"Nugget, do you really have to keep on checking your phone?"

They were in the middle of the meal, but her anxiety was rising and she needed something to calm her down. For good measure, she took the far end of the table while her father was on the other end, sitting across from her.

At first, she thought sitting at the end of the table was a good idea because they were as far as possible from each other, but she didn't think of the fact that the duration of the meal, her father has his direct vision of her.

Luke was being his bubbly self. He was sitting on her right, enjoying his sushi. He and her father had a good conversation ongoing, while she would react a little as to be part of the conversation without actually joining in.

She was already full and food could no longer hold her attention. She needed a distraction, thus, she sent a message to Noah, which he quickly replied to because he was also bored at the investor meeting he was attending.

"Please, Nugget. It's not always that we shared a meal with your good friend. Be present. Whoever you were texting could wait - or you can invite him to join us too."

Luke kicked her leg under the table when her father said 'him' like he had an idea who she was exchanging messages with.

"Him? I was just messaging Ellise."

Sebastian chuckled at the other of the table, "Nugget, the reason why you don't lie — most of the time - was because you aren't a good liar."

Jess put down her phone and pursed her lips in annoyance.

"If this guy is making you lie to me, are you sure he is a good one?"

Jess slammed her chopsticks on the table in such a force that made Luke flinch in his seat.

'Shit, I want the table reservation here to bring my new boy toy.'

He turned his head to Sebastian and gave him a smile. "See this ring?" he asked, showing his left hand in front of him.

"It's a nice diamond ring. The kind that my rebellious daughter would choose." He replied to Luke but his eyes were on Jess who was pouting and murdering the sushi on her plate.

"You must really know your daughter's preference, Sebastian."

Sebastian tore his eyes from his daughter and looked at Luke who was showing off a huge diamond ring on his ring finger.

"Congratulations. It's good to know that you found a good man."

"Just by looking at the style of the ring, you knew that Jess would pick this kind of ring...which she did."

Sebastian's attention was now on Luke, "Jess got you this ring?" He squinted his eyes on the ring. He told him that he was gay, but he has seen a lot of gays and Luke doesn't look like one. If he doesn't talk in his 'other' voice, he wouldn't know at first glance that he is gay.

And now, he was telling him that his daughter bought him an engagement ring with a freaking huge diamond on it.

"Did I miss something?"

"Nothing really." he smiled. "I just don't want you and Jess to kill each other over sake, I mean, she promised to get me a table here to bring a date if I kept her out of jail tonight."

Jess hit Luke's hand with her chopsticks. "How dare you tell my father about our deal?"

Before Luke could answer, Sebastian roared in laughter.

Watching Sebastian laugh, Luke leaned to Jess and whispered, "Can't I really flirt at your father?"

"How was your shoulder? Was it much better now?" she smirked at him, gripping the chopsticks in her hand.

"Jess, you haven't changed." His voice was still ringing with laughter. "Luke, I will help you get your table reservation here. Aside from not good at lying, Jess knew how to keep her word. She was so good at it, that when she said, she won't see me anymore, she kept her words and didn't see me for years."

"Stop acting like it matters," she clicked her tongue.

"Of course, it matters. You are my daughter and you ignored me for how many years. I'm hurt."

"What do you want me to do about it?" she spat at her father's terrible acting.

"Take me out for another dinner tomorrow."

"No. I would kill myself if I get too much of your drama. This would be the first and the last until you disappeared in my sight again."

"Luke," he shifted on his seat to face him, "What do you think of how my own daughter is treating me?"

"Uhm, I don't know the whole story. But, can I tell you the whole story about my expensive engagement ring?" he offered.

"Loyal to my daughter, I see." he patted Luke's arm and shifted his gaze back to Jess who had a dark expression on her face. "It's good to know that you made yourself another good friend, other than just Dana and Ellise."

"You are just so annoying," she snarled at him.

He just laughed off what she said and poured sake and handed it to Jess. "We should get your friend - Luke, the table reservation for him and his date, don't you think?"

She rolled her eyes at her father but accepted the sake.

"Kampai," he said, drinking the sake.

"Kampai," she uttered under her breath. Her feelings towards her father overwhelmed her but it wasn't all bad. She brought the sake to her mouth and drank it. Maybe there is still a chance for her and her father to have an amicable relationship.

"Who is the man that you kept on texting, Nugget?"

'Or not.'

"I need to use the bathroom." She pushed her chair away from the table and marched to the direction of the bathroom.

Luke and Sebastian were left at the table seizing each other.

"Do you know this man Jess is seeing?" He asked as he poured himself another sake.

"You just said that my loyalty is with your daughter." he chuckled softly. He was getting a migraine with how Jess and Sebastian would snarl at each other.

"Don't think too much of what I had been telling my daughter. You are her friend. You should know that Jess only reacts honestly when you pissed her off."

"If I didn't know that fact, I would punch you in the face. You were deliberately acting like an asshole."

"Luke, Jess left home as soon as she finished high school. I let her because I thought it was just hormones - you know puberty," he heaved a deep sigh. "It was a mistake. Because when Jess left home she had a ten years plan, nailed and in place."

He chuckled wryly when Luke looked at him in confusion.

"You see, Luke. When Jess left I thought she would come back once she calmed down. I didn't know that she left with no plan of returning. She went out on her way to enter Stanford, bought her own apartment, and with the resolve to never ever talk to me."

"She is stubborn," he mumbled under his breath, for he couldn't think of anything to say. He had no idea that Jess did all that.

Sebastian laughed, "Oh boy, indeed she is stubborn as an unbroken mule. She got that stubbornness of hers from her mother."

"Jess is taking her time in the bathroom," he muttered under his breath, throwing a glance in the direction of where Jess went.

"She went to the bathroom not to use the bathroom but to escape me."

"Maybe you can try to tone down you're being an asshole to your own daughter?"

An amused chuckle escaped Sebastian, "Do you want to listen to Jess's mother and I love story while we wait for her to come back?" He asked, pouring himself another sake.

"You see, Luke. Stubbornness runs deep in Jess and her mother's veins. With her mother - Josie, she's beautiful - Jess takes after her when it comes to looks," he chuckled wryly. "Most of what Jess is, she got it from her mother. It's a good thing, I think.

Josie was the apple of her father's eyes. She grew up having everything on the palm of her hand and offered under her feet. Despite all of that, she was kind. Always."

Luke cleared his throat because the story was getting too personal. Sebastian's eyes were glistening with tears.

"Josie, just like Jess, would never give me a glance unless I pissed her off. Like mother, like daughter," he laughed. He is now clearly drunk.

"You know I used to follow her around the school, flipping her skirt so she would get mad at me."

Luke couldn't help but laugh. He could imagine young Sebastian following a young Josie in the school corridor, flipping her skirt.

"We became high school sweethearts, and the moment we entered university, we thought we became an adult and can do adult stuff. Jess came into our lives before we finished the freshman year."

"That's a very cute story."

"Yes. And the moral of the story was, we both don't know shit about being parents, and twenty-three years later, with seven daughters, and I still don't know shit about it."