Chapter 40
40
MATT
TWELVE YEARS AGO
“ Pappa, ?r vi n?stan frame? ”
“Are you suddenly ten years old again?” I ask, turning the steering wheel with a loose hold. “And you should try to focus on speaking English when we get to the house. Nobody will be able to understand you otherwise.”
My daughter rolls her eyes at me in the rear-view mirror, and I chuckle at the attitude. It’s a new trait of hers that’s appeared over the past six months. I always thought teenagers stayed nice and sweet if they were angels as children, but apparently, that’s a load of bullshit I told myself to soothe my worries.
At least she isn’t as terrible as her mother was at eighteen. Lord help us all if that were the case.
“They could have taken Swedish lessons,” she says.
Morgan twists to look into the back seat. “Don’t start, Avery. You know that’s not fair.”
Our daughter reaches a hand up to fiddle with her nose ring. Fuck, I hate that thing. One tug from someone and it would rip right out. I’ll never let Morgan forget that she was the one who snuck her out to get it done, knowing I wouldn’t like it.
The black hair and makeup . . . fine. It makes her happy, and she’s still my beautiful princess, no matter what she wears or does with her hair. But the piercing is a hazard that damn well keeps me up at night.
“Do you think they still remember me?” Avery asks, voice softer, almost embarrassed.
I snap my eyes to the mirror, but she’s not looking into it this time. “Of course they do, mitt hj?rta. Why would you even ask that?”
“We’ve been gone a year.”
“A year is nothing. Not to family,” Morgan murmurs, reaching back to hold Avery’s knee.
“We don’t really text that much,” Avery adds.
I’m immediately pissed off. “Who? You and Maddox?”
She shrugs, staring out the window as the highway turns to gravel. “Him and Cooper. Oliver sometimes.”
“Is that such a bad thing? You don’t need to be texting boys, anyway. Especially not Maddox,” I say.
My wife huffs. “Don’t start, Matthew.”
“Yeah, Matthew ,” Avery echoes.
“I’ll pull the car over and let the two of you walk to the Huttons’ if you’d like?”
Morgan pats my arm lovingly, but I read the threat in the action. “You know I don’t walk on gravel. I’m in flip-flops.”
“And what’s your excuse?” I ask Avery, brows quirked.
“I don’t walk in general.”
I chuckle, flicking my blinker on before turning onto the Huttons’ driveway. The over-the-top rocky road that leads to the giant ranch house was Oakley’s attempt at giving them more privacy, as if living outside city limits doesn’t already accomplish that.
“Back to the boys,” I start, ignoring my wife’s frustration with me. “From what I hear, Maddox is prepping for the NHL draft, and Cooper’s buried his head in his paintings, prepping for school. It’s not anything personal, baby girl. And I know if the girls were old enough to have phones, they’d be texting you like crazy. ”
I’ll never forgive my friends for not having girls first like Morgan and me. Instead, they all decided to have boys as if they were wanting to punish me. Selfish pricks, each and every one of them.
Tinsley is the closest girl in age to Avery, but even then, there’s still a five-year gap. No eighteen-year-old wants to chat with a thirteen-year-old. Instead, I’m left to suffer while she talks to the boys.
Tyler’s son, especially. That fucker is only fourteen, but I’ve heard all about his little crush on my daughter. I should tell his father to take his phone away so he can’t text her. Hell, he should lock him in his room until he grows out of this phase. Who gives a fourteen-year-old a phone, anyway?
Sure, that’s when Avery got her first phone, but she’s my baby girl. The rules are different for her.
“So, you’re saying they’re just too busy for me now. Nice. Thanks, Dad,” Avery snaps, narrowing her blue eyes on mine in the mirror before crossing her arms and turning to face the window.
Morgan slaps my thigh, and I glance at her in disbelief.
“What did I do? That’s not what I meant, Avery.”
“It’s what you said!” she shouts, threading her fingers in her black hair. “They’re going to forget all about me because we’re only here once a year!”
“Honey, nobody is going to forget about you. I think you’re underestimating how much everyone loves you,” Morgan soothes.
One look into the back seat as the gravel becomes pavement, and my heart seizes. Tears shine in her eyes, one slipping out to smudge her black eyeliner. She uses the tip of her thumb to carefully swipe it away, lips in a tight line.
I keep my apology tucked inside as I drive us past the cluster of vehicles on the driveway and then bring the rental car to a stop along the edge of it, out of the way. A burst of pride fills me when I see the familiar faces waiting outside the front door of the house.
“If everyone forgot about you, then why are they all outside waiting for us to arrive?” I ask .
She leans forward in her seat and looks out the windshield, tears drying quickly. A small smile tugs at her mouth before growing into a massive, teeth-sparkling grin.
Without another word, she whips the door open and takes off down the pavement, running as fast as possible in her untied Converse. Maddox is the first to hug her, and while Oakley and I thought—or hoped—that they’d wind up together when they were only kids, it’s obvious now that that would never happen.
Not only is Maddox in love with someone else, but my little girl isn’t into jocks. They make one hell of a pair of friends, though. And she needs that.
“Do you ever wish we had stayed in Canada?” Morgan asks, watching everyone welcome our daughter.
There’s a sadness in her expression that worries me. I’d do anything to fix every single problem she’s ever had. Exterminate everything that doesn’t bring her happiness. I’ve spent a long damn time trying to do that, but there’s still forever left.
“No. I don’t. We did the right thing, Mo. And something tells me that she’ll be coming back here sooner than we’d like her to.”
Avery’s passed from person to person, getting smothered in hugs and kisses on the head. Oakley ruffles her hair, and Jamie, Tyler’s youngest son, stands on his tiptoes to plant his lips to her cheek. My attention is focused on Oliver, though.
He’s the last one to speak to her, waiting patiently with his hands tucked into the pockets of his jeans. There’s a glow in his eyes when he meets her gaze that’s hardly noticeable. Invisible to everyone but me. My spine snaps straight up in my seat.
It seems I’ve underestimated this so-called crush Maddox told me about. No fourteen-year-old should look at someone like that. They shouldn’t know how.
Fuck.