Chapter 16 #2
“Hey, Rory, I’m gonna go step outside on the porch. I need to…um…call my friend about Alaska.” I hated how shaky my voice sounded.
Rory gave me an odd look but nodded. “Yeah, yeah, that’s fine. Go ahead. We need to refill our snack plates anyway.”
“Don’t you think you’ve all had enough sugar tonight?” Gabe asked from beside him.
“No, Daddy, I do not,” Rory said primly.
Gabe put his hands up with a laugh. “Just thought I’d ask. Clearly, I’m wrong.”
Rory shifted over, kissed his cheek, and gave him a mischievous grin. “Thanks for admitting that, Daddy.”
“Gabe, are you gonna let him get away with that?” Anders asked from his chair.
“I am,” Gabe said, matching Rory’s smile. “I absolutely am.”
On that note, I hauled myself off the couch and hurried outside.
The bracing sea air cleared the fuzz from the wine, but that was about it.
It wasn’t doing a damn thing to untangle the mess of emotions strangling my chest. The only thing I could think to do was lean against the house and pretend Daddy was next to me, holding my hand, rubbing my arm, cuddling me because it was cold as hell out here.
“You need a jacket.”
The voice rasped through the dark, and it sounded so real that I froze. It was weird. It was too real. It almost sounded like he was standing right next to me.
“Is there a reason you’re not answering, or just because?” the voice asked again.
“If I’m going to imagine things, I don’t know that responding to my own imagination aloud is the world’s greatest idea,” I muttered. “That would be a manifestation taken in a terrible direction.”
Before my imaginary Daddy could reply, I felt the heaviness of a thick wool coat settle around my shoulders and the waft of real Daddy’s cologne. I opened one eye and stared straight into Travis’s warm brown eyes.
“Oh. You came.”
“Did you think I was lying?”
“Lying? About what?”
“My text. I said I was running late because I had to swing by the bar to fix one of the taps.”
“I think I left my phone in my coat pocket.”
“Well, that explains why it was stuck on ‘delivered.’” We stared at each other longer than made sense. “What brings you out here?”
“I just needed some breathing room. The Pictionary game was getting testy. Are you any good at it?”
“Nope, I suck at it.”
“Oh, you’ll fit right in because none of us are any good at it…” My voice trailed off. I cleared my throat to try and hide the lump lodged there, but I sounded brittle and uneven.
A tap hit the window looking out onto the porch, breaking whatever spell we were under. I glanced over my shoulder and caught the boys scrambling away from it, clearly trying to hide the fact that they’d been watching. Maybe listening too.
Suddenly, I was exhausted. All of it felt too much and too heavy, and I had no idea how to process any of it. I just wanted to be home. If I was going to go, I wanted it over with. Done. Clean break.
“Bub, you want me to take you home?”
“How did you know?”
Our breath fogged in the cold between us, and if that wasn’t a damn metaphor, I didn’t know what one was. Or maybe it was a simile. Crap. I should’ve paid more attention in school.
“Because I know you.” Daddy paused, then added, steady and sure, “Because I love you.”
“Don’t say that.” It came out small and strangled even to my own ears.
“It’s okay. I know you’re not there, and that’s fine.
I wanted to be honest about where I am.” His voice didn’t wobble.
Not once. “I’m not asking you to stay. I’m not laying a guilt trip on you.
I want you to be happy, and if that’s not here, then I want you to be happy wherever you need to go.
But you’ll always have a soft place to land with me. ”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t need to say anything.” Daddy grasped the coat tighter around me, fussing with the collar so the wind wouldn’t sneak in. “Here. Let me get this right. I don’t want you getting sick.” He looked right at me. “You want me to take you home?”
I nodded immediately, but I couldn’t trust my voice to make sound that made sense.
“Then I will,” he said, gentle as anything.
“What am I forgetting?” I muttered to myself.
Daddy had gone inside, grabbed my jacket, and told the boys I was feeling a little under the weather so I needed to head home before I got anyone sick.
I knew damn well they hadn’t believed him, but they’d pretended to and let me slip out without a fuss.
Being in that house while they celebrated me—me, the guy walking away from their friendship—had made no sense. I’d needed air. Space. Something quiet.
Watching them all settled and secure with their Daddies…was too much. And Daddy, steady as ever, had seen it and fixed it. The best kind of fixer. Not overbearing, not pushy. He always asked before stepping in, always let me find my own way.
How could I be thinking about leaving while simultaneously cataloging all the ways Daddy was exactly who I needed in my life—and exactly who I wanted?
“Holy shit— My notebook.”
I dropped to the closet floor and dug through the pile of junk left by the previous tenant until I found my food truck notebook, my Stone and Vine paycheck, and my last stash of cash tips I hadn’t taken to the bank so I’d have travel cash. I gathered them both and sat cross-legged on the bed.
Inside that notebook was everything I’d dreamed about for years.
Sample menus. Recipes. Graphic design ideas.
Layout sketches. My whole little pie-in-the-sky plan.
And when I got on that plane tomorrow, I’d be no closer to any of it.
Worse, I’d be walking away from the one person who somehow knew every nook and cranny of me and loved me anyway.
I shoved myself off the bed like it burned and grabbed my duffel from the floor to double-check what else I needed to pack. I refused to sit there and think anymore about the dreams I was leaving behind.
