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She took a few breaths, her chest heaving as she let it all out. “I’ve started working for Devlin—”
Mae gasped. “No! Please tell me you’re not stripping?”
Shauni stumbled backwards before she sat down in a chair. “Oh, Lord. Stripping? Teagan Adriana Moore!”
“I’m not stripping, Mom. I’m like an in-house dance coach and I help the girls with their performances. I’m not going up on stage.”
Shauni shot an unbelieving glance at Mae before she asked Teagan, “And Devlin’s your boss?”
Teagan wiped her damp palms on her jean-clad thighs. Better to air it all out now. “Eh, yeah. His motorcycle club owns the strip club. He’s the manager. I’ve danced on Errin’s bachelorette on stage. Just for fun…”
She knelt in front of her sobbing mother. “Mom. It was nothing. I danced with Errin together. With our clothes on.”
Her father’s voice startled her. “Haven’t you learned anything? I can’t believe it… My own daughter…”
Teagan stood from the floor and faced her father, whose eyes held so much contempt; she took a step back from its intensity.
“Dad…”
“Don’t you ‘dad’ me, young lady. For whatever reason, you keep making terrible decisions that not only hurt you—but also your family. Haven’t we been there for you after we found out that you snuck around with a farm hand and had sex at the age of fourteen?”
She wanted to answer her father but closed her mouth when he continued, “And haven’t we been there for you, when you lost a child we all knew nothing about in the first place?”
She nodded. Her family had been there for her, comforting and supporting her to pick up the pieces of her life that had fallen apart. But somehow along the way, they had taken over her life by deciding for her while she’d been frozen in no-man’s-land.
“We’ve even offered you to take over our family farm, alongside with your brother, when we knew you were struggling to find a purpose. But you dropped out of accounting to become a dancer. And now… Now you’re telling us you’d rather work at some sleazy strip joint than with your family?”
Her father turned his back on her without another word.
She took in her sister and mother, as they kept silent after her father’s tirade. It must have been the truth. Or the truth as they saw it.
Teagan left the kitchen through the screen door. Her trembling hand took out her phone from her back pocket. She was glad Devlin had given her his private number in case she needed him, so she didn’t have to call the Pink Flower.
“Devlin.”
The single word he’d offered was curt. She imagined him standing in his garage, still sitting on his bike—agitated that she’d called him already.
“If it’s not convenient, please tell me… but eh, could you…”
“What do you need, Little Bird?” Devlin asked, his voice gentle. His stupid nickname for her filled her eyes with tears.
“Can you pick me up at the field where we saw Flint?”
“Give me ten minutes.”
She hung up the phone and stared at her screen for a moment. There was no turning back now.
