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Oh shit. Mason just called Court into their scare my daughter straight party.
Merritt turns to look at the man I’ve fallen head over heels for and he looks like he doesn’t want to say a word. Shit. Could they be right? Does she take too many unnecessary risks? Sure, she’s wild and she’s going to make all of my hair turn a shocking shade of white one day, but she’s not that bad, right?
“Court?” she asks and by the look on his face I can tell that she’s not going to like his answer.
“Yeah,” he says quietly. “Eventually it catches up with everyone. No one can outrun it. I almost died in a parachute accident twenty years ago so I can say with some authority, and I really hate to do it, but yeah, it catches up to all of us.”
“Okay,” she says. Her lip quivers but she keeps it together.
“How about we go home and I make pancakes?” I suggest.
“Thanks, Mom,” she says. “But I think I’d like to be alone with a bottle of Jack tonight.”
“Okay.”
“Merritt,” Wyatt calls out as she turns and walks through the sliding glass doors.
“Let her go, Wy,” Mason says.
“You mean like you did?” Wyatt snaps. Uh oh. There seems to be a shifting of the tides where my daughters are concerned. “How’s that working for you? You here all alone and Audrey living her life in Chicago?”
“That was different, and you know it.”
“But was it better for you?”
“It was better for her and that’s all that matters,” he says, and my heart breaks for him. He always was such a good kid.
“I’ll ask you again in six months and we’ll see if you change your answer then,” Wyatt snaps.
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“Nothing. Not one goddamn thing,” he says before striding through the sliders.
“Fuck,” Mason bites out. “I’m going to go to the station and make my reports.”
“Sure,” Court says.
“I think now would be a good time to leave.”
“I’ll follow you home,” Court says. “I’ll make dinner. We can have a quiet night in.”
“Thanks,” I whisper because what a shit show today has been.
I wave goodbye to Gabe and then walk outside and climb into my SUV and head home. Court, true to his word, follows me there. When we get out and go inside, I hang up my jacket and drop my keys on the old hall tree that sits just inside the front door.
Court comes in behind me and quietly shuts the door. “Are you all right?” he asks me.
“I thought that was my line.”
“I’m no worse for the wear. Nothing a hot shower and a bottle of paracetamol won’t fix.”
“Okay.”
“I’m going to find something to make for dinner,” he says. “Anything you feel like in particular?”
“Whatever is easiest.”
“Okay.”
