Rhett kisses the top of my head.
“Take your time,” he whispers, his lips brushing my ear. A shiver runs down my spine at the contact. “If the wholesale order gets here before you’re back, I’ll sign for it.”
Dad waits until I’ve approached him—hands shoved in the pockets of my skirt to keep from fidgeting—and then looks at Rhett.
“You’re good for tonight?” he asks, all business. There’s no animosity in his voice, at least.
“Yes, coach,” Rhett says. “I’ll be there at first report to get some extra time back on the ice.”
With nothing more than a quick nod, Dad holds out his arm. I gently grab his elbow like I’ve done since I was old and tall enough to reach it. He doesn’t look back at Rhett as he leads me out of the shop and toward one of the coffee shops a few blocks down.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
CARYS
A heavy lump settles in my throat, nearly impossible to breathe around. Dad and I both order, and then he holds his hand out to one of the small tables tucked in the back portion of the shop, away from any of the foot traffic paths. He doesn’t say anything until our drinks sit on the small wooden table between us, the steam wafting from my herbal tea and his Americano.
“A lot of people thought I should remarry after Sheri died,” he says, looking down at his mug. I frown, my eyebrows dropping low. Dad never really talks about Mom, not if I don’t bring her up first. And I haven’t done that in a long time. “They didn’t think a little girl should grow up without a mom. But I couldn’t stomach the idea of getting involved with someone else. Not in those early years. And by the time I might be willing to try, life was hectic, and Marilyn had stepped in and filled a lot of the gaps your mom had left behind. It felt disingenuous to only pursue a woman for the sake of you having a mother figure of sorts to look for at school events.”
He sighs and then takes a sip from the mug, not flinching at how hot the coffee must still be. I only trace the handle of my own mug.
“Now I wonder if those people were onto something,” he says. “Maybe you would have told a mom about Rhett.”
“Dad—”
He cuts me off with a quiet question that cuts deeper than a knife. “When did you realize he’s your scent match?”
“Halloween,” I admit. “He asked me out about a week later.”
He takes another long drink of coffee then runs his hand over his head. It’s a motion he’s done all my life, a signal he’s sorting through his thoughts. Dad isn’t someone who explodes in fits of frustration. He thinks through everything, his anger creeping rather than dynamic. He keeps his eyes on the coffee.
“Halloween,” he whispers. “Marilyn said Rhett informed her of finding a scent match mid-November. You were together at Thanksgiving?”
I squirm in my seat but don’t look away from him. “Yes.”
“Damn,” he mutters. His look grows shattered as he focuses on me. “Why didn’t you tell me? You could have trusted me with it.”
“I was scared,” I say, slowly, tracing the edge of the table instead of the mug.
“Of me?” Now he’s truly devastated. “Carys bug…”
“Not exactly.” I grimace. “Just… I was scared of you being disappointed that I’d gotten involved with one of the players. And I was worried you wouldn’t actually take it out on me but on the team.”
He doesn’t say anything, his eyes wide with hurt.
“I’d planned on telling you over Christmas,” I hedge. “Once the season had a bit of a pause and you all weren’t struggling to climb out of the media hole the team was in when the season started.”
He takes a deep breath, his eyes finally flicking to something behind me. He swallows heavily. I try to find something to fill the silence.
“Rhett didn’t want to hide any of it.” His eyebrow shoots up in question. “I was the one who pushed for it. It… it felt logical at the time, but it probably wasn’t. I just thought it would look worrisome to you that I started dating the fuckboy of the team within a few months of being back from college, especially when I’d put so much effort into getting the shop up and running.”
His chuckle is humorless. “Well, you weren’t wrong about that. It was worrisome. I spent the entire game panicking that something had happened to you. When he was in the doorway to your room, very clearly—” He clears his throat and waves his hand in a you-know-what-I-mean gesture that has my cheeks darkening. “I guess I should have put the pieces together earlier that night.”
He finishes his coffee then leans his elbows on the table, resting his chin on his hand.
“And… Ashton?”
I scrunch my nose in distaste. “Absolutely not. I’m trying to forget he even saw me at all.”
