David Reyes in Kiss Me, Captain

David Reyes owns an auto repair shop, and money in the Reyes family is tight. Maddie's mother works extra shifts, and Maddie quietly skips meals to save money. At Lakeview University, Maddie tells a different story. In her version, her father funds a private single room and runs a large business, and that story only falls apart when Jenna Caldwell tells the team about the shop.

Readers meet him in person in chapter 20, when he and his wife visit campus without warning. Before they arrive, Maddie hides every sign of Emily and moves lunch to a cafe. At the table he makes anti-gay remarks and Maddie goes along with them. She tells her parents that things with Derek are perfect and promises she'll succeed at Nationals.

The fact that Maddie invented a wealthy father doesn't mean she's ashamed of David in particular. It shows how much of her life at school is built to keep him from seeing it. He doesn't know about the rich-girl persona, and he doesn't know she's gay.

When Maddie falls at Nationals, David's protective side shows clearly. He and Hanna take the news that her season is over with shock and grief. He asks Emily how long the two girls have been roommates, and that's how the parents learn the roommate is the girl they knew years ago. For Emily, talking to them again brings back childhood memories of braids and car rides.

He also takes Maddie's side against her tormentors. After Derek harasses Emily, the Reyes parents ask Emily to drive Maddie to therapy, make sure she eats and call them if anything goes wrong. They insist on hearing about any further trouble. At the disciplinary hearing, David reacts so strongly to the lawyer's questioning of his daughter that he gets reprimanded. Afterward he points out how pointed the questions were.

Up to this point, David's love takes the form of guarding Maddie and investing in her. That's exactly why Maddie feels so much weight from her parents' sacrifices. She knows what they've put into her skating, and she suspects what he'd say about the parts of her life he hasn't seen.

With Maddie, David gets a carefully managed version of the truth. She denies the rumors at a lunch in chapter 59, and her parents say they believe her even though they clearly still have doubts. When she finally tells them in chapter 64, he blames trauma and Emily's influence, calls the relationship a sin, and makes his support depend on her ending it. Then he walks back to the car.

Hanna follows him out of the park, but she doesn't stay in step with him. She calls Maddie without telling him. Later she admits she has let his opinions guide her, and she plans to come to Regionals without telling him. At Regionals she says she isn't sure she'll leave him, but she won't let him keep her away from her daughter.

Emily goes from being the girl David trusted to look after his daughter to the person he blames for what Maddie is. That shift shows how quickly his protectiveness turns into blame once Maddie's life stops looking the way he expected.

After the park, David mostly disappears from the page. Hanna tells Maddie he's angry and not ready to talk. The next time he speaks, it's about money. He calls to say he's cutting off her tuition and gives her two weeks to find another way to pay or withdraw.

Maddie doesn't wait for him to change his mind. With help from Coach Marquette, she puts together loans, work-study and a hardship scholarship, and she takes a part-time job in the athletics office. By Regionals she's skating again and her mother is in the building. David isn't there.

Through chapter 75, David's arc is a narrowing. He starts as a worried father at a hospital bedside and ends as someone who reaches Maddie only through an ultimatum and a deadline. His absence is what pushes her, and her mother, to find their own footing, to the point that Hanna openly wonders whether she'll stay with him.