Hawk flashes a smile at Lillie, taking his time as he fishes around in his pocket for his lighter. Locating it, he lights up and takes a long drag, making sure to responsibly exhale away from the children. He continues to stand there, eyes on his daughter for a good long while — a wordless paternal shaming — before deciding that he’s tortured her enough and turning his attention elsewhere. He scans the group of kids, taking in all their faces, and gives a small nod.
❛ Thanks, guys. Good job. No rush. I’m in the Thunderbird; when y’all are done here, just climb in and I’ll take you home. ❜
He gives Lillie another look, then turns around and makes his way back toward the parking lot, taking his time as he goes.
Once he feels the security of pavement beneath his feet again, he takes off his boots one at a time and pours out the accumulated sand. Before getting back into his car, he takes another drag of his cigarette and glances back at the distant sight of the bonfire. Hawk shakes his head, laughing incredulously to himself. Thank fuck that worked.
Parenting is still new, strange. He isn’t used to being the responsible one. He’d spent his whole life up until now still seeing himself as a dumb, worthless kid of seventeen — but shit, somewhere between Chico and LA he ended up grown.
And all of them are babies.
He settles into the driver’s seat and waits, carelessly hanging the cigarette-wielding hand out the open window and playing some music.
God, she is never going to live this down. Her friends are going to tease her about this for weeks — or maybe even longer, she can feel it now. She stoops over, grabbing sand with her now empty solo cup and pouring it over the flames in an attempt to quell the fire, all while her friends chuckle and laugh behind her.
“ Your dad seems cool, ” the one friend that hadn’t stepped up to embarrass her spoke from behind a cup of water, “ If any of our dads found us out here doing this, they probably would have fed us to the seagulls or roasted us over the bonfire. ”
“ There is still time for that, ” Lillie knows well that her dad is going to be the most chill about pretty much anything by miles, but the embarrassment and shame still won’t go away. She was sure that her note was going to be enough to get away with this – unfortunate as this whole thing is, she’s glad she didn’t get a full scolding.
But that might come later, behind closed doors when all of her friends are safely at home.
The teens work together to clean up their part of the beach and with her tail tucked between her legs, Lillie walks her friends to the parking lot. The other teens titter and laugh to themselves while Lillie stays silent, each slipping into the car as they were instructed to do. The girl with the box dyed hair, Tabby, pulls her phone out of her pocket to use as a faux-microphone, “ And here we are at the scene of Lillian’s execution— ”
“ Will you guys shut the fuck up? Literally so annoying, ” Lillie sinks into the passenger seat as her friends erupt into laughter. She refuses to look at Hawk.