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I boil over, and my fingers nearly push the trigger.
RYKE MEADOWS
He stops about twenty feet away, not even attempting to raise his hands in surrender. He has them casually stuffed in the pockets of his black slacks. It’s ballsy because right now a huge part of me wants to blow out his fucking kneecaps. The only reason he gets a pass is because I don’t want to explain to my brother why I crippled our dad.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” My jaw aches from clenching my teeth. I check on Daisy with a quick glance. She breathes more normally, her face less flushed, and she has the comforter wrapped around her body. Reminding me that she’s naked. I’m practically fucking naked. We just had sex.
I just proposed to her.
And here’s my dad. The one person who I can’t stand to look at right now.
His hair is graying by his temples, and he has a light layer of stubble, his eyes constantly narrowed and his face set in severe, strict lines.
“No one was answering the door, so I went around back,” he explains in a sharp voice, like I’m to fucking blame. “I saw the power cord, turned it on, here I am.” His tone is almost bored now. He gestures to me and then the lights. “Do you really think I expected to walk in on this?” He leans sideways to gain a better view of Daisy. He glances between her, me, then the lights, the bed, the pink rose petals, back to me. “I can’t say I’ve ever interrupted someone fucking in the woods.”
“What do you want?” It takes all my fucking energy, but I drop my arm. I can’t shoot him, no matter how much I see my dad like a poison.
He doesn’t break his eyes from me. “I came for your advice, but seeing as how there are two girls waiting at your doorstep, I think that’s more of concern.”
I shake my head, confused. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“They arrived when I was knocking on the door. Said they’re friends of Daisy’s and need to speak to her.” He barely glances back at Daisy. “They were going to follow me back here, but I told them to wait on the porch or else they’d be trespassing on private fucking property.” He smiles bitterly. “You’re welcome, by the way.”
I run a hand through my hair. What the fuck is going on? First, why the hell would my dad need my advice? Second…
I look back at Daisy, and she’s already standing up, clutching the blanket around her chest and hugging onto it tightly. She sidles next to me. “I’m going to change and then talk to them,” she says. “Maybe it’s just Willow and Maya or something…” Her voice trails off, knowing it can’t be those friends.
Willow fucking lives with us. And she’s spending tonight at Connor and Rose’s because she knew about the whole engagement plan. Fuck, she helped Lily and Rose string up the lights in the trees. There’s no way she’s on our doorstep, waiting around.
My muscles constrict when I think about Daisy’s other friends.
“Why don’t you take Nutty and get dressed,” I suggest, “and I’ll see what the girls want. If it’s something important, I’ll come get you.”
Color returns to her face, maybe even just by the mention of Nutty—or Coconut. I call the husky by a different name, only because the first week the dog stayed with us, she kept sliding across the waxed hardwoods with this silly what the fuck is happening expression. Lo, Connor, and I couldn’t keep from laughing, and it’s an image that’s stayed with the three of us since.
So she’s Nutty to us and Coconut to the girls.
Daisy nods once. “Okay, yeah…” She frowns suddenly. “Are you sure you want to talk to them? I can handle it.”
I feel my dad’s steely eyes dart from her to me.
“I know you can,” I say lowly, setting my hand on her head.
She lets out another breath but doesn’t declare whether or not she wants me to confront the girls before her. I interpret her silence as you can greet them, and we both trek back towards the house.
My dad follows like a shadow, and all of us exit the woods together. I make sure Dais isn’t wedged between my father and me. I keep two hands on her shoulders while she gingerly steps on the damp grass.
When I open the pool gate, I can’t hold it in any longer. “What fucking advice do you want?” I need him to fucking leave. The sooner, the better.
He cocks his head towards Daisy, his hardened gaze saying, not in front of her.
“Speak,” I force.
He pushes through the gate, not about to be left behind or locked out. I can barely look at him without popping a fucking blood vessel. So I follow Daisy around the pool, my hand dropping to hers. She trips on her blanket once, and I catch her around the waist, pulling her against my chest so she doesn’t accidentally flash my father.
