"Right." Dad clapped his hands together once the last of my boxes was loaded out of our carts and piled haphazardly under my lofted bed and over Li's furry pink rug. "Should we unpack first, eat, or try to hit up the bookstore?"

"Where are you staying tonight?" I glanced around at the now ridiculously smaller space. With the boxes we'd brought down in my and Dad's cars, we had one T-shaped walking path through what little floor space the room had.

"About that..." Dad rubbed one hand over the side of his neck a few times and dropped his gaze.

"You're not staying tonight," I stated, not asked, and he nodded sheepishly.

Legal duty calls.

A small part of me understood and I felt slightly disappointed but mostly concerned that Dad drove down here for more than seven hours, then a few hours later turned around and drove it back alone overnight.

"But I'm not leaving until we go get your books at the bookstore," he insisted with an apologetic smile. "And taking you to dinner, then picking up food at the grocery -"

"I'm not Ellie, Dad." I shifted my eyes toward the small microwave Li perched atop the smallest refrigerator I'd ever seen but wasn't sure if I even needed those. "And you bought me the meal plan, I'm good."

Just reading through Ellie's food blog, with Logan's five thousand calories, makes me tired.

"Harper -" Dad started in a stern voice, well stern for him. Based on Li's polite smile, he probably sounded like a mewling kitten to her.

"Let's do the bookstore, then dinner," I offered since no part of me wanted Dad's accidental hands on my 'tampons' box.

"I can show you down the dining hall," Li spoke up. "Feast is on the first floor, very good. And tomorrow I can show you where your classes are, if you want."

"Good plan." He nodded tightly, then extended one hand to my new tour guide. "Nice to meet you Li... Umm, good luck."

"Daaaaaad," I groaned quietly as Li giggled.

Poor girl has no idea.

"You sure about this," I repeated to Dad as we stood outside Feast, the dining option inside Rieber Hall that Li directed us into.

While Dad and I gawked around like tourists, Li's small frame marched straight to a counter with an overhead sign that read 'Bruin Wok.' Cream colored floors and ceilings were broken up by redwood accents in the circular buffet-station-and-pay-at-the-end style dining hall on the ground floor of our dorm.

"Yeah," Dad's uneasy voice probably hadn't even convinced the people who worked here.

"It's Pan-Asian," I pointed out the obvious with a twirled finger. "You okay to drive after that?"

While I lived for spicy foods, Dad had the mildest stomach of anyone I knew.

Again, how we're related, I have no idea.

Dad and I couldn't have been furthest on the human spectrum other than the fact we were both tall and thin. He was straight as a stick with a barely visible muscular tone while I had giant boobs and curved hips but our brown vs. blonde hair, brown and blue eyes, even his pasty-pale and my sun-kissed shades of skin color were different.

Personality differences are even bigger.

I still loved the old guy and the last thing I wanted for him was he experienced his own roadside stops from an upset stomach or worse, diarrhea.

"Li!" I grabbed my pint-sized roommate's elbow as she whizzed past us, a togo-box clutched in both her hands. "Are you eating with us?"

"I figured... I'd eat in the room," she replied quietly as her eyes darted between us. "Last night with Dad kind of thing."

"Oh, right." I dropped her elbow. "I'll see you later then?"

Her short black hair swished around her ears as she nodded emphatically, smiled brightly then paid for her meal, and exited.

"I like her," Dad mused quietly and studied the menu options of what looked like Vietnamese food options.

"Plain white rice," I reminded him with a soft arm pat.

A few minutes later, Dad and I sat across from each other at a small, dark wood table with a gray marbled stone top. Floor to ceiling windows edged the eating area but what little light that was left outside concerned me for Dad's drive back home.

"You sure you can't stay?" I asked between bites of my amazingly spicy Kalbi, or Korean BBQ short ribs. A lovely man in a black chef coat coated extra Thai chili flakes over them like snow into the soy-based sauce and every taste bud on my tongue erupted in delight.

