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Beckett gave a shaky laugh. “Let’s hope we get through it in one piece.”
“If we don’t…”
He met my gaze, his unflinching. “Then we’ll have to piece each other back together again.”
I glanced down the hallway to make sure we were alone. The regular exit for the town hall was on the other side of the room, but anyone could come through that door just as Dad had.
But to hell with it. We were telling him the truth tonight anyway. I grabbed Beckett’s face and kissed him.
He leaned into me, giving me exactly what I needed.
Like he always did.
CHAPTER26
BECKETT
We arrivedat Dad’s house and were ushered in by my mom, who hugged each of us. “It’s so good to see you two. I was hoping we could catch up over a nice dinner.”
“You and us both,” I muttered.
She smiled. “Well, we’ll just have to get a raincheck on that. Your father is pacing the den like a caged tiger.”
Great visual. Makes me feel much better.
“I guess we better go face him then.”
Mom patted my shoulder and headed in the opposite direction as Wes and I made our way to the den. She was a smart woman—and someone who shied away from conflict—so I wasn’t surprised she wanted to steer clear of our business conflict.
Dad looked up when we entered his den, a smaller version of the living room with Dad’s favorite recliner, a leather loveseat, and a massive flat-screen TV on the wall. The room was illuminated only by the glow of the television, playing sports highlights while on mute. But that was better than the news. Dad got really riled up when the talking heads started screaming at one another.
“Finally,” he muttered. “I’m an old man. How late do you expect me to stay up?”
“Hey, you asked us over,” Wes said. “This could have waited until tomorrow.”
“Not if I want to get any sleep tonight,” Dad grumbled, but thankfully, he took a seat in his recliner and waved us toward the loveseat. “Sit.”
He seemed to be chewing over what to say, his eyes fixed on the window rather than us, as we settled hip to hip. I wiped my clammy palms on my jeans, trying to breathe through the nausea the ball of nerves in my gut was causing. But Wes’s warmth along my side was a comfort, reminding me that I wasn’t in this alone.
“I left town because I trusted you both,” Dad said finally, making my insides clench with guilt and dread. “I thought you could handle the project without me.”
“I’m sorry I let you down,” Wes said.
Something about the defeat in his voice triggered the opposite in me.
“We can handle it. We did,” I said emphatically. “We worked our asses off every day on this project.”
“I’m sure you did,” Dad said. “But I don’t appreciate being left out of the loop. I looked like a damned fool. I may have taken a step back, but it’s still my business until I decide otherwise.”
There was an unspoken warning in those words. He had the power to give us everything we’d been working for, and he had the power to take it away. But would he? That was the real question here. I didn’t always know exactly where I stood, but he loved Wes fiercely.
“We didn’t leave you out of any loop,” Wes said. “We didn’t know. I’m not denying we missed something somewhere, or that we messed up somehow, but—”
Dad’s phone rang, cutting through the room. He lifted a hand. “Give me a minute,” he said gruffly. “It’s Paul Minner on the line.”
Paul Minner was the Dix neighborhood liaison, so I could only imagine what he had to say about the situation. Dad was likely to come back in an even worse mood.
He left the room to take the call, and Wes groaned. “Well, this is going really well.”
