Page 68 of Check You Out

He waves me off. “I think you’ll find what I found interesting.” He holds my gaze.

My jaw goes slack. “Really?” The knot in my stomach relaxes and the tension in my muscles eases.

He nods. “I wanted to meet here so I can explain everything fully.” A sly smile spreads across his face. “Also, I wanted to see you.” He takes another pull from his drink. “This is also really good coffee.”

Xander shrugs and lifts his own latte. “The coffee is better when my sister makes it.”

Dan removes a laptop from his satchel. “I did some digging in the public records, and I found the company that won the contract.” He opens the laptop and swings it around so Xander and I can both see it, where he has a PDF already prepped for us. “The company is called Ferdinand O’Connor, LLC.”

“And?” Xander asks, peering at the laptop screen. “What’s so fishy about this company?”

Dan clicks a few times to reveal the Maryland Case Search. “The company itself has a whole laundry list of problems. They’re currently being sued by a former client for non-completion of work and owe money to a bunch of other parties. They also just lost their Maryland contracting license. Meaning they can’t do any permitted work, including for the county government. But the contract is still active. They haven’t filed for Chapter 11, but depending on their current cash situation, they might.” He sucks in air through his teeth in a whistle. “They’re hemorrhaging money.”

I press my lips together and adjust my glasses. “Why would the county accept the bid of a company that is currently in financial trouble?”

My father lifts a shoulder and leans back in his chair. “They probably underbid the other companies. It’s a big job and there’s some money to be made with this work.”

“Even though there’s not a lot of work to be done?” I ask. “The offices were just renovated.”

He shrugs again. “The amount of work that’s to be done might not be relevant. They need to account for every penny spent, but there are ways to pad the cost of construction. Materials and labor costs are rapidly increasing, and maybe there is something fishy going on, at least with the company, but that doesn’t mean that some sort of embezzlement is occurring.” He studies us for a few seconds. “That we know of. For all we know, Mr. Ferdinand O’Connor might be connected to someone in the county offices. Do either of you know of him or a connection he might have? The business listed a Summerville address on their paperwork.”

Xander shakes his head. “Never heard of him.”

I reply similarly. “We could look him up on social media?”

“Got it.” Xander whips out his phone and starts tapping away.

“Thank you, Dan,” I say with soft voice. “I really appreciate you going out of your way to help me, to help us, with this.”

Something fractures in my father’s composure. He hesitates and then swallows hard. “I know I’ve been pretty awful to you, and I will be sorry for the rest of my life.” He lifts his hand, and for a second, I think he’s going to rest it on mine. “But I’m working on myself, and I just appreciate you keeping in touch.”

My eyes well up, and I blink away the moisture. “I’m glad that we’re doing this.”

Dan smiles and we both sip our coffees. We sit there in silence for a few moments while Xander scrolls through his phone. Dan finally breaks the silence. “So, how was—or, er, yeah, how was your week?”

“It was pretty great, actually.” My cheeks flex as I can’t resist the smile blooming on my face.

Despite my feelings of anxiety and apprehension, I’m elated over the fact that something is brewing between Charlotte and I. It’s more than just physical. She sees me and accepts me. I don’t think I’ve ever felt judgment from her whenever I’ve peeled back a layer or shown her a different Aidan. Anytime she’s come across a rough patch or a sharp edge in me, she just runs her metaphorical hand over it and praises its texture or its ability to cut.

But I can’t tell my father that. There’s still too much history that makes me worried he’s going to be critical of me, or of her. I was nervous enough when we found ourselves in the same room last week during my coffee date with my father. But I’m not ready to have him see her and all her goodness just yet.

Maybe someday I’ll be able to tell him about the joy and hope I’m feeling.

“How about you?” I ask, trying to keep some sort of conversation going while Xander is glued to his phone. “Good week at work?”

Dan shrugs a shoulder. “Ah, you know how it is. Taxes are still a thing, and people need my help to pay them. I had a great breakthrough in my yoga class though.”

“Oh?”

“I can do crow now,” he remarks. His eyes sparkle as he talks, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen it. “That’s the one where you rest your knees on your elbows and then balance on your hands. It’s pretty hard, and you have to do a lot of prep poses. But it’s fun.” He grins. “So much fun and relaxing.”

My head shakes, and I let out a sigh. “That sounds really cool.” I never expected him to be this into yoga. Or any physical activity that didn’t involve sculpting his body to be the perfect superhuman. “I will admit I don’t know much about yoga. My exercise consists running, usually after students.”

“He really should lift weights,” Xander grumbles.

“Oh, you should try it sometime,” Dan says, and he pulls up a website for a yoga studio in Columbia. “This is the place I go to. I started it because my therapist thought it would be a healthier way to deal with stress. It’s worked pretty well, at least I think so. I feel so centered or grounded, or whatever they say. You could come with me sometime?”

“Yeah, sure.” I blink. I am still not entirely sure I trust the version of my father sitting in front of me. I recall an incident when I was a child where he called a yoga class, “a bunch of weird-ass hippies.”