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“Look, I’m here for a reason,” I said abruptly. “I finally need to know.”
My father tilted his head a little. His eyes narrowed. “Know what?”
“Everything.”
There was disbelief in his gaze now, almost like I was trying to trick him. I wasn’t.
“You’ve tried telling me before and I never listened,” I said. “At first I think I was just too young to understand. Later on though, I just didn’t want to hear it from you. I blocked you out. I was happy just to stay angry.”
For the first time in more than a decade, we actually locked eyes. He had the same eyes I did. The kind that betrayed no secrets.
“Tell me what happened,” I said at last. “I’m ready to hear it. I’m ready tolisten.”
For a few seconds he remained motionless, his eyes still riveted to mine. Then I saw it; a softening of his crow’s feet. The smoothing out of the lines in his forehead, as a single tear began to form at the corner of one eye.
Then, for the first time ever, my father opened his mouth and I didn’t stop him.
And hetoldme.
Thirty-Three
KAYLA
“Are you absolutelysureyou’re leaving?”
Warren finished with his most charming smile, the same one he’d delivered when he’d asked the same question three times before. We were sitting at a Shake Shack just outside the airport, eating double-dipped vanilla cones. All of us except Adrian, who wasn’t eating anything.
“We’re not asking you to change your mind or anything,” Luke smiled. “You only have to make a new decision.”
I watched his tongue travel over the surface of the ice cream, or ice custard as the case may be. For the first time in my life, I actually wondered what the custard was.
“I don’t have coverage back at the shop,” I told them again, “or maybe I’d stay an extra day or so.” I lowered my gaze a little. “But what would it matter? We’d only be torturing ourselves a little more. Delaying the inevitable, and making it even harder when I do finally go.”
They’d asked me to stay at breakfast, and again after Adrian and I got back from seeing his father. Something had changed in him since the correctional facility. There was a somberness to his mood now. Or maybe a thoughtfulness that wasn’t there before.
I’d asked him what was wrong of course, and if he’d like to talk about it. He merely shook his head and handed me my helmet. I could feel the tension in his shoulders on the ride back. A sudden stiffness in the way he handled the curves as compared to how loose and carefree he’d been on the way down.
“And you’re really staying in North Glade?” I asked Adrian again. But the little voice in my head wasn’t pleased with the question.
Does it matter, Kayla? Why even ask?
“For a little while,” he answered, with a shrug. “I planned to stick around long enough to see my father settled in. I’m between jobs right now anyway.”
“You can probably pick something up in town,” Luke offered. “Something temporary.” He and Warren exchanged a glance. “Or maybe we can even use you to—”
“No,” he shook his head. “I don’t work for friends.”
“Theywork for friends,” I smiled, using my cone to point back and forth between them.
“They’re partners,” Adrian said simply. “Equals. That’s different.”
I looked down at my phone and checked the time. There was a heaviness in my heart that had been gathering there all day. A growing knot in the pit of my stomach. I’d fallen for these guys before, and I could feel myself falling for them again. Every second I spent with them just made me want more.
But California. My apartment. My job. Responsibility.
Really?
The other voice showed up — the devil on my opposite shoulder. The one that reminded me I might be spinning my wheels in Big Sur. That being manager of a surf shop was cool and fun for a while, but over the last few months and years there’d been little nagging doubts in the back of my mind.
