Against the Rules (Even The Score #4)

86. willow

CHAPTER 86

WILLOW

HOT CHOCOLATE PEACE OFFERINGS

Rain pattered on my bedroom window. It was pouring outside but the slope of the roof kept most of it off. It was a soft, consistent rhythm to focus on, instead of the hard anxiety chipping away at me.

King was okay.

Ryan called the moment he could and reassured me King was fine, but there were a lot of moving parts and he couldn’t get to the phone to talk to me. Which was fine. As long as they found him and he was fine, that was fine.

It didn’t change that I missed him.

I could text him again, but I wanted to see if he actually read it. I hesitated for only a few seconds before I pulled up our Vanysh conversation.

Me

Can you talk now?

It sat unopened for long seconds until…

I drew in a slow breath.

Opened.

And…closed. No response. No reply.

I wanted to be empathetic. I didn’t know what King was going through, I didn’t know what kind of memories this drudged up, I didn’t know if I was making it worse. Breathing out. I pressed the palm to my forehead and let the anxiety wash away.

Okay. King needed time.

I could give him time.

There were a million other messages I should’ve replied to, hockey players hitting me up to see how I was doing and Elijah’s big apology which would be ignored until the end of time. An apology from Adam about shouting at me in the pharmacy with a promise to deliver it in person, texts from Kassie, Piper, and June, all checking in on me, but I didn’t want to respond to any of them.

I pulled on one of King’s hoodies for the walk to the house. The rain was a menace. I quickened my pace and closed the kitchen door after me.

There was no better time for hot chocolate.

My eyes flickered to the lights, still on in the living room. With a quick glance over the couch, I saw my mom curled up with a book in her hand, fast asleep.

She looked so peaceful.

I searched for a blanket but when I returned with one, I stopped by the door frame.

"Look at you," Dan chuckled. He bent down over the couch. "Told you that book was boring."

Gingerly, he picked up my mom, careful to pull her in close before he walked slowly off towards the staircase. My heart thrummed, a soft, slow rhythm like the rain outside.

Back in the kitchen, I took two mugs out of the cabinet.

The hot chocolate was a bright blue limited edition Star Wars run my brothers would love. I tapped the Yoda marshmallows on top before walking upstairs too. Only one light was on, the one from Dan’s office, and I nudged open the door.

He glanced up from his laptop. "Hey, kid. Your mom’s asleep."

"I know, I saw you take her upstairs." I placed the mug on the side of his laptop. "Don’t focus on the color, it’s hot chocolate."

"Oh."

"This is milk chocolate. The purple stuff is salted caramel."

"Well, I…" He cleared his throat. "Thank you. I didn’t know we had hot chocolate in the house."

"You didn’t, but you gave me a budget for the boys and the pantry’s full of snacks now. They’ll blow through them in a month, but it’s an easy way to get points with them."

He touched the mug. "You were right about—uh—texting them."

"It’s going okay?"

"They don’t say much but we’re texting."

I shrugged. "They’re teenagers, you won’t get a lot out of them."

"Well—uh—thanks for the hot chocolate."

"Thank you for taking care of my mom."

Dan hovered his mug in the air, his eyes darting to mine. It was quiet between us until he cleared his throat again and cleared it a third time. "That—ah—means a lot, kid."

"Can I ask you a question?"

"Yeah. Of course."

I took a sip. "I realized I don’t know a lot about you."

"What do you want to know?"

I sifted through all the questions I could’ve asked, but I thought about the kind of things I talked to my dad about. Music, poetry, art, all the things I really couldn’t see Dan being interested in. I thought about the things my mom and I were comfortable talking about, sports, classes, her new book. I thought about what really tied Dan and I together. One of the safe topics we could discuss.

"When did you know my mom was the one?"

"The one? Oh. Uh…"

"This isn’t a trick question. I’m not trying to pick a fight. I genuinely want to know."

His Romans cap thumped to the desk as he hesitated with the answer. This wasn’t like talking with my dad at all but maybe that was okay. We both loved my mom. This could be a good connector.

"We were supposed to go on a cruise together," he said carefully. "We were at the airport in Seattle when she got the call about your grandpa’s stroke."

I avoided the timeline entirely. If I wanted to be upset, I could’ve thought about how my parents were definitely still married, and I thought my mom was on an important work trip, not heading on a cruise. Instead, I took another drink of hot chocolate and nodded.

"I put her on the next flight home, and we were at the gate. Your mom looked at me and said that this was it, she had to focus on her family, and it wasn’t going to work out."

"Oh."

"We had sandwiches. Waited for boarding to start. She said, it was better for the medical bills if she stayed married, Kenan was going through that rough patch of his, the emotional stuff, and she didn’t want to make you change schools. This was all before either of us made any kind of good money, so your mom told me I needed to get going. I couldn’t wait around for her. She wouldn’t hold me down like that, couldn’t do it to me, and I said, that’s fine, I’ll wait."

"You—you told her you’d wait?"

He nodded.

"What does that mean?"

"I told her, when—uh—she was ready to get the divorce, I’d be there."

I could only imagine the look on my dad’s face if he heard this but if I thought about it objectively…"You waited years for my mom?"

"Mm."

" Years? "

"Willow, I’ve been divorced. I already knew what I didn’t want. Your mom handed my ass to me at a conference, and I knew right then she was a special lady. I waited. I’d wait again for her."

I thought I’d gain a little more insight about him, I didn’t expect my heartstrings to get tugged. Dan never wavered, never faltered. The moment he knew my mom was in a comfortable place, he came back into her life again with the same promises from before.

It was quiet while we sipped hot chocolate and I thought about how happy my mom was at her wedding with him. How happy she was when we went out to dinner together. How happy she was when I saw the two of them reading in the living room.

"Were you ever…conflicted because she was still married?" I asked.

He hesitated. "In the beginning."

"Do you…have any regrets?"

"Plenty. With your mom? None. I’d marry her again in a heartbeat."

Oh.

My phone buzzed in my back pocket, and I checked it in those couple of seconds while we were drinking our hot chocolate. It wasn’t another long paragraph, asking if I was okay. I straightened up when I saw the message.

From King.

Oh, thank you.

King

Im outside

I stared at the two words that didn’t make sense. What did he mean, he was outside? I pretended like I was just taking side steps towards the window in Dan's office, just walking in his office, but I peeked through the glass. As long as I craned my neck?—

Is that King?

My eyes shot wide.

In front of the garage?!

I almost choked out a ‘fuck’ but held it back, jerking over to look at Lawson.

"So, I—I need to go to sleep—" I blurted out. "It’s been good to talk to you though—I’m so glad we had this talk—you make my mom so happy and—and?—"

I couldn’t think of anything else to do. I looped my arm over his shoulders and gave him half of a hug.

His eyebrows shot up to his hairline.

"Goodnight, Dan," I hurried to say, trying desperately to keep it cool.

"Goodnight, thank you for?—"

"Yes, absolutely!" I stumbled over the rug, and once I was out of sight, I rushed down the stairs as quietly as I could. Because there was no one else who could be the six-foot-three man in a black hoodie outside my door.