I shook my head. “My dad—” I choked out.
“I know.” He grabbed both my hands, cradling them in his own like I was the most fragile person on this planet. “I know, Parker. I was in a really dark place. Reed helped me. My family helped me. I’m getting better every day. I’m never drinking again.Youwill never go through anything like that again.”
Despite it all, I believed him. Beckham had never lied to me, and I had to trust that was the one thing that hadn’t changed over all these years.
“Promise me,” I whispered, unable to muster more than that.
He moved even closer, our clasped hands grazing both our stomachs now. “I promise.”
“Are you okay?” I asked, because I couldn’t not worry about Beckham. Even hundreds of miles apart, I worried about him.
He lowered his head, placing his forehead to mine, and nodded. “I’m okay.”
And that was enough.
It always was.
10
BECKHAM
Itossed the wrench in the toolbox, a loudclangringing out through the shop. Parker deserved to know. About the drinking. About Garrett. About me. For that reason alone, I couldn’t be mad at Wyatt. But his way of outing me, paired with replacing the fuel pump on this ‘72 Camaro, had me damn well frustrated. More so at the car, but the semantics didn’t matter.
“What’d that wrench do to you?” Wyatt asked, running a stained rag between his grease-covered fingers.
“Nothing.”
“I said I was sorry, Beckham. I don’t know what else to say.”
“I wanted her to know. I just…” I braced my hands on the front fender of the car, staring in at the engine.
“Wanted to tell her another way,” he filled in.
“What other way is there to tell the girl you’d do anything for that you ended up just like her father?”Regret hit me in the gut, stealing the air from my lungs. I never should’ve drank that much. Never should’ve turned to alcohol to fill the hole Garrett’s death had shot through my chest.
Four months later, simply thinking about him still made me want to scream. To tear my hair out and beat myself up and sob for hours.Garrett should be here.He should be fucking breathing, giving me shit for falling off a fucking horse. Not under so much dirt that I couldn’t hear his laugh.
Grief chose the wrong fucking times to rear its ugly head. I didn’twantto grieve. I wanted my best friend.
“Beckham?”
I shoved off the car, swiping away the tear that’d fallen. “Yeah?”
“I asked if you were good.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose before sliding a hand down my face. Counted my breaths because Garrett couldn’t. “Yep.”
Wyatt studied me as I closed the hood and started to clean up the mess from the day.
“I apologized to Parker, too,” he stated when I tossed a handful of trash in the can.
“She accept it?” Parker was sweet, but she had heavily fortified walls. Her parents put them there, and she didn’t let them down for just anyone.
“Yeah. Told me to keep any details about you out of my mouth around her.”
That piqued my interest. “Why?”
He shrugged before setting a box of oil filters on the shelf. “My guess is she wants to hear it all from you.”
