I laughed under my breath. “We worked things out.”
Her expression softened, but she still appeared surprised. “Worked things out how?”
“We train together. We live together. We’re good.”
Dad’s brows lifted. “You live together?”
Mom blinked. “And you didn’t think to mention that?”
I looked down at my plate and shrugged. “I did. It just seemed like too much to explain when we were barely talking and I didn’t know if the whole thing was going to blow up.”
Mom was still watching me. “And so it’s going well?”
“Yeah.”
Dad asked, “No issues?”
“Not like before.”
Mom wrapped her fingers around her wineglass. “I’m not asking for details. I just want to know if it’s really okay. Whatever happened between you two back then, it hit you hard.”
It was actually me who hurt him, but they didn’t know the details. Just that we stopped talking several months before I went into the military.
“It is.” I beamed. “We’re fine.”
She held my gaze for an extra moment, then nodded. “All right.”
Dad took another sip. “That’s got to make things easier at the gym.”
“It does.”
“And going to LA with him won’t be a problem?”
“No.”
“Good,” Dad answered.
Mom’s mouth softened too. “I’m glad.”
“Me too.”
She peered down at her plate, then back at me. “I always hated that you two stopped being friends.”
“I know.”
Dad took a bite of garlic bread. “You don’t have to drag all that back up if you don’t want to.”
“I don’t.” I twisted more pasta around my fork.
For a moment, the only sounds in the room were forks against plates and Dad setting his bottle back on the table. Then Dad said, “I’m still not going to pretend that I love you leaving the Air Force for this.”
Mom tilted her head a little toward him. “Frank.”
“No, he knows that.” Dad kept his eyes on me. “I’m not saying it to start anything. I’m saying it because it’s the truth.”
“I know.”
He went on. “I did over twenty years. I know what reliable looks like. I know what a paycheck looks like. I know what sticking with something looks like. Your walking away from that to fight was a gamble.”