“Oops,” she whispers, trying to knot the blanket better.
Fuck this. I lift her in my arms, and her smile returns but fades faster than I like. As soon as she sees Nutty’s nose pressed against the sliding glass door, her expression lights up.
I carry her through the doorway and then she taps my arm to set her down. The moment I do, she spins towards me, planting a warm kiss on my cheek.
“I’m going to change while you talk to your dad.”
I hate leaving her when we’re both fucking confused about what’s going on.
She must see the concern in my eyes because she says, “I’ll be okay on my own. I have Coconut. She’s a badass.”
“You’re a fucking badass too, you know?”
She smiles. “Enough to be a pirate?”
I kiss her tenderly on the lips, then more aggressively.
She gasps halfway, and when we break apart, she says softly, “Today has been perfect.”
It almost makes me feel better, even if it’s not completely fucking true. I watch her leave, our white husky’s tail whips from side to side, and she keeps stride with Daisy.
I return to the pool area, shutting the sliding door. The water is still black in the dark. And there’s my dad. Standing by the grill with his hands stuffed in his slacks.
“I’ll make it quick,” he tells me. Then he shifts his weight, uneasy. He can face the barrel of my gun with barely a blink, but right now, he fucking wavers.
What’s going on?
I comb my hand through my hair. For fuck’s sake, we’ve gone through a lot. My dad and me. Growing up, I despised him for practically disowning me and raising Loren Hale. Then I buried him with all my fucking demons. My dad, as far as I was concerned, was dead to me. When I met Lo, it all changed. My hate for Jonathan resurfaced. I hated how he treated my little brother. I hated him for being a shit father.
Years went by. Struggles. Talks.
Then I forgave him.
And I think that’s the hardest fucking thing about all of this. I forgave the bastard. I gave him a part of my liver. I saved his fucking life.
And then a few months ago, he shit on his second chance by trying to hurt Connor, outing his
sexuality to the media—all for what? To gain power over Lo again? To protect Lo from Connor? It’s all warped and wrong in his head.
I’m the one who believed he’d turn into a better man, only to be whiplashed by the vindictive, spiteful father I’ve always known.
Now it’s just fucking complicated. I don’t have energy to hate the guy like I used to, but I can’t stand here and be okay. We’re just not okay.
And I don’t know what will get us to that place again.
So right here, beside my pool in the middle of the night, waiting for him to ask for some sort of advice is the weirdest fucking thing that has happened to me in a while. I imagined my first time alone with him would be more volatile. Yelling. Screaming. Maybe some fists flying.
But things are always different in our minds, amped up to the thousandth degree. In reality, he almost seems feeble. Like a king who has abandoned his throne.
“I came into some information yesterday,” he tells me. “You know Emily Moore?”
Do I know Emily Moore? Not personally. “Lo’s birth mom,” I say with a shrug. “Willow’s mom.” Only Emily raised Willow up in Maine, before Willow moved down here to be closer to her half-brother.
“I’ve been in contact with Emily here and there to hand her checks for keeping Loren’s birth quiet,” my dad explains. He takes a deeper breath and scratches his neck. “Apparently, Emily decided last night was a good time to tell me that Willow was also my daughter.” He rolls his eyes. “All this time I should have just forced a paternity test. But she had no reason to lie to me.” He points at his chest. “I’m the billionaire. But she chose a life in goddamn Caribou, Maine with an average man and an average family. It’s pathetic.”
My mind is reeling, but I don’t try to stop him. He gesticulates wildly as he talks, animated, like I’m the first person he’s vented to.
I think I might be.
He snorts into a dry, bitter laugh. “Willow ran away to Philadelphia to meet up with her long lost half-brother—my son, Loren. And that…that did it.” He shakes his head. “Whatever world Emily wanted for Willow, she failed at protecting. That middle-class life. Gone. And now she sees her daughter struggling in this lifestyle, surrounded by the rich, and she knows I have the means to give Willow a better life. I can offer the handout.” He looks back at me, his eyes dark. “I should have raised her to begin with. That selfish cunt.”
