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Julie waves off her son dismissively and then winks at me. “Just a bit of girl talk.” She gestures to the towel in his hands. “How’re the repairs coming?”

Jared stuffs the towel in the back pocket of his stained jeans. “Slow, but I think I’ve nearly got it. It’s running but still has a bit of a miss in it. I think I’ll have it tuned up before Dad gets back. I can’t wait to see the look on his face when he comes home and finds that I’ve finished the Nova for him.”

She smiles. “I heard you fire it up out there. It sounded real good. Dad is going to be so pleased.”

Jared’s megawatt smile widens, and I swear my stomach flutters every time his dimples come out in full display. He’s clearly excited to do this for his dad. It’s something the two of them have been working on together since I’ve known Jared, so I know how much this means to him. This is the ultimate gift he could give his father—to show him how he thought of him while he was away by working every spare second he could on finishing this car.

I’ve never seen a father and son as close as Jared and Henry before. If they weren’t working on Jared’s pitching, which seemed to be their most favorite thing to do, they were working on the Nova or playing guitar together. I was always so amazed by that—the way they seemed to be best friends.

Jared makes his way over to the sink

and scrubs the grime from his hands, using the orange hand cleaner, and says, “It’s nearly four. Dad never calls so late. You don’t think he’s forgotten that it’s Sunday, do you?”

Julie shakes her head. “I don’t think that’s possible. Your father loves hearing about your games far too much to forget about his Sunday call home.”

He dries his hands on the faded kitchen towel hanging over the bottom cabinet door. “You’re right. Maybe he had to work an odd shift or something. They’ve got MPs working some crazy hours over there.”

“Military police are in high demand. They have to be around at all times,” Julie reminds him.

Jared turns and kisses the top of my head as he takes a cookie off the plate before sitting next to me. “It sucks to not see him all the time. I miss him. I’ll be so glad when he’s back.”

His mother reaches across the table and pats his arm. “Me too, son. Me too.”

The afternoon drags on into the evening while we sit around the house and wait on Jared’s father to call before we head back to the dorms. It’s unusual for Henry to miss a phone call to his family, but it has happened before when he was out on some sort of mission with no access to a phone. He called late that night and spoke to Julie to let her know everything was okay and that he just got held up, so none of us is exactly alarmed that he hasn’t called yet.

Wes enters the kitchen and leans back against the laminate countertop that covers the light maple cabinets. “I haven’t missed his call, have I?”

Jared shakes his head. “No. Nothing yet.”

Wes nods. “Where’s Mom?”

“Upstairs getting ready for bed.”

Wes sighs as he rakes his hand through the mess of blond hair on the top of his head. “It is getting late and I have an exam tomorrow. I think I’m going to head back to campus and just call Mom tomorrow and get an update on Dad.”

Jared nods as he glances up at the clock on the stove while his lips pull into a tight line. It’s rare that Jared ever lets his emotions show, but the expression on his face clearly tells me that he’s worried about his father. He’s never been good at articulating if something is bothering him.

It’s easy for me to relate to Jared missing his father.

Losing Mom when I was only ten rocked my entire world, and everything I ever knew was changed in an instant. While I was old enough at the time to understand what death was, I wasn’t mature enough to realize how losing someone so important in your life would alter every part of your future.

My father became a different person after Mom died. He threw himself into his work to try and deflect the loneliness that he felt from losing his best friend. He once told me that staying idle for too long gives him far too much time to dwell on what he’s lost. I think that’s why he prefers to stay so busy, occupying his brain with a million tasks so he doesn’t have to deal with the pain. Dad became a shell of the man I remember from before Mom died.

Dad took us to see a counselor for a short period when things became too much for him to deal with on his own. He thought it would be a good way for us to heal as a family. The one piece of advice that we got from those sessions that really seemed to resonate with Dad was that we have to find ways to move on—that the only way to truly heal is to keep on living even though our grief sometimes seems like it’s more than we can bear and that our loved ones wouldn’t want us to go into a dark place emotionally because they’ve passed on.

“If you want to stay, Jared, I’ll drive London back to campus with me.” Wes’s voice drags me out of my thoughts.

Jared pushes back from the table, causing the wood chair to squeak against the linoleum flooring before he stands. “No. I’ll take her, but call me if you hear anything.”

Wes nods. “Will do, brother.”

Jared reaches down and extends his hand to me. “Ready?”

I take his hand and stand beside him.

Wes’s eyes flick down to Jared’s and my joined hands, and his lips twist as he fixes his gaze on my left hand. His eyebrows pull inward, and the expression on his face makes it seem like he’s upset before his eyes jerk up to meet mine. He gives me a small smile. “Nice ring.”

I raise my brow. I had completely forgotten about my ring, but when I look to Jared, he’s staring at his brother through narrowed eyes.

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