Page 59

He smiles, lines creasing by his eyes. He’s so damn handsome; I’m getting dinner and a show. Neither of us talk too much as we work through the mountain of food. I’m satisfied and happy, a little burnt from lying by the lake.

Honestly, this is the most relaxed I’ve been in my entire life.

“I can’t eat any more,” I say finally, closing my box. “That was the best thing I’ve had in…forever.”

“Yeah, pretty damn good. If we have time when we leave, we can stop by again.”

He swings out of the truck bed, reaching into the back seat to grab a trash bag. I help him gather things up, and he heads off to the campsite trash. He’s just out of sight when my phone vibrates in my pocket. I pull it out, and my good mood evaporates as I realize who it is. Taking a deep breath, I swipe the screen and put it to my ear.

“Hey, Dad,” I say.

“Brina,” he says, voice flat and controlled. “If you don’t come back, I’m cutting you off.”

My jaw drops. Dad never talks to me like this.

“What? Cutting me off from what?” I shoot back.

“Everything,” he says. “The damn phone plan, your credit card.”

“Dad!”

My chest aches. Never in my entire life have Dad and I disagreed like this, and I never imagined he would say something like this. It takes a second for me to gather myself and blink back the tears flooding my eyes. It’s been a long time since I felt this hurt. Usually, it’s him standing between me and whoever wants to make me cry. I don’t know how to handle it when it’s him.

“He’s gonna fuck you over,” Dad says, unrelenting. “You don’t understand.”

Anger sweeps through my shaking chest.

“I’m sure you do,” I whisper.

I expect him to lash out, but he’s quiet for a beat.

“Yes, I do. And I’m telling you as someone who regrets a lot of shit…you need to come home.”

My mind goes back to last night, when Coen held me like this meant something. In that moment, I believed his hands, his mouth, how deep he breathed, sleeping at my side. In the light of day, I wonder if Dad is right, and I’m being used.

But for what? I’m going into this with eyes wide open.

I’m not asking him for commitment.

“Dad,” I say, forcing my voice to stop shaking. “This is my business.”

“And you’re my baby,” he says.

God, I want to sob. I lean back and look up at the sky. There’s not a cloud in sight; they’re all hovering right over my head.

“I get it,” I whisper. “Please let me do this.”

With the way his voice dropped when he said I was his baby, I thought he was going to relent. Instead, he clears his throat, and I hear him moving across the kitchen. His steps are firm, the way I remember they were before his health started failing. He must be so damn mad at me, it has him up and moving.

Maybe I made a mistake.

“If you come home crying because he hurt you, I don’t give a fuck what kind of celebrity this guy is. I will get the Remington out of the safe,” he snaps.

“Dad, this is so inappropriate.”

“Brina,” he barks. “You have him take you to the closest airport and send you home.”

He hangs up, and I stare down at my phone, tempted to gather myself up and call back to chew him out. Instead, I wipe my face and lean into the tent to shove my phone in my sleeping bag. I’m scrambling out when I change my mind and slip into my sleeping bag, taking up the phone and calling Serena. She doesn’t pick up, so I call her again, and this time, she does.