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I relaxed in my chair too, reaching over and taking his hand. Lacing our fingers together, I waited for him to go on, sensing that he had some things to get off his chest. He’d mentioned before that Christine had been getting into trouble lately, and I had a feeling that was what was weighing on his mind.

“It’s just… Christine was always an easy kid, you know? Happy all the time, but as she’s gotten older, she’s gotten more… complex, I guess. Not unhappy or angry, necessarily. But more unpredictable. She’s been hanging around with a new crowd in the last six months and doing things like skipping school and pulling mean pranks. Her grades have been dropping. She even let a friend pierce her belly button with a needle after Audrey said she wouldn’t take her to get it done.”

I cringed. “That sounds like a terrible idea.”

One side of his mouth ticked up in a half-grin. “Yeah, it was. Got infected.”

He was quiet for a moment as he absently ran his thumb over my knuckles. I didn’t intend for our conversation to tread into these deep waters, but I wanted to know what he was thinking, wanted to be the person he could share this with because I could see the troubled look in his eyes and knew that he needed someone to listen.

“I had a shitty dad.” His grip on my hand tightened, as if he needed to anchor himself in this moment. “And I try to do better for Christine, but I worry that I’m not there for her enough. During the football season, it’s not uncommon for me to work eighty hours a week.”

My eyes went wide. “Wow. That’s… a lot. Don’t you find it exhausting?”

“Sometimes. But I love the game, and until I’m ready to retire from coaching, those are the hours I have to put in. In a lot of ways, it’s worth it, but I wonder sometimes if the trouble Christine’s been getting into is because of me. Like she’s acting out for my attention or something.”

“Is that what you really think? That it’s about you?”

He had been looking out at the beach, but his eyes shifted to me. “I worry it might be.”

“I guess that’s possible, but it’s just as likely that it has nothing to do with you at all. Teenagers have a lot to deal with. Stress from school, pressure to fit in, out-of-whack hormones in their changing bodies, trying to figure out their futures… It’s so much, and they are so young that their brains aren’t fully developed yet. She could be dealing with things that you don’t understand simply because you’re an adult. Or just trying to find her place in the world. Sometimes making mistakes is a part of that.”

“Did you struggle with that stuff in high school?”

I scoffed. “I was a nerd, remember? My biggest struggle was fitting in, especially after…”

I cut myself off, releasing his hand and nervously tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. I didn’t mean to shift the conversation to me, and I really didn’t intend to bring up my own youthful trouble.

“After what?” he asked, turning in his chair to face me directly.

I swallowed a lump in my throat, feeling nervous for some reason. “I was just thinking about something that happened to me a long time ago. It’s nothing, really.”

His eyes drilled into my face, making me feel like I was under a microscope. “Tell me about it, Starlight.”

I didn’t know if it was the gruffness of his voice or the way he used his special nickname for me, but something made me want to open up to him, to tell him all about what happened with Eddie.

“It started the summer before senior year of high school. This boy moved in next door and he…” I blew out a long breath and shook my head at the memory of how quickly I fell head over heels. “He was my first love. His name was Eddie, and he had the bluest eyes I’d ever seen.”

Greyson let out a disgruntled sound that was almost a growl, making me smile.

“It was eleven years ago,” I said. “Don’t be jealous.”

Although it gave me an unexpected thrill to think he might feel that way.

“Anyway, we spent two months getting to know each other. He was funny and cute. And he liked me in a way that no one else ever had. From my inexperienced teenage point of view, that summer was magical. He was my first everything.”

“You mean…”

“I lost my virginity to him, yeah. And then, school started.”

I paused, my stomach sinking as old embarrassment resurfaced. As if he somehow knew how I felt, he reached for my hand again. But he didn’t just hold it; he pulled me out of my chair and into his lap, wrapping his strong arms around me. I relaxed into his chest, my head tucked under his chin.

“What did he do?”

It was hard to know what he was thinking when I couldn’t see his face, but his voice was a low rumble of barely contained anger. That loosened the tightness in my throat.

“He found that I wasn’t popular at school. I mean, he knew me by then, knew of my interests, but I guess he didn’t realize that it would affect my status in the oh-so-important high school hierarchy. But he realized pretty much right away. You see, he was a star basketball player at his old school. That, along with his looks, practically shot him to superstardom, and he quickly decided that he could do better than me.”

“He what?”