At the warmth that swelled my tongue and coated the inside linings of my mouth with each tender piece of beef that practically melted on its own, I slid my eyes closed and moaned quietly.

Definitely eating this again.

"Harper..." Dad's quiet voice snapped my eyes open, which lifted up from his blanched white rice and chicken with broccoli teriyaki. His expression matched the seriousness he spoke with and internally I braced myself for a father-daughter life lesson I expected but never came.

Instead, he said the last words I'd imagined, accented with a random jab of his fork into a piece of chicken.

"I'm a little worried about you."

"You're... worried?" My eyebrows couldn't have lifted any higher since I thought we'd put our 'Harper, you disappoint me' speech days behind us. The plastic chopsticks clenched between my right index finger and thumb slipped out of my grasp, landed on the table, and rattled against each other.

"Even though I forced you out..." Dad's eyes filled with guilt at that admission. "It's not... easy for me to let you go."

My tongue darted out, removed a drop of sauce that burned a spot on my lower lip as I lifted one 'stop please' palm at Dad. Right when I parted my mouth with a for sure snarky reminder, his shoulders bounced slightly, he chuckled, and admitted, "I know, you can take care of yourself. Mace, lipstick pepper spray, your phone alarm -"

"Dad..." Sarcasm flooded through my mouth because the unusual emotion that threaded into his normally stern, flatlined voice was too much for me to respond to differently. "Did you have me microchipped in my sleep or something?"

"No, but I considered it," he teased with a glint in his warm brown eyes. "I'm not comfortable with you being completely on your own... There's a few people you know from high school here, so maybe..."

I palmed one hand over my forehead in a V-shape with my thumb on one side of my nose and fingers on the other, then dragged it down over my eyes and nose before I pinched both cheeks into the sides of my nose.

He is not suggesting what I think he is.

The truth strangled itself in the back of my throat as I struggled how I honestly described my most likely toxic, sex- and mistake-driven past with Jake in words that were censored enough so he hadn't slapped a chastity belt on me and dragged me back to Santa Cruz.

"Dad..." My fingers released my face and absently wrapped around my chopsticks, which had suddenly become the most interesting thing I'd ever seen. "Jake and I aren't... friends. We kinda hate each other."

Another quiet chuckle left Dad's mouth as he leaned back in his seat. If the man wasn't my dad, I would've lashed out at his next choice of words, "I didn't say who, Harper, but since you brought Jake up -"

Fuck, I did.

With a slight lean forwards and look straight into my eyes, Dad drove his unusual wedge of blunt honesty deeper, "I always thought that Harrison boy wouldn't have been the worst one for you to date. He made some dumb mistakes for sure but always seemed like your favorite to insult."

Easy target.

Dad's chuckle deepened into a laugh when I coughed loudly, slumped down in my seat, then pretended I fell on the floor under our table. "He had his anger issues but the boy in the posters is a different man. I think he's realized he made a mistake and -"

"Okay, stop. Staaaaaap," I groaned out the 'aah' sound, palmed my hands onto the table as I pushed myself back into my seat, and flashed both hands up in surrender. "First off, those are Li's posters, not mine. Besides, Jake's not even at this school and is more than busy with... football."

Before he responded, my eyes narrowed. "And I'm fine. I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself."

All of myself.

I certainly don't need Jake as the paddle for my canoe.

Nope. Well, maybe the nude pic for -

With a soft smile, Dad patted my closest hand gently. "I know but I won't be sorry for caring about you."

Dad's words, eerily similar to what Ellie said on my drive down here, hit me hard and my stomach clenched like I braced for an oncoming punch. With a pathetically weak smile that definitely hadn't convinced him by the skeptical look that crept into his eyes, I repeated, "I'm fine."

"Bearwear..." Dad mumbled off and walked under the large neon sign that hung over the clothing section area in UCLA's bookstore.

