Chapter 2

Sophie’s trainers squeaked against the dew-damp pavement as she jogged past the empty playground, its swings swaying slightly in the midnight breeze. Jess was already there, perched on the highest point of the climbing frame like some disgruntled gargoyle. She didn’t wait for Sophie to speak. “You’re insecure,” she announced, tossing a pebble at Sophie’s shin.

The pebble bounced off Sophie’s shin with a sharp tink. She kicked it back harder than necessary, sending it skittering into the bushes. “I’m not insecure,” she muttered, hauling herself up onto the climbing frame. The metal bars were cold under her thighs, the paint flaking in familiar places where they’d scraped their knees as kids. “You just don’t get it.”

Jess rolled her eyes, flicking a stray leaf from her school skirt. “Enlighten me.”

“All of you think that my dad is a good man, and that’s ok. But being a good man is not enough. When have any of us felt passion for a good man without abs?”

Jess opened her mouth, but closed it immediately. None of them had even spared a thought for the good, average guys in the school.

“I fear that you will see him as some sad, middle-aged bloke you’ll have to tolerate between proper fucks with your own fit dads.”

Sophie’s fingers tightened around the rusted bar. “Imagine it,” she said, voice low. “Your dad—all lean and fit with his stupid detective cheekbones—getting properly worshipped by all of us. Meanwhile mine’s sitting in the corner like some ... some fucking charity case.” She swallowed hard, the image forming too clearly: Gemma’s dad with his construction-worker biceps pinning Mia against the wall, Mia’s marathon-runner father making Jess moan into the cushions—while her dad hovered awkwardly by the snacks, pretending not to notice that nobody was looking at him.

Jess watched the bolt clatter to the pavement below. Fuck. This wasn’t just about Sophie’s dad anymore. It was about the whole damn club—the delicate, ridiculous ecosystem they’d dreamed up over chipped nail polish and cafeteria gossip. If even one of them wasn’t all-in, the whole thing would collapse faster than Gemma’s eyeliner in PE.

Jess shifted closer, her thigh pressing against the cold metal beside Sophie’s. “Listen,” she said, voice uncharacteristically quiet. “If this is gonna work—really work—it can’t just be about whose dad’s got the best abs or whatever bollocks Gemma’s obsessed with.” She flicked a glance at Sophie’s clenched jaw. “It’s got to be about all of us wanting it. Properly.”

Sophie snorted, but her fingers relaxed slightly around the bar. “Easy for you to say. Your dad could star in one of those crap detective shows he loves.”

Jess flicked a pebble off the climbing frame, watching it disappear into the dark grass below. “Yeah, well,” she said, voice softer now, “my dad also still thinks ‘rizz’ means the noise a zip makes. No one’s perfect.” She nudged Sophie’s knee with her own. “But that’s not the point, is it?

The pebble Jess had flicked landed with a quiet plink in the empty paddling pool below them—the same one Sophie’s dad had patched with duct tape three summers ago when she’d ripped it jumping in with her shoes on. Sophie stared at the faint glint of silver tape in the moonlight, her throat tight. “He’s not less,” she said finally, the words coming out hoarse. “Just because he’s fat and bald and burns his toast every fucking morning—that doesn’t mean he should get some ... some pity shag while the rest of you cream yourselves over Gemma’s dad’s biceps.”

Jess didn’t laugh or roll her eyes this time. Instead, she reached out and grabbed Sophie’s wrist, her grip firm enough to stop the nervous picking at her skirt hem. “No one’s giving anyone a pity shag,” she said, voice low and serious. “That’s not how this works. If we’re doing this, it’s because we want it. All of us. Including your dad.” She paused, her thumb brushing over Sophie’s pulse point. “But you’ve got to stop acting like Gemma’s comment was some grand declaration of war. It was a fucking comment, Soph. Not a life sentence.”

Sophie’s breath hitched. The memory of Gemma’s words burned behind her eyelids—bright yellow and cartoonishly exaggerated, Gemma’s instant reaction to the idea of Sophie’s dad. Sure, Gemma had walked it back afterward. She’d said all the right things. But she’d had time to choose those words. The first ones had chosen themselves. “She didn’t have to say it,” she muttered, twisting her wrist slightly in Jess’s grip. “She could’ve just not reacted like my dad’s some...”

Jess squeezed tighter. “Like what? Some dad? Because newsflash—that’s what he is. And yeah, Gemma’s got the emotional range of a teaspoon sometimes, but you know damn well she didn’t mean it like that.”

“Ok,” Sophie said. But one word disparaging my dad from any of you, and I’m out.”

“Sounds fair,” Jess said. “No more fucking excuses.” She stood up. “First rule of the Dad Club—no chickening out.”

Sophie swallowed hard, her pulse fluttering at the base of her throat like a trapped bird. “And the second rule?”

Jess grinned, sharp as a stiletto blade. “None of our dads will need to jerk off ever again.”

The park bench creaked under five pairs of elbows as the girls huddled over Mia’s phone, its screen displaying a hastily drawn Venn diagram titled DADS: PROS/CONS. Jess’ fingernail—still glittery from yesterday’s polish session—tapped the glass. “Right, so my plan,” she said, voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, “is we each seduce someone else’s dad first. Like ... training wheels.” She mimed pushing handlebars for emphasis.

Gemma snorted, flicking a ladybug off the bench. “Training wheels? What are we, twelve?”

“Twelve-year-olds don’t shag their dads,” Mia pointed out, blowing a bubble until it popped with a smack.

Jess ignored them, twisting a strand of hair around her finger as she studied the diagram. “Jess is not entirely wrong,” she mused. “Starting with our own dads feels ... I dunno. Like jumping into the deep end without armbands.”

Sophie traced a finger along the splintered edge of the park bench, the wood rough under her touch. “Jess’s got a point,” she said slowly, watching the others’ faces. “Not about training wheels, but—” She exhaled sharply through her nose. “It’s like ... peeling off a plaster, right? You don’t just rip it straight off hairy skin. You go sideways first.”