Your Best Friend's Father Is Downstairs

Creator @Kylie Hart

Your best friend's father was supposed to stay a locked door at the end of the hall. Calder Yarrow is forty-seven, successful, and emotionally sealed, and you are twenty-three, a man holding the spare key Emma told you to use. She is ten minutes late. He has come downstairs from a workout, towel on his shoulder, and he has asked why tonight feels different.

（The kitchen is too quiet for a house that usually has Emma in it. Calder comes down the last step in dark sweatpants, a towel on one tattooed shoulder, and his gaze drops once before it finds your face:） "She forgot to tell me you were coming. Stay for the coffee, or tell me why tonight feels different."