After his horrible suggestion that I... I wasn't sure what he implied about Jake, Dad and I picked up nearly a thousand dollars of books at the bookstore. They weighed heavily in my arms and I definitely averted my eyes from the white, gold, and blue Bruins football section posters once I saw one hung up of an older version of number eighteen, Jake's blonde-haired, green-eyed best friend I knew from high school and, sure enough, currently played tight end for UCLA's football team.

A quick mental scan through one of the team posters and roster names was all I needed for my own list of 'definitely avoiding these dicks at all costs.'

The fuck does Dad want me to do with these kind of tools?

Befriend them? Go to their games?

Solicit them?

I nearly choked on my own tongue at that thought. Thankfully, that very Dad interrupted my dazed thoughts with, "I'm going to get some shirts."

Still slightly distracted by Kieran Meade's presence on the wall over my shoulder, my only response to Dad was a mumbled, "Great."

"You wouldn't let me buy any Cabrillo stuff, let me have my embarrassing and proud Dad moment," he mused and picked up a white polo golf shirt.

Before he lifted the hanger as a possible option, I snorted and shook my head. "You wear dress shirts, suits, and... dress shirts," I reminded him with a grin.

"I've been told that I need to relax a little bit more," he murmured so quietly as his eyes roamed over the shirt racks that I knew he spoke more to himself than me.

While boring, men's fashion was still fashion, even embarrassing college-bound paraphernalia, so I dove into the racks and rummaged through what actually fell under potential weekend options for Dad.

If he actually stops spending all his time at work.

I tossed a lightweight gray jacket with a small UCLA logo on the breast pocket and lifted my eyebrows at him. "Who told you to relax?"

Dad's cheeks turned slightly pink since we both fully knew who I referred to, a certain MILF-like mother of Ellie's boyfriend Logan. Last year, Ellie had informed me that Grace Hightower and Logan's brother Brody had moved to Scotts Valley, which was conveniently thirty minutes closer than where she previously lived in Salinus.

Convenient for Dad, if he does anything about it.

I liked Grace, as long as her loudness at football games wasn't directed at me, and she'd handled two athletic teenage boys that hadn't ended up complete assholes. Dad openly flirted with her, well for his lack of game, even held her hand and kissed her cheek upon greeting.

Dad and Grace hadn't consistently seen each other when they were in California though, only on trips up to Seattle last year, so my mouth dropped open when Dad simply admitted, "I do like her, Harper."

A real, true, genuine smile pulled across my lips... for two seconds. "So..." I handwaved the obvious 'do something about it' sentiment as he slipped on the coat and earned himself a thumbs up from me.

He looks good, even though he'll probably never wear it.

"What do you think?" Dad casually smoothed his palms over the coat, like he hadn't just admitted that he had some kind of feelings for Logan's mom.

"I think we'd better not talk about the damn coat!" I chided him, then consented, "Even if it does look good."

"Should I get a UCLA School of Law shirt too?" He lifted one off a rack behind him but my hands were squeezed into tight fists on my hips before he even turned back around.

Tension creased between my eyebrows as I scrunched them together tightly, wrenched my mouth to one side, and jutted my hip slightly to my left. My response had nothing to do with the fact that I wasn't enrolled in the law school but technically UCLA Extension, an adult education program for the paralegal certification.

"What?" His brown eyes blinked at me from behind his frameless glasses. "No shirt?"

"Dad!" I nearly stomped my foot at the most clueless man in California. "You just told me that you like Grace so casually that you could've told me you like grilled cheese sandwiches."

"I do like grilled cheese sandwiches." His face still read embarrassed that he'd admitted his interest but the impassive tone in his voice hinted there was a giant 'but' coming. I held my hardened 'spit it out' glare at him, until he re-racked the shirt, slipped off the coat, folded it over his forearm, and sighed.

