Page 143 of Double Puck

He's been calling since six this morning. Apparently Vegas spent half the night sweetening the deal, and somewhere between midnight and sunrise, their front office and Colin managed to agree on everything except the one thing they still need.

Me.

I decline the call and put Dad back to my ear in time to hear him finishing.

"I'm sorry, Beck. And I mean it. Not for the marriage, that's a longer conversation. But you should never have found out the way you did."

The carousel music floats up the pier behind me.

"So," Dad says, careful now, like he's stepping onto thin ice. "Mason tells me everything that's been going on. Vegas, huh? What are you going to do?"

I look back toward Beachside.

For most of my life, home has meant my family. The Morrison brothers under one roof. Zoey knowing where everybody is. Dad calling. Mom worrying. Somebody always reaching for me before I could fall.

But now, it feels different.

"You know what's fucked up, Dad? A month ago, I would've asked you that."

Dad doesn't say anything.

"Or Declan. Mason. Zoey. I'd have waited for somebody to tell me which choice was smarter, then probably done the opposite just to piss them off."

Dad laughs. "You never made it easy on us."

I take a deep breath, mulling it all over in my head.

Vegas wants me. Beachside might still want me if the report says so. Darcy loves me.

And for the first time, none of those things feels like an instruction anymore.

They're choices.

My choices.

"So what are you going to do?" Dad asks again.

I smile.

"Whatever the fuck I want."

Dad laughs with a rusty wheeze, like it surprised him on the way out.

"Sounds about right," he says. "You always were the only one of you four who knew how to do that."

Now I'm smiling at the ocean like an idiot. Is this what freedom feels like?

"I'm still angry at you, Dad," I tell him, because it's true and because I'm done pretending things aren't true. "That doesn't go away because we had one phone call."

"I know."

"But I'll call again. Sometime."

"That's more than I hoped for," he says, and his voice cracks just enough that I have to look very hard at a seagull for a second. "Go do your thing, son. Whatever it is. I'll be watching and cheering you on. Always."

"Bye, Dad."

I hang up and stand there for a minute, breathing in the salty air and letting my whole life try and settle for one damn second.