Page 35 of Something Like Sugar (Pine Forest Something #2)

“ I’m making a scene?” I whirl on him as Lawrence cowers beneath my father’s boot on the floor.

“This fucker has been spying on Shana, Dad, tricking you into closing on her studio and a handful of other locals in the area, and for some reason he won’t let up on the insults he likes to throw at her.

Ones that don’t fly with me when he knows as much about her as he does. ”

“I’m sorry.” Shana’s voice quavers over the speakers just before she exits the stage. “Thank you for having me.”

We all snap our attention to the stage as a round of apprehensive applause fills the awkward silence and Shana makes her way back to the table.

She doesn’t look me in the eyes. Any of us.

“This,” she says quietly. “This is what I was talking about. Everyone always wants to do things their own way. And if you’re like me, that means being alone.

But you know what being alone and festering in your own ways and habits does to a person?

It makes them stagnant. It causes remorse and resentment, turmoil, and despair.

Longing and hoping for nothing that changes because change comes with conflict.

Change can win if you let it. You just have to work together.

To trust. Don’t you see?” She heaves a depleted sigh from her tear-streaked lips and directs the last words to me alone. “I thought you did.”

My breath and my heart leave with her through the swinging ballroom doors.

I’m up on my feet to follow her before my next heartbeat can fire, but I’m halted.

“You!” Dad starts, and at first, I think it’s at me, but it’s Lawrence he yanks up by the arm and drags to his feet.

“Threatening my family and their town? Shame on you. You will not do business with Campbell Properties, or any of our associates, ever again, Mr. Lawson. And you’ll be lucky if I don’t press charges for verbal and physical provocation.

You were right about one thing…land is power.

” His eyes narrow. “I have a lot of land, Mr. Lawson. Are you familiar with The Honorable Judge Presley? Helped him close on a lovely estate last spring.”

Lawrence spits at his feet, straightening his suit jacket and storming off, but not before looking my way…and smiling.

Fucking creep.

My eyes flick to the doors, the same ones Shana left through only moments ago, and the need to go to her surges through every piece of me before Dad wraps his hand around my arm.

I wince.

Then so does he.

“Habit.” I clear my throat as remorse ghosts his brow.

“I’m sorry I’ve not been on your side in the past, Son, but know that I would never stand for this from anyone on my team.

That kind of man is not my buddy…that’s not me.

” His face reddened from humiliation and anger over the nefarious side of his new pal, Lawrence, sets in.

His eyes are sunken, and I can’t ignore how old my father has become when I see him this way, worried…

caring. “If I’d have known the town wanted to restore that strip, Hell, I’d have offered leasing programs to the tenants directly.

You know we can do that…does…does Shana know we can—”

“I know, Dad. I know that’s not you. Shana knows you would never operate like Lawrence, okay?

” I scrub the back of my neck, moving to a private alcove of the banquet hall.

“She made me realize something this weekend.” I cast a deflated laugh into the air between us. “We were different people when w-w-we—”

“Stopped trying?” He sighs, knowing what I’m saying without any further explanation needed.

He doesn’t correct my stutter.

And it doesn’t go unnoticed.

“I want you to know, Son. I’ve only ever done or said the things I have, to help secure your future.”

“I get that, Dad, but you have to know something too. What your idea of forever looks like, and what mine are, those are two different things, and the only future I’m remotely concerned with just walked away from me in tears. And that’s half my fault, if I’m being honest.”

My eyes travel to the doors, no longer swinging.

That’s what got me in this mess in the first place, not being honest.

Dad nods, a smile forming just before he does something we’ve not done in a long, long while. We hug.

“You aren’t my father,” he says. “You may have a temper and a record like him, but no matter what you’ve done or what you do, you are nothing like him. You are my son , and I am proud of you. I regret that in my efforts to… I thought you needed…w-well—”

“Who’s stuttering now, Pops?” I smirk, earning a groan and a chuckle as he shakes his head.

He’s trying.

“Well, to Hell with it!” His nostrils flare, a subtle rub to the pocket-watch my grandfather gave him before he was sentenced—when Dad was just a kid—and he exhales as his sincerity shines through the tears in his eyes.

“I do not wish to be a stranger to the man I raised. Not like I was to the man who raised me.”

I don’t know how to react. He’s bleeding his heart out, but years of resentment I harbor for his choices lord over me, even if they do feel a few pounds lighter on my chest with his remorse.

Will they always be there?

You can’t erase what’s been written in blood.

But when his eyes crinkle at the corners and he gives me a look of pride I’ve only seen him use on my sister, one I’ve waited my whole life for, the pencil doesn’t feel so out of reach anymore.

We can’t erase it, no, but nobody said we can’t keep writing.

“You have always been worthy, Dustin. Now go get her.”