Page 81 of Puck My Stepbrother

“Let me ask you,” he said. “Is there anyone else?”

I froze, feeling tense. Of course he’d ask that question right now. He hadn’t meant to dig for anything, so he couldn’t have meant Levi. Not unless he’d noticed something going on between us. Dad was the smartest guy I knew. He might’ve picked up on something, but he had enough tact to keep quiet.

But there was nothing between Levi and me. I’d made sure of that.

“Oh, I don’t mean anyone in particular,” he said. “But I get the feeling your mind’s telling you something. Or your heart.”

Or Jeff’s heart is tellinghimsomething,I wanted to say.

I checked my phone again, hoping like crazy to hear something from him, but found nothing.

“No,” I said, “there’s no one else.”

“Well, if you’re sure…”

Dad stood in the mirror, adjusting his bowtie even though the wedding was still hours away.

“Maybe your mind is getting the best of you,” he said. “We’ve all been a little on edge, haven’t we?”

“You’re probably right. Maybe I’m worrying over nothing?”

“If there’s nothing else going on, that’s likely. Don’t let it get you down either way. It’s hard not to worry. I did plenty of that with your mother, and I repeated the same crap thistime. I guess what I’m saying is that it’s hard not to overthink sometimes.”

“So the same thing is happening to you even now that you’re practically a fossil?”

“Nobody likes a smartass, Quinn.”

We laughed. Most guys couldn’t joke with their dads like that, but I always could.

“But yes, it still happened,” he said. “At first, I thought your stepmother wasn’t the one for me. I never saw myself remarrying or being happy with anyone. But she hooked me. Once things got going, she told me she felt the exact same way.”

“That she never saw herself remarrying, but you hooked her?”

“Something like that, yes. She had a lot of suitors.”

“Suitors?” I struggled not to laugh.

“It’s a nice way of saying she had a million boyfriends that didn’t work out. She’d shut herself off to the idea of marrying any of them. We were both sort of reserved, and changing that was a matter of giving ourselves over to one another. If we hadn’t done that…”

“You wouldn’t be getting married today?”

“Right!” He snapped his fingers and smiled.

I realized that I hadn’t seen Dad so happy…maybe ever. If he hadn’t given himself over to my new stepmother, he wouldn’t be wearing the smile on his face right now.

“I can’t tell you what to do, Quinn,” he said, “but I want to make sure you don’t overthink yourself out of a good thing. But don’t ignore the signs of a real problem once you see them.”

I drew a deep breath and looked away from him. Had our eyes met, I would’ve had to admit he had a point.

Dad turned back to the mirror to take another look at himself.

“Just think about it, Quinn,” he said. “This could be you in a couple of years.”

“Getting married, you mean?”

“Right.”

“To Jeff?”