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with that twenty-five-hundred-days comment—”

“Two thousand six hundred and forty-two.”

I really needed to be more careful about keeping all these day calculations to myself so I didn’t develop a reputation as

the Rain Man of the Gregorian calendar.

He nodded slowly and bit the inside of his cheek. “I would give anything to be able to go back and take away those two thousand

six hundred and forty-two days of pain. I’m so sorry.”

“Hey...” I rested my hand on his face and brushed my thumb along his cheekbone. “That’s the past.”

He tilted his head and fluttered kisses along the inside of my wrist before grabbing my hand in both of his and holding it

against his chest. “But I just need you to know—and I promise I’m not trying to prove anything here or say anything other

than the words I’m actually saying. I just need you to know that you are the love of my life. I never got over you, and then I gave up on trying. And I really am so glad you found Joel. And I’m

so sorry you lost him. Nothing I ever say or do will be about trying to replace him or surpass him or anything ridiculous

like that. It’s just... I do want you to understand you’re it for me.” He raised my hand to his lips again and held my

fingers against them. “You’re just... it .”

I cleared my throat. “Well, um, I have to say, that does help me understand a bit more why you married a lesbian.”

I instantly began wondering if I could forgo my usual Celebrate Recovery addiction small group that evening and launch a new

group instead. (“I’m Addie, and I struggle with alcohol addiction and an overwhelming need to avoid moments of vulnerability

by making bad and usually inappropriate jokes.”) But Wes began laughing right away, thank goodness.

“You’re not entirely wrong.”

I leaned my forehead onto his chest. “No, I’m sorry. It sounds like you and Wray were a lot more than... I don’t know.”

I still didn’t understand what exactly they had been, really, but he had clearly cared about her very deeply. “I don’t mean

to sound disrespectful about any of that.”

He wrapped his arms around my shoulders and sighed. “Look, I get it. And the truth is, yeah, Wray was fully aware of how I

felt about you. She was the only person I never had to hide that from. I told you it worked for us, and that was a big part

of the reason why. She and I were on the same page, working toward the same things.” He took a step back and looped his hands

around my neck, his wrists resting on my shoulders. “Maybe even more than I knew, as it turns out.”

I looked up at him. “What do you mean?”

Wes exhaled and shook his head. “Well, according to what I just found out from—”

“Now hold on. Just settle down.”

We both looked down Main Street at the sound of Jo’s voice, but it wasn’t Jo who kept our attention. She was calling after

my dad, who was hurrying toward us faster than I’d seen him move in decades.

“Get your hands off of her!” he shouted, and Wes pulled away and raised his hands into the air.

At any other time, under any other circumstances—with any other looks on Wes’s face or my dad’s—I would have made some joke about my dad treating us like children and Wes sort of acting like one.

But as Wes whispered, “I’m so sorry,” out of the corner of his mouth, I understood he wasn’t stuck in the past at all.

Not right then. He did, however, fully understand that the present had just been made a bit more difficult.

“Dad, just relax.”

“Relax? Relax , Adelaide?” He reached us and immediately got in Wes’s face. I couldn’t remember Wes ever being quite as tall as my dad,

though he’d gotten pretty close with his last growth spurt I had been present for, but now he had a good inch or more on him.

“How dare you even show your face in this town?”

Jo caught up finally and began pulling on Dad’s arm, attempting to get his finger out of Wes’s face, but ultimately not getting

him to budge. “Doc, you stop this right now.”

Wes, meanwhile, put up no resistance, but he certainly didn’t cower. “This really isn’t how I hoped our reunion would go,

Doc—”

“ Reunion? Is that what this is to you? Do you think you get to come back here and say hello to old friends and get caught up and pick

right back up like nothing ever happened?” He shoved Wes toward the wall of the restaurant, causing me to gasp and Jo to run

inside—for reinforcements, I discovered a moment later when she came back out with Cole and Sebastian, Laila trailing close

behind. It was all happening so quickly, and by this time Wes’s back was against the wall, and the front of his shirt—golly,

that poor shirt—was clenched in my dad’s fists.

“Hey, Doc, why don’t you come inside and cool off?” Cole placed a hand on my dad’s shoulder, but nothing changed.

“I get it,” Wes told him. Then he swallowed hard. “I get it, Doc. You hate me. You should hate me. Can we please just go talk—”

“You’re smarter than this, Adelaide,” my dad said, though he never turned his attention from Wes. “You know he can’t be trusted.

Why in the world would you let him waltz back in here like nothing ever happened?”

“That’s not what I’m doing, Doc,” Wes said.

It was Sebastian’s turn to step forward, and he went with a little more forceful approach than Cole’s attempt. He grabbed both of my dad’s shoulders and pulled him back. “Don’t do something you’re going to regret.”

I’d never seen my dad in a physical altercation with anyone in my entire life. I’d never even seen him angry the way he was

now, to the point that his ears were burning red and he had a crazed, intimidating look in his eyes. Intimidating. I had always placed him on a pedestal. I respected him. I honored him. I looked up to him. But I couldn’t remember a time

in my life when I had ever been intimidated by him.

And I wasn’t going to allow that to start now.

“Daddy, stop it !” I shouted—not thrilled that I’d gone with “Daddy,” which I feared made me sound a little too much like a teenager wanting to borrow the car keys,

but satisfied with my tone overall. And the fact that every last one of them turned to face me helped confirm that I’d nailed

it. “You stop it right now.” I hurried over and squeezed my shoulder into the space between them, facing my dad. “You say

I’m smarter than this? Well, you’re better than this. If you want to talk, Wes is offering to sit down and talk with you. That’s a lot more generous than I’m feeling right now. But this stupid, childish machismo is not how we’re going to handle this. Do you understand me?”

We glowered at each other until he dropped his hands, and then I reached behind me and grabbed Wes’s hand. “Come on. Let’s

go.”

“Addie, hang on,” Wes said softly as I pulled him toward Beulah. “If Doc wants to talk—”

“I don’t,” Dad grumbled from behind us.

“Let’s go,” I repeated and released his hand as I climbed into Beulah’s passenger seat. Yes, because Wes already had the keys,

and yes, because I was pretty sure Beulah’s antique accelerator couldn’t handle the speeds my adrenaline might have made me

drive. But mostly—and I’m not proud of it—because I knew that seeing Wes climb into the driver’s seat of his beloved truck

and driving away with his beloved little girl would really tick my dad off.