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“Both you and Van at home?” He cuts straight to the point.
“Yeah. Is everything okay?” Dad lets out a long breath. “Dad?”
“I don’t know where to start.”
“Mom found her baby daddy and long-lost love.” I fill in for him.
“Something like that.” He lets out a small chuckle that relaxes me. Until he speaks again. “Then she had one of her panic attacks.”
“Oh God. Is she okay?” It’s been a long time since I can recall her having one.
“She wants to move in with Cooper.” All the air leaves my lungs. She’s leaving. “Says she owes it to Cooper for keeping Van away from him.” Mom is taking Van with her. I fight back tears.
“What?” Van jumps up, seeing my expression.
“I know we barely got settled into our place, but I think she might be right.”
“Okay” is all I can get out. Dunc suddenly plucks the phone out of my hand.
“What’s going on? Lil bit over here is about to cry,” Dunc says into the phone. What did he call me? “All right. When will they be here? Got it.” Dunc ends the call, handing me my phone back. “Movers are coming.”
“Movers?”
“I guess you and your mom are moving in with Cooper.” He looks over at Van. Van’s eyes widen. If my heart wasn’t breaking I’d laugh because I’ve never seen him make that face before.
“You too, lil bit. We’re all shacking up.” Dunc throws his arm over my shoulder. I knock it off. “Show me to your room. I’ll help you pack.”
This day keeps getting crazier by the second.
CHAPTER9
DUNCAN
“Van hates my dad.I mean, my uncle.” I tip the milk jug up and let the liquid glide down my throat until my gut tells me that another drop is going to make me puke. I let the jug fall between my legs and swipe my arm across my mouth. Sadie’s eyes follow my actions intently like she can’t keep her eyes off my lips. It makes me want to lay her on the grass and do crazy things to her, but we’re sitting in my backyard, and the adults are probably staring at us from inside, not to mention her brother—or my cousin, I guess—is lurking around here.
Thankfully, she doesn’t hate me too much despite me fighting with Van over a friggin’ jug of milk. It seems dumb in retrospect, which is why when she asked me what happened between me and her brother, I said we fought about Cooper.
“How long have you been with him?”
“Since I was a baby. Mom and Dad died in a car wreck. Cooper was seventeen. He and his mom took me in, and then when his mom died, Coop kept me.”
“He’s your dad then.” Sadie says this so matter-of-factly as if there can be no argument.
“I’ve called Coop Dad since I was nine,” I find myself telling her. “I’d been thinking about it for a while but didn’t know how to say it. One day, he was driving to a build site and cursing because the aux cord between his phone and the truck was frayed. We didn’t have a lot of money back then because Coop was just starting out, so every penny counted. Anyway, he was getting frustrated, and I hated that because it didn’t matter to me if we had music in the truck. I was just happy to be with him, and so I told him, ‘Dad, I hate your music.’”
Sadie bursts out laughing. “Seriously? And what did Cooper say?”
“He laughed too and said he always played the top hits because he thought that’s what kids liked.”
“Did he say anything about you calling him Dad?”
“Nope, but he reached over and patted my head for like five minutes until I told him to knock it off because he was going to make me bald.”
“Cooper seems like a nice guy.”
“He is.”
She butts her shoulder against mine. “Van will come around.”
