Page 66 of Out of Bounds

“Hey, I didn’t get a chance to ask at breakfast, how’d it go with Avery last night?”

“Who’s Avery?” Felicity asked, looking between the two.

“Uh, fine. We just watched some of the Marvel movies,” Liam said, looking to be more than a little uncomfortable to be answering the question in front of her. “But, ummm, Mr. Sutherland is out on the tarmac, and he asked me to come get you, Miss Sutherland. Apparently it’s urgent.”

“Big D is here?” she asked, popping up from her seat. “Shit…”

Liam stepped into the row in front of them so that she could scurry past him, trying to straighten out her slightly wrinkled pants in the process. What on earth could have happened that her father would be waiting for the team plane on a Sunday morning?

Exiting the plane and carefully making her way down the narrow staircase, she looked for her father’s hulking figure, but the only person she saw was her brother.

“Tripp, hi,” she said, shaking her head trying to make sense of it. “Sorry, Liam said Mr. Sutherland and I thought that he meant Big D. But I guess to him you are Mr. Sutherland.”

“Flick…” Dalton said, his voice shaky.

She stepped closer to him, pausing long enough to take in his appearance. He was in jeans, sneakers, and an old UGA sweatshirt, his eyes bloodshot and slightly swollen. Anyone else would have looked totally normal in this outfit, but it made her usually very put together brother look borderline disheveled. He drew in a deep breath, and she could see by the expression on his face that he hadn’t slept. Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong.

“Tripp, what’s the matter?” she asked, a sense of dread washing over her.

“It’s Big D…he’s…he’s gone.”

“Gone?” She repeated his word, trying to make it make sense. Gone? He couldn’t just be gone. He’d been at the Southland Holdings office on Friday, right before the team headed to the airport. They were supposed to be having lunch tomorrow to talk about the pub program.

“BJ was up at the asscrack of dawn to go for a run, or something, and when she got home, she went to go wake him up, except she couldn’t…and he wasn’t breathing,” Dalton said, sucking in another breath, obviously trying to fight back tears. “She called 911 and they couldn’t revive him either, but they rushed him to the hospital anyway. He was pronounced dead when they got there.”

“No…no…” Felicity muttered. This wasn’t happening. She was not standing on the tarmac at the fucking airport listening to her brother tell her their father was dead. This had to be a mistake. The bastard couldn’t die. Not now. Not with so much still left unsaid. “There had to be a mistake, Tripp. He just started that new treatment. It was supposed to give him more time.”

“Flick…” he said, reaching out for her. She stepped back, needing space to breathe.

“No…we were supposed to have more time. We need more time!”

“I know, Flick, I know,” he answered her, a tear running down his cheek.

The ground shifted underneath her feet—for as easygoing as he was, Dalton was also as steady as they came. He never cracked, no matter what. The last time she’d seen him cry was at their mother’s bedside, right after she’d closed her eyes for the last time. Right before Felicity had witnessed their father’s betrayal.

She let out a sob, feeling her whole body give out. Just when she thought she was going to hit the ground, she felt a pair of strong arms wrap around her, lifting her back up and pulling her close.

Gunnar.

His arms were warm and comforting, two things she desperately needed right now. Her father was dead. The thought of it was still too much to fully process. How could he just leave them like this? No goodbye or anything. There was still so much she needed to say to him, so much she wanted to prove to him. And now, she was never going to get the chance.

“It’s okay, Effie,” Gunnar whispered into her ear, stroking her hair.

“He’s gone, Gunnar,” she sobbed into his chest. She curled into him even more, allowing him to tighten his embrace around her. It was the only thing holding her up at the moment, and she didn’t care who saw them. Her world was spinning out of control—but at least in Gunnar’s arms she felt like she was rooted in place.

“BJ would like us to come over for lunch,” her brother said after a long moment of silence.

Felicity nodded, only realizing after she did that Dalton probably couldn’t see what she was doing, so she pulled back from Gunnar. Swiping at her eyes, trying to stop the tears, she nodded again.

“I got your bags,” Gunnar said, letting her go slowly, making sure she was okay to stand on her own. “I’ll get everything back to your place. You go with your brother.”

She nodded again, feeling like a broken record with the movement. But it was the only thing she could muster. Her mind was blank with the exception of the one thought that this wasn’t really happening, and the rest of her was numb. Dalton took her hand in his, silently walking toward the waiting town car not far from the team plane. The look on his face told her that he was dealing with many of the same feelings she was, and that comforted her a little, to know she wasn’t alone in this.

The drive to the Sutherland family home was relatively quick, the Sunday morning traffic allowing them to zip right up the downtown connector without any delays. It was still the family home, right? Just how much would change now that her father was gone? There were so many memories—both good and bad—tied up in that house, leaving her with knots in her stomach as she thought about it.

Felicity said a little prayer of thanks that they hadn’t gotten stuck behind some kind of accident or something. Her anxiety was already skyrocketing at the thought of what awaited them at the family home—she didn’t need any extra time alone with her thoughts. Pulling down the drive, Felicity felt a whole new sense of dread take over, the thought of facing her stepmother making her want to throw up. There was no doubt Jonah was here too, which really made everything that much worse.

“Is that Stu’s car?” she asked, pointing to the BMW parked in the drive. Stu Wellington, Dalton’s soon-to-be father-in-law and Big D’s best friend, had been a staple in their lives since day one. However, Felicity was a little unsure why he would be here now.