Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 136025 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 680(@200wpm)___ 544(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 136025 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 680(@200wpm)___ 544(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
I pull up the hood to my green Patagonia jacket. He wears a similar style but a darker shade of green. Right now, I don’t give a fuck. The media isn’t around to write up articles about our similarities, but even if they were, I don’t care anymore. Compared to what else is on my plate, it’s insignificant.
I don’t care if you know how much I love him.
How much he means to me.
How much he influenced and shaped me.
I am who I am, and I’m not changing. I can’t change for anyone. Not even for my own dad.
“Look,” Ryke says, “you have to be honest with him, even if it fucking hurts him—”
“No—”
“Moffy.” Ryke grips my shoulders until I stare him in the eye. “You can’t be afraid to hurt him. It’s going to fucking happen.”
It already happened.
I’m rigid and cold. “You know what I think?” I take a tight breath, my gaze hardening. “I think the Hales are a line of dominos, and when my mom or dad falls, my siblings topple with them.”
Ryke doesn’t refute.
I nod a few times. “And I already pushed them down. I’m never doing it again.”
“That’s your fucking choice, but I’m telling you that I’ll keep your dad and your mom standing. If you need to be upset—”
“I don’t.” I make a plan. I’ll be honest with my dad, but not enraged or overly emotional. I’m not coming at him with guns blazing.
Ryke lets go of my shoulders. “They can handle a lot.”
“But you know I still have the power to hit them where it hurts the worst. And they’ll relapse.”
Ryke brushes snow off his dark hair. “But here’s the thing, Mof. You’ll never hit that place.”
“How do you know?”
“Because you’re the furthest fucking thing from callous and vindictive.” He gestures with his head to the hot tub. “My brother raised a good man.”
I inhale stronger, and in a silent beat, a lot goes unsaid in our eyes. Less about my parents. More about him and me. And his aggression towards me dating a bodyguard.
“Later?” Ryke asks.
“Yeah.” One thing at a time.
We rejoin Connor and my dad at the hot tub. Steam rises off the water, and my uncles decide to take a walk and make some phone calls.
Leaving me and my dad alone.
Not saying much of anything, we shed to bathing suits and then quickly lower into the hot, soothing water. Snow flutters in the horizon, and I watch white powder cake on the mountainsides and frozen lake.
I hear a splash, and I turn my head.
Across from me, my dad slicks his hair back with his wet hands. When he was in his twenties, he modeled for a single day and then quit. But he could probably still model if he wanted to.
Why the fuck I’m hanging onto this—out of everything—I try not to overanalyze. Yay me.
“I was wrong,” he says. “That’s the first thing you need to know.”
I already knew that. My words aren’t even close to surfacing. I just stare at the one man who means the most to me in my life. I teeter between worry and hurt. I fear saying the wrong thing, but I wade in this murky pain from our blowup.
My dad rubs the back of his neck again. “At your charity event, I made a mistake.” His amber eyes lift to my forest-green.
I cradle all my words before I let them loose. I speak with ten-billion times less emotion than I really feel. “This isn’t a normal mistake, Dad.” I rest my arm on the hot tub edge. “This isn’t forgetting to sign a field trip slip or missing a birthday. You sided with the…” I pause to avoid a curse word. “You sided with the media over me.”
His brows cinch. “I didn’t side with anyone. I didn’t know what to believe.”
My muscles burn. Don’t get angry. Don’t get fucking angry. Hear him out. I hold his gaze. “But you couldn’t fathom believing me.”
I’m starting to wonder if he brought me to the hot tub because it’d be twice as hard for either of us to just walk away.
My dad squints as the sun brightens. “What do you remember about your grandfather?” His dad. He died of liver failure when I was a little kid.
Most of my memories are good. He always bought me a new toy when I saw him, and he tried to give me life lessons: listen to your parents and be grateful.
But I was also aware that my dad would never leave me alone with him.
“I remember he had a loud, distinct voice. Pretty forceful, but I was never scared of him.” My shoulders stiffen. “I guess he was nice to me.” I know the history.
I know my grandfather verbally abused my dad.
A quick Google search says as much, and I’ve seen a few clips of We Are Calloway where my dad and Ryke talk about their father.