Work Text:
"Singapore?" Rachel asked.
"Yes," their father said.
"Your new boyfriend is taking you to Singapore," Sarah confirmed, wishing for a denial. It wasn't news that her dad was bi, or a closet case gay or whatever he was. She'd sort of figured it out ever since she learned that her mom finding him with another man was what led to their divorce. The whole sugar daddy decades younger than him was news, though, and not ones she was sure she liked.
"Yes," their father repeated. He took one of the shirts from their hook and held it up, inspecting it with a critical eye. He was doing, Sarah was willing to admit, an incredible job at pretending like it wasn't anything important.
"The boyfriend that flew you to Dubai and kept you in his penthouse and is also paying for your treatment," Rachel pointed out.
"Yes," their dad confirmed.
"The one that's definitely younger than me," Sarah, the youngest of the sisters, said blandly.
"That one," he agreed.
That was what finally broke Rachel's reverie and spurred her into action. She stalked across his room and grasped him by the shoulders. "Dad," she said. "Dad, are you insane? Where did you even meet this guy?"
"It wasn’t in one of my classes,” he said drily.
"Thank God," Rachel said, just as dry. "At least you aren't a cradle robber."
"Arguably," Sarah said, before she looked at her dad. "So how does it work? You're his... his sugar baby or something?"
"No," he said, taking his glasses off and rubbing his eyes. Purple eyes, now. Some sort of side effect from his new treatment, according to him, though Sarah would be damned if she believed that. "Hell no."
"Then what is his deal?" Rachel fumed. "He's taking you on expensive travels to Dubai and Singapore and Kyoto and Sydney and Argentina and he's paying for your treatment and offering to pay for the mortgage of our houses and who knows what else? What is he getting in return?"
"My lovely company," their father replied.
"No," Sarah said, "you're not that interesting."
"I'll have you know I was the hottest guy in the club when I was young," he defended.
He was also, Sarah didn't point out, a crackhead.
"Uh huh," she said dubiously. “Well, how did you meet him?”
“I was writing a book for his, well… Let’s call him a business associate, and that’s how we met.”
“‘Let’s call him?’” Rachel, who had inherited from their father a journalistic drive and impulsivity and quick wits, harped. “So, what was he then? His husband?”
“Well—” He started, then stopped.
“Oh my God,” Sarah whispered, putting her head in her hands.
“Dad,” Rachel said, sounding faint. “Dad, please tell me you did not homewreck a marriage.”
“I did not homewreck a marriage,” he said, running his hands over his face, looking both tired and bemused and definitely lying.
“Oh my God,” Sarah said. “Oh my God, you did.”
“Dad!”
“That just proves I still got it,” he said. They stared at him like he was a stranger. “It’s a joke. Listen, that relationship was ending way before I arrived, all I had to do was expose an absurd amount of years of lies and get paid.”
“And a boyfriend,” Sarah told him. “You also got a boyfriend. The sugar daddy nursery home robber boyfriend.”
"Jesus Christ," their father said.
"So when are we meeting him?" Rachel asked, looking half-way between sick and angry.
“You don’t have to meet him,” he told them, mild dread coloring his voice.
“Oh, don’t worry about it,” Rachel said sweetly. “I want to.”
Daniel Molloy, two times Pulitzer winner journalist, looked from one daughter to the other, then sighed. At last, he spoke: “Tomorrow night when he comes to pick me up for our flight."
"To Singapore," Rachel repeated.
"To Singapore," their father agreed.
The nursery home robber boyfriend was, indeed, decades younger than everyone else in the house. He was tall and had beautiful dark hair and soft features and was definitely twenty two at the most.
The boyfriend walked out of his car, a discreet SUV that made Sarah's pockets ache just by looking at it. He was dressed in bespoke stealth wealth clothes that Sarah hated. Your fashion sense is lacking and you have the personality of drying paint.
He furrowed his nose, almost like he was about to complain, like he heard her, then his face became a mask of neutrality.
"Dad," Rachel groaned when she saw him. "Dad, I understand if you're trying to live the good life at your advanced age and all that but couldn't it have been with someone a little closer to your age?"
"Everyone my age is either unhappily married or in nursery homes," he said.
"And they're very content in their nursery homes," Rachel snapped.
"No, they aren't," he said.
"I never see them flying to Dubai."
"That's because they don't have the money."
"You don't either," Sarah pointed out.
Their father sighed. Nursery home robber boyfriend knocked on the door.
Their father opened the door and the boyfriend leaned in and kissed his cheek. Rachel made a face. Boyfriend extended his hand toward them, open-palmed. Sarah shook it and suppressed a shiver at the coldness.
"It's so nice to meet you," Sarah exclaimed, only half-true.
"The pleasure is all mine," nursery home robber boyfriend said. “Daniel speaks a lot about you.”
Sarah was strangely touched by that. She knew they hadn't been close to their father when they were younger and their mother had full custody of them, and that their relationship was still somewhat strange for all three of them, but it warmed her to know that their father talked about them. To his boyfriend. The boyfriend that was decades younger.
Hm. Beggars couldn't be choosers.
“Does he?” Rachel said, waspishly. It was hard to say whether it was because it was their father she was talking about or because it was the extremely young boyfriend that was speaking. “He doesn't talk about you often.”
Ah, so that was the angle.
Boyfriend inclined his head. “I imagine it is because I steal him away so often. I'll make sure to lend him to you more often.“ Boyfriend nuzzled his face in the crook of her father’s neck and Sarah wanted to gag. “My love, I'll take your baggage to the car.”
He leaned in for a last kiss on his cheek and hauled the baggage off the porch and dragged it to his car.
“Dad,” Rachel said, as they watched the play of the car's lights on the night time street. “You're still in time to ditch him.”
“Now, why would I do that?”
“Is he the reason you've relapsed?” Sarah asked, not quite hiding the trembling of her voice.
“Oh, baby, no, don't think that,” he said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “I haven't relapsed.”
Rachel scoffed. “Then what was it with your interview last week? The one about the vampire book?”
“Daddy, you can't tell me you weren't high there.” Sarah grabbed his hand and was assaulted by the sudden realization that he was just as cold as the nursery home robber boyfriend. Did she have a fever? She felt fine.
“I wasn't high,” he insisted. “I was euphoric, that's a whole different thing. Besides, he didn't even read the book.”
“You acted like you were high,” Rachel accused.
“I wasn't,” he insisted.
After a moment, Sarah nodded. “Okay, I believe you.” She had no other option, after all. Rachel and her had looked all over the house and hadn't found a single drug. “And I guess I'm fine with your boyfriend. So long as he makes you happy.”
“I'm not,” Rachel said. “And I won't be until you get him to come to a family dinner.”
“Armand will hate that,” her dad said in a way that meant he wanted nothing more than to see it.
“My love, we're going to be late!” Boyfriend called from the car.
Her dad smiled then, shook hands gruffly with Rachel and leaned to kiss Sarah on the forehead. “I'll call you when I get there.”
“To Singapore,” Rachel echoed.
“To Singapore,” he agreed.
"I'll hold you to that," she threatened.