"Look, Harper..." he started in a firm, quiet voice and stepped towards me. With two warm hands clamped over my shoulders, he reminded me of the obvious, "You know I'm a horrible person to date."

"You should give yourself more credit," I grumbled as my gaze softened as the mental image of Dad popped into my brain, home alone with a pathetic take out dinner on the sofa with one of his awful crime dramas on the television. "Seriously, I really think Grace isn't the static cling-on that what's-her-name was."

"Carol," Dad corrected me with a slight frown. "My job isn't easy, Carol couldn't take the separation it demands and..."

My heart nearly ripped in half when his voice vanished, his hands tightened around my shoulders, and he swallowed hard. I needed no physical signs that he meant 'Mom left' was what he hadn't said, so in an uncharacteristic gesture, I stepped forwards and wrapped my arms around Dad in a hug that felt stiff for both of us.

With Dad's life-sucking job, he'd only dated one woman since Mom left us and even then waited two years before Carol herself asked him out. The grocery store manager brought me home trashy romance novels in a half-hearted attempt that she connected to me. They dated for almost three years, although with Dad's job separation I'm sure their actual shared time probably felt more like six months together.

Carol had been less than subtle when she suggested Dad and her lived together, which he'd politely declined and started the end of that relationship.

He probably said no because of the hot mess now hugging him, but now he's now partially rid of me.

"I know," I murmured into his shoulder. "But you completely sell yourself short and I want you to be happy. And not lonely, sitting around by yourself Friday nights without my awesomeness to brighten up your boring personality."

"I will miss your... awesomeness." His quiet reply sprung even more uncharacteristic and nearly foreign drops of clear liquid into the corners of my eyes, which I blinked away quickly.

A few warm pats on my back later, Dad and I broke apart and I studied his face. Yes, he was older and I'd probably aged him horribly, with streaks of gray that ran through his jet-black hair like nearly white highlights. His eyes were notched with crows' feet around the creases but he was hard-working, kind, way too self-sacrificing, and - fuck knows with a daughter like me - patient.

"You should take Grace for a test drive," I offered what I hoped looked like a supportive smile. "She's tougher than you're giving her credit for. I mean, single mom to high school boys? Lady balls right there."

"Language, Harper." Dad squeezed his eyes closed and shook his head. I waited patiently and got the response I deserved when he sighed. "Point made, thanks."

Since the stoic, diplomat tone slipped back into Dad's voice, I knew without an actual prompt that subject was over. A few clothing racks later and a black long-sleeved shirt with a small 'UCLA Dad' tucked over the gray coat on Dad's arm, we reached the end of the clothing options.

"You didn't get anything." He frowned at my empty arms.

"I'm good," I assured him because while Ellie lived in baggy, shapeless sweatshirts, leggings, and tennis shoes, my look was a bit more... polished.

At least, I want to start my semester without wearing pajamas and slippers to class.

Before I realized how much time had passed, Dad and I stood outside his car in front of my dorm building, now lit up from the bottom against the dark night sky.

"Harper..." Dad hugged me tightly, a bit too tightly and those damn tears reappeared in the corners of my eyes, this time with a side of nasal congestion. "You'll be okay, I know it. Go to class and stay out of trouble."

Before I responded how tightly my hands clenched tight fistfuls of his shirt on his back, he whispered, "Proud of you. I don't show it but... I am. So make me prouder."

"I'll try," I murmured, pressed a soft kiss into his cheek, and stepped back a shaky heap of emotions.

Dad offered a few recommendations that went into one of my ears and out the other. Mentally though, I heard 'go to class and stay away from football players,' which was more than fine with me. A few more tight hugs and brushed aside tears later, Dad gave me one final hand wave and climbed into his car.

My heartbeat quickened the longer I watched Dad's departure, the last attachment to my old life in Santa Cruz. With a quick turn on my heel, the corners of my lips curled upwards at the new, unfamiliar surroundings around me.

New school, new living situation, new life.

Can't wait.