Page 96 of Emmett

He clamps his hand down on my shoulder and offers a firm squeeze before heading out of the room, off on a mission to bring us the meal that we only share on either a particularly good day or a particularly crappy one.

Less than twenty minutes later, we’re seated next to each other, each with a double cheeseburger in hand and a chocolate milkshake next to us, silently taking bites of our meals.

With a slurp of his milkshake, Dad finally turns to me. “Nash Montgomery,” he gripes. “Fourbillionmen in the world, and it’s Nash Montgomery?”

“Yeah,” I nod, “it’s Nash.”

“He’s fourteen years older than you.”

“You’re nineteen years older than your wife,” I counter.

“Davis wants to kill him – and frankly, so do I,” he says, reaching for his milkshake. “Between what he’s done to Sophia and now to you…you showed up at my door bruised, bloody and crying because of him. He’s abadguy.”

“No,” I insist with a shake of my head. “I don’t know how to explain it so you get it, but…do you trust my judgment?”

“Of course I do.”

“Then trust that I’ve listened to everything you’ve taught me,” I ask of him. “Hetoldyou that he’s a bad guy, but heshowedme otherwise.”

“I’m going to need a lot more than that with this one, Emmett.”

“I know.”

I hold my breath through the thick silence that follows, only filled by the sound of Dad drinking his shake while he thinks. Enough tense moments pass between us that I think he might be dropping the conversation entirely before he finally speaks again.

“I will have a conversation with him,” he offers. “That’s all I can promise you.”

I nod and look around the room that we’ve shared over the past few days, at the notebook he’s been using to get work done while I’ve slept, at the exhaustion carved into every corner of his face, and I sigh. I didn’t want this; to see what theafterwould look like. To watch them wonder why or how or when all of this happened. I didn’t want to see what it looked like when my dad finally saw the one thing that I’ve hidden from him all my life.

“Can you also promise that things can go back to normal with us after I leave here?”

“No, bud,” he tells me with a shake of his head and a squeeze to my knee. “I don’t think I can.”

I was afraid of that.

THIRTY-EIGHT

Nash

This may be a colossally stupid idea, but I’m having a hard time trying to convince myself not to follow through with it.

I pull the white leather bag and rolling case from my trunk as Moose dives out and heads for the front yard. “Come on, Moose,” I tell him, jerking my head toward the door. “Knock knock.”

As ordered, he runs past me like a bullet, headed for the front door. He smacks his left paw against the bottom of the door twice, then moves into a sitting position with his tail wagging behind him. It may be one of the more useless tasks that I’ve taught him, but it’s one of my favorites. He’s always particularly proud of himself afterward, especially when someone actually answers the door.

I follow his path up the walkway, landing next to Moose just as the front door opens. Emmett stands in front of us, dressed in a white hoodie and a pair of dark jeans. His hair is mussed, but still brushed away from his face, and a generous five o’clock shadow dusts his jawline.

“Did you just knock on my door?” Emmett asks the dog with a cackle, crouching down to scratch behind his ears. His eyes scan my luggage, twisting confusion into his features before he meets my gaze. “What’s with the haul?”

“Moose and I decided that you shouldn’t be alone for your first week home.” Without giving him the chance to protest, I push past him into the house and Moose follows. The small yellow dog that bit me is dead-to-the-world asleep on the couch in front of the window. “What a very well-trained guard dog you have.”

“She just spent five days with Zipper and the girls, she’searnedthat nap.”

“And how areyou?” I wrap my arm around his neck and pull him close to me to press my lips to his.

“Tired of being asked that, really glad to see you, and ready for a real shower,” he answers, ticking each item off on his fingers as he goes down the list.

“Well, the third one is an easy fix,” I tell him. Moving toward his kitchen, I open the cabinet that he keeps his liquor in. “The first one might take some time.”