Fuck my life.
Daddy’s Rainer hoodie was the very first thing I noticed when I unzipped the bag.
When I swiped it the other day, I told him it was because I was cold and forgot mine.
Lies. My own was shoved at the bottom of my bag, where there was no chance he’d find it because I wanted something of his when I was in my apartment.
I didn’t want to say so aloud and sound like an overly dramatic high schooler.
A good person wouldn’t have taken it in the first place, which definitely ruled me out. A halfway decent person would return it with an apology, which also wasn’t going to happen. I was keeping Daddy’s hoodie. A reminder? A memento? A tether.
My phone vibrated in my pocket, and I fished it out. Daddy’s name was on the screen. As much as I wanted to see what he had to say, I was terrified to read it. Shit. Rip off the Band-Aid.
Daddy
Let me know if you want/need a ride to the airport.
Asked the payroll company to send your direct deposit for your final check now rather than waiting until the regular day. Your Xmas bonus is there too.
I’d been fighting back tears all evening, but now they welled up in the corners of my eyes. I was leaving him, and he still wanted to take care of me and smooth my path.
Daddy
And the second deposit is from me. It’ll drive me up the wall if I’m not sure you have enough to get yourself settled. And make that dream happen.
With shaky hands, I managed to enter my passcode into my bank app.
The bonus was wildly generous. The second deposit was what sent tears streaming down my cheeks.
Ten thousand dollars. It was more than enough to pay for my ticket and any unexpected expenses.
But Daddy and I both knew I wouldn’t have many.
Instead, he was funding my dream because that’s who he was.
Ten thousand dollars.
Ten. Thousand. Dollars.
I stared at the number until it blurred, until it no longer looked real.
My bank account had never had that many zeros.
I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand, but more tears slipped free anyway, hot and stupid and definitely not on brand for a guy about to run away to Alaska like it was some heroic personal journey.
I set the phone on my mattress and just…
sat there. Legs crossed. Hoodie bunched in my lap like a pet I wasn’t supposed to have but was keeping anyway.
I dragged the sleeve across my cheek and breathed it in.
Of course it smelled like him. Something warm, something woodsy, something clean and steady and solid, and a little like the bar too.
I shouldn’t have taken it. Except I absolutely should have.
It was the only thing in this stupid apartment that felt safe.
I yanked the hoodie free and pressed it against my chest.
Suddenly, I wished I were back in his house, under his blankets, his hand stroking my hair while he read to me. God, that sounded pathetic. Who thinks about that at a time like this? Apparently me.
No one had ever done something like that for me before. Not once in my entire life had anyone looked at my dream and said, “Let me make that easier.” Most people didn’t even realize I wanted anything long-term because by the time they cared enough to ask, I was already packing.
I couldn’t get far enough away from myself in moments like this.
I wanted to crawl out of my skin. I tried to rip open the window and breathe in the cold night until the panic left.
I wanted…I wanted Daddy. There it was. The truth I kept trying to outrun.
I wanted him, and I didn’t even know how to want things without sprinting in the opposite direction.
My chest squeezed tight, that awful, heavy pressure that made everything feel like it was too much.
I scrubbed at my face again. I should’ve been packing.
I should’ve been checking that my charger was in the bag and my ID was still in my wallet.
All the normal things a person did when they were about to uproot their entire life on a whim.
Instead, I sat there clutching a hoodie like a lifeline, hating how much I didn’t want to get on that plane. Hating myself for even thinking about staying. And hating how choosing either direction felt like losing something important.
I looked down at the notebook again. The cover was bent from the time I shoved it into a backpack that was already too full.
The edges were soft from years of flipping pages.
The little doodle of a taco truck with a smiling cartoon face mocked me from the corner where sixteen-year-old me had drawn it, thinking I’d be in my dream phase by twenty, maybe twenty-two if life slowed me down.
Twenty-eight felt ancient in comparison.
I’d wasted time. I’d wasted chances. And now here I was, wasting more by obsessing over the impossible.
Except…was it impossible? Really impossible?
Daddy didn’t seem to think so. He acted like it was something that I could absolutely manage and make happen.
I dragged in a breath and flopped backward on the bed, the notebook sliding off my lap and landing facedown on the floor.
The hoodie came with me, my arms curling around it like it might disappear if I didn’t hold tight enough.
Maybe this was rock bottom. Or maybe it was the first honest moment I’d had in a long damn time.
I wasn’t sure which one scared me more.
My phone buzzed again somewhere near my hip, and I froze. I already knew who it was. I should’ve ignored it. I should’ve turned off the phone. I should’ve done literally anything except reach for it like I always did when he called.
Daddy
Forgot to say, you left your favorite onesie here. I’ll drop it by in the morning before your flight, unless you’d rather I leave it on the porch. Whatever makes it easier for you.
The tears came again. Stupid. Quiet. Relentless.
He wasn’t crowding me. He wasn’t begging. He wasn’t asking me for anything. My dumb onesie. Like the world wasn’t ending inside my chest.
I pressed the phone to my sternum and closed my eyes. Everything in me hurt.
I didn’t want to leave.
And I had no idea what to do with that.
Fuck that.
Yes, I did.
By the time I realized I’d grabbed my house keys, I was already out the door, calling an Uber to meet me outside.