Chapter 8

Several weeks had passed since the girls had put their campaign in motion, and already the game had become more intricate and dangerous than any of them had anticipated. The first week, Sophie, Jess, Gemma, and Mia had operated with a kind of reckless innocence—fluttering their eyelashes, making too much eye contact, giggling at the strangest intervals, tossing their hair like they were in a shampoo commercial. Each of their fathers, initially oblivious, had seemed vaguely flattered by the attention, if a little suspicious. The second week brought escalation. Innocent touches were replaced by lingering hand-holds, by Jess’s “accidental” lapses into Mia’s father’s lap during movie night, by Gemma’s habit of giving surprise backrubs while Sophie’s dad stood at the stove, tensed and sweating as he tried to make dinner. Mia perfected the “lost earring” routine, disappearing for long spells under the couch only to emerge flushed and breathless, clutching not only the earring but also some secret knowledge gleaned from the proximity of Jess’s father’s shins.

The girls kept a meticulous log of their exploits, meeting every Saturday morning in the park to debrief. They’d compare notes on who had gotten the best reaction, whose father seemed most susceptible to the next phase, and which moves had backfired, requiring hasty explanations and tactical retreats. The third week marked a turning point. The girls were no longer content with subtext; they began to prod at the boundaries, to puncture the membrane between plausible deniability and open provocation. Mia’s crowning moment was the day she’d “forgotten” her sports bra at Gemma’s house, prancing in a state of studied disarray just as Gemma’s father opened his office door. She’d watched the vein in his temple twitch, watched the way he averted his gaze and then couldn’t help but stare every time she reached for the remote on the centre table. Jess had staged an elaborate “accidental” sleepover with Gemma and Mia, and Mia had slipped away from the giggling mass of sleeping bags in the living room to find Mike Donovan in his home office, where she’d curled up on the arm of his chair and played with his hair until he’d begged her—voice trembling—to go back to her friends. Gemma and Sophie were no less inventive.

The fathers’ reactions had evolved too, oscillating between confusion, discomfort, and a raw, desperate attention, as if they were aware of the game but powerless to resist its gravitational pull. Some nights, after the girls had retreated to their rooms, they heard their fathers pacing the halls, unable to sleep. And still, every week, the girls regrouped, dissecting the results, strategising the next move.

Today, they were sprawled on the soft grass in the park, the sun warm against their bare arms. Their legs tangled, their laughter overlapped, each of them eager to top the other’s story.

“Jess, I swear your dad almost swallowed his tongue when I took off my socks in front of him,” Gemma giggled, plucking blades of grass and letting them flutter onto Sophie’s knee. The afternoon sun dappled through the oak leaves above them, casting playful shadows across their tangled limbs. Sophie snorted, adjusting the strap of her tank top—still slightly damp from where Jess had ‘spilled’ her soda twenty minutes earlier during an animated retelling of Mia’s dad massaging Jess’s feet with a visible erection.

Mia rolled onto her stomach, propping her chin on stacked hands. “At least my dad knows how to give a great foot massage. Your dad almost died when you touched his leg.” She kicked her feet lazily in the air, the soles of her trainers scuffing against each other. “Gem, your dad gets points for sheer endurance,” Sophie said. “I was basically grinding against his leg in the garage, and he still tried to hand me a wrench.”

Each anecdote was a dare, a blueprint for escalation. The more they told, the more ridiculous and elaborate their attempts became—the ‘accidental’ towel slip, the unzipped hoodie with nothing underneath during a movie night, the strategically timed hugs that went just a little too long. Mia joked that by the end of the week their fathers would need therapy, or at least a cold shower installed in the garage. But beneath the laughter, a current of hungry calculation ran. They compared notes, lined up the reactions like lab results: who got embarrassed, who got angry, who played dumb, and who seemed to want to play along.

Gemma stretched her arms overhead with a satisfied groan. “We’re wearing them down. They’re all thinking about it now—you can tell by how they won’t look at our mouths when we talk.” She grinned, sharp and knowing. “Very soon they will be ready for phase two.”

Jess nibbled her lower lip, suddenly serious. “What if one of them ... stops us?” The question hung between them, heavier than the humid summer air.

Sophie’s laugh was a bright, brittle thing. “Then we thank him for being such a good dad and try harder next time.” She plucked Jess’s soda can from the grass and took a swig, the aluminium denting under her grip. “But they won’t. They’re already halfway there. Did you see how Mia’s dad kept ‘accidentally’ calling Gemma ‘sweetheart’ after she made him pick her up to ‘reach the top shelf’?”

Gemma plucked at a loose thread on her cutoff shorts. Her dad had been quieter since the garage incident—polite, almost careful. Last night, he’d reheated leftovers without turning on the kitchen light, moving through the dark like a man avoiding landmines. She wondered what he’d taste like if she kissed him properly.