and not a single moral insight in sight.
"You know what I mean," I said, and I did the thing—leaned forward, grinned like I had secrets in my teeth. "The ones you never tell anyone. Embarrassing ones, even."
And I must have hit some nostalgia button, because he chuckled. Not the dignified kind. The rough kind. The I lived through the 90s and made mistakes kind. He dragged a hand down his face and said, "You really are your mother's daughter…"
Honestly? I took that as a compliment. Even though I'm pretty sure he meant it like a warning label.
"Please?" I begged, weaponized the pout, didn't even pretend to be subtle.
He sighed. So dramatic. Like I'd asked him to relive war trauma and not tell me about the time he tripped over his own dignity. "Fine. But if you tell a soul, I'll deny everything."
"I swear on my Brandless skin," I said, and I meant it with the same solemnity I apply to skincare routines and feminist revenge.
He laughed again. God, I'm funny.
"Alright then…" he said, like he was giving in to some inner demon, or maybe just tired of pretending to be noble all the time. "I'll tell you about the time I got chased by a spirit deer."
Wait. A what now?
"A deer?"
"A glowing, seven-foot-tall, antler-shimmering spirit deer that did not appreciate being mistaken for a sign from the gods."
And you know what? I was already grinning like a feral child. Because YES. THIS.
He kept going like he wasn't admitting to supernatural humiliation. "I was convinced it was my moment. The golden light, the sudden silence—it had all the signs. So I knelt down, arms wide open, and began reciting a prayer I barely remembered. Then the thing charged."
I lost it. Fully snorted. Not cute. Zero composure. "You prayed at it?"
"Very loudly," he muttered, rubbing his temple like the memory was still giving him migraines. "Desmond was with me. He still brings it up whenever I act too high and mighty."
Oh my god, Desmond. I barely remember him but he had that aura of a man who owns too many belts and thinks sarcasm is a love language.
"Please tell me someone drew that."
"There's a very offensive sketch somewhere in the archives."
I cackled until my ribs begged for mercy. And for a moment—just a moment—the study wasn't suffocating under generations of disappointment and oil paintings of dead people I don't like. It was just… a room. A soft, dumb little moment between a tired man and his equally tired daughter who's trying very hard not to be crushed by the weight of legacy.