Page 197 of Bend

I’m out of the chair before I’ve really decided to move, crossing the small space between us and wrapping my arms around him.

The second his arms close around me, I fucking lose it.

There’s no graceful version of it. My face presses into his chest and the first sob tears out of me hard enough that my whole body shakes. He holds me tighter without saying anything, one hand coming up to the back of my head, smoothing over my hair again and again like he’s trying to make up for twenty-two years with one fucking hug.

Maybe he knows he can’t.

Maybe I do too.

I still hold on.

“I’m not mad at you,” I manage eventually, the words muffled against his shirt. “I’m mad at Mom. I’m mad she kept it from you. I’m mad I lost all that time and neither of us even got a choice in it.” My fingers tighten in the back of his shirt. “I’m mad this is how I had to find out any of it.”

His arms tense around me.

“But I’m not mad at you.”

He goes quiet for a second, and when he finally speaks, his voice is rough.

“I don’t know what the hell to do with that.”

A broken little breath leaves me. “Good. Me neither.”

That feels fair.

I pull back just enough to look at him, but he doesn’t let go completely.

The retired racer from all those photos. Talon and Sayshen’s dad. My father.

A man I spent my entire life not knowing existed, standing here with red eyes and one hand still on the back of my head because apparently mine remind him of his mother.

It’s weird as fuck.

It hurts.

But for the first time, it doesn’t feel wrong.

“I’m probably going to be shit at this,” I tell him.

His mouth twitches. “I’ve had practice.”

“With Talon and Sayshen? That doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.”

That earns the smallest smile.

I sniff and wipe at my face with the sleeve of Wolfe’s hoodie. “I’m still figuring all of this out.”

“So am I.”

I nod, letting that settle.

“Okay.”

And somehow, for right now, okay is enough.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Echo