Chapter 1

“So it’s settled,” Mackenzie said purposefully. “I’m getting naked. Then I’ll march right into Dad’s room and offer him a blowjob.”

“I ... don’t know that that’s going to work out so well,” replied Lila with some hesitation. Her best friend was not an aggressive person, but she was impulsive - theatrically so. It wouldn’t be unlike her to jump off the bed and out of the room in a melodramatic swirl determined to follow through with her whim lest her conviction be doubted. Looking into Mackenzie’s eyes, Lila could see a wave of delusional determinism mounting, so she stepped in. “Just doesn’t seem very ... romantic, you know?”

“Yeah, I suppose,” Mackenzie’s sighed, shoulders slumped.

“And you’re always saying it’s meant to be, right?”

“It is meant to be!”

“Right, so it would be a shame to rush it like that on account it’ll be his first, um, intimate memory with you ... like that.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Mackenzie said plopping herself backwards on the bed arms spread in exasperation (narrowly missing Lila’s head) staring dejectedly into the nothingness between her and the ceiling.

Having dodged her flamboyant mannerism, Lila laid back down, her head resting on one of Mackenzie’s outstretched arms. Even separated by a layer of thick pyjama fabric, any contact with her bestie filled Lila’s belly with butterflies. All she ever wanted was to be near her.

Mackenzie pulled her arm away as she turned onto her side, her nose half a foot from Lila’s face.

“Just feels like it’s taking literally forever for him to notice me. I can’t take it,” Mackenzie whined wistfully as she launched into her nightly lament about how agonizing it was to be doomed to be in love with her father. Obviously, he’d fall for her too if only he’d recognize her as the soulmate she was - not simply his little girl.

Lila could feel Mackenzie’s breath brush her skin with every word and it made her head go all a-flutter. The smell of peppermint toothpaste and pomegranate lip balm never failed to rouse her passions. There was nowhere else she’d rather be; nowhere she could be. In her mind, dawn broke and dusk fell in service of Mackenzie. Sure, her righteousness was a touch much. But her fierce resolve was just the thing that made her stand up for Lila every time she’d ever been bullied for her diminutive stature and cripplingly timid disposition. Lila had nothing to offer in return except her undying gratitude which, in a certain light, could easily be mistaken for out-and-out worship.

Well, he is your dad. She had said this once in response to Mackenzie’s sourness and she’d gotten an earful. Her friend was well aware of the taboo but didn’t see how it applied to her situation. Her dad wasn’t some lecherous predator drooling over the youth of tomorrow, eager to sow his seed into any naive gash he could get his giant meaty paws on. Quite the opposite. He was a tower of a man, as honourable as he was strong, whose heart remained shattered after the passing of his first and only love during childbirth. And, to hear Mackenzie tell it, he had no way of knowing that his beloved’s soul had passed into his daughter with the oh-so-familiar green eyes. “A soulmate’s a soulmate,” Mackenzie would say. “Society’s rules have no authority in the face of true love.”

Lila knew that that logic wouldn’t fly in a court of law, but she found Mackenzie’s over-the-top personality irresistible. Lila thought of her best friend as an endless fount of beauty, frightfully fascinating; an utterly mesmerizing ray of light she’d do anything to please.

“Your dad does notice you. How could he not?” Lila’s eyes gorged themselves on the blonde’s features. It was hard not to. Mackenzie was painfully gorgeous. She might have been a model or an actress but for her absurdly pronounced curves. And that look of perpetual delusion permanently plastered on her face belying her obsessive personality didn’t help either. Even Lila could admit that she could come off as creepy. Ultimately, it limited her pool of friends to basically Lila herself since no one else was inclined to deal with the emotional whirlwind that was Mackenzie Rook. “But what do you expect him to do?”

“I expect him to listen to his heart,” Mackenzie almost sang. She almost sang everything, really. “I know he can feel the draw within him. He just needs to let go.”

“Well ... maybe it’ll be easier when you’re, um, legal.” Lila lightly suggested.

“What?!” Mackenzie exclaimed almost sitting upright in bed.

“Shhhh! Be quiet, Macks. You’ll wake him up!” Lila tried to pull her back down onto the bed.

Mackenzie continued in a stage whisper. “Are you crazy? I am not waiting years for something that should have already happened! Besides, my birthday’s only months away! Dad needs to be my husband by then!”

“Oh right, I forg-”

A voice boomed from down the hall. “Macks! Lee! Get to sleep! It’s the middle of the night!”

“Sorry, Dad!” Mackenzie apologized with a sing-song lilt. Lila was cowering under the covers as if her visibility made any difference.

The pair waited a few beats before continuing, decidedly quieter.

“Don’t you hear the loneliness in his voice?” Mackenzie pulled down the covers to reveal Lila her voice catching. “He needs me, Lee.”