Almost Like Being in Love by Beth K. Vogt

circle with the white phone emblem on the computer screen. Then she shoved her computer off her lap onto the coffee table and slammed the lid closed. Usually a Skype session with Logan resulted in a huge grin.
    But tonight, Logan had poked and prodded her with his words.
    Would you have played basketball if Dad hadn’t been crazy about basketball?
    Is that how you want to get ahead—because Dad made things easy for you?
    You can’t expect special treatment because you’re his daughter.
    Is that what she’d done? Expected special treatment because she was the boss’s daughter? Somehow her relationship with her father and her role as his employee got all tangled up. And both left her wondering, “What more do I have to do?”
    And which came first—daughter or employee?
    That ought to be an easy question to answer. She was a daughter first and an employee second.
    But if she was honest with herself, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt as if her father saw her as special—for any reason at all.

TEN

    W hen he lived on his own, Alex wouldn’t put a single drape, curtain, or valence on his windows. Nothing. The sun would pour into every single room all day long. And at night, he’d enjoy the stars, the phases of the moon . . . even the pale white glow of the streetlights. The stream of passing cars’ headlights.
    Let there be light . . . any and all light.
    He shut his bedroom door, moving down the hallway without glancing back at his parents’ bedroom. The closed door. He couldn’t hear a sound, but he knew what was happening. His father placating his mother, trying to persuade her to get up and get dressed for dinner at the Hollisters’.
    Not going to happen.
    She’d been missing in action Monday and Tuesday; the only evidence that she even lived in the house was the empty glasses and bottles that littered the kitchen counters and the coffee table in the Florida room, where the TV was left on for hours at a time.
    A plate of cold scrambled eggs and two strips of bacon sat on the kitchen counter, right next to yet another empty wine bottle.Alex had stopped counting the bottles years ago, tired of the ever-increasing sum that was a virtual warning flag. His father’s attempts to get his mother to eat breakfast before he’d left for work earlier that day had failed, but it looked as if he’d managed to remove one bottle from their bedroom.
    Alex scraped the food into the trash can, the sound of metal against the ceramic surface of the plate setting his teeth on edge. A squirt of liquid dish soap scented the air with lemon. With a blast of hot water from the faucet, he scrubbed the plate clean. The already loaded dishwasher worked away on the few glasses, plates, and utensils that he’d gathered up the night before. He and his dad usually ate on the run, dashing out the door to work to meet client after client. The freezer was stocked with frozen meals, not that his mother cared what they ate.
    Was it time for him to move out? Finally find an apartment—get a little space from all of . . . this? How many almost-thirty-year-old men still lived with their parents, anyway? Would moving out change anything besides his location? Or would things collapse worse?
    â€œHey, son.”
    Alex continued washing the already clean plate, the hot water turning his skin red as it rinsed away any remnants of wasted food.
    â€œYour mother’s not up to coming tonight. Says her head hurts.”
    â€œOkay.”
    â€œYou ready to go? The Hollisters will be expecting us.”
    And it’s not like they could call and say, We’re not coming. Mom’s had too much to drink. Besides, the Hollisters knew what the word headache meant. No further explanation needed.
    He took another swipe at the plate. “Let me just finish up here.”
    â€œYou want to drive over?”His father paced the