Teagan
Eagle’s Cove’s main drag, what there was of it, was buzzing. Rowers and parents and supporters had filled the town’s eateries in advance of the competition.
She parked her bike outside a cafe advertising a Haverford Smoothie Cup, but as she headed in she spotted someone sitting in a car with the window rolled down. They were slumped low, in a baseball cap and sunglasses, like they were trying not to be seen.
Wait a minute. She knew that cap. She knew those sunglasses. Was that—
“Dad?!”
“Hi, Teagan.”
Teagan stared at her father in complete shock. Everything she’d wanted to say to him over the past few months jammed in her throat. “You’re here,” she managed to croak. “Why?”
He smiled at her. “I wanted to see you row. I hear you’re a coxswain now.”
He what? How? And also… no. He couldn’t just turn up like this. Act like he’d cut a business trip short to see her big day.
“Get in the car.” Her dad sounded nervous now. Like it had suddenly dawned on him that he might have some explaining to do.
Ten minutes later, Teagan still wasn’t sure any of this was real. Or that she believed her dad’s story about his partner being the one who’d misappropriated the funds.
“After I found out the money was misspent,” he’d said, “I tried to make everything right. Turn the bad decisions I made into something that would make up for what I’ve put you and your mom through. But then the FBI got wind of it and I ran out of time.”
“Right,” she said in the same icy tone she used to use with her mom. “So you left.”
“I thought about you every day.”
“That doesn’t make it better, Dad. It just means that every day, you decided not to be with us.”
“I wasn’t just running away,” he protested. “I was trying to fix things.”
“How?”
He pulled a USB drive out of his pocket. “With this. It has the files of everything we did. Evidence I can use to make a deal.”
“With the FBI?” This was surreal. And scary. And infuriating. She felt like she was in an episode of America’s Most Wanted.
“No, not with the FBI. It wouldn’t help you and your mom if I did that. I’m working on a deal to sell this so I can set you two up properly.”
That sounded way more illegal than anything he may or may not have done with his business partner. “No. Do not do that. I don’t want it.”
Her dad grunted in frustration. “First your mother and now you, huh? You’re both so stubborn. I’m trying to help you.”
His words landed. Teagan stared at him in disbelief.
“Wait. Have you seen Mom?” Her mom hadn’t said a word.
Just talked about finger bowls and ice buckets as if the man they’d both been desperate to see hadn’t come back into their lives.
“I can’t believe she knew you’d come here and didn’t tell me. ”
“Hey. She didn’t want you to get hurt. Don’t be mad at her.”
She wasn’t. She was FURIOUS. Her phone beeped, reminding her that she was supposed to be halfway to Easton by now.
“I’ve gotta go.”
“Teagan,” her dad pleaded, looking desperate not to end the conversation like this. “If I’d stayed in LA, the FBI would’ve put me in prison for twenty years!”
“At least I would’ve known where you were!” she spat back. “I could’ve talked to you. Visited you.” What was the point? He wasn’t the father she remembered. Not even close. “There’s only ever been one person who’s kept my dad away from me all this time: you.” And then, just like him, she bolted.