“Dad, it’s not his fault. At all.”
“Maybe not, but that doesn’t mean it’s not important.”
That stole the protest right out of her mouth. She had no way to refute that, and yet it watered down the beautiful complexity of Nick Thacker to a single bullet point. One that mattered, yes, but certainly not the only one. If anything, Nick’s unfortunate home situation only proved his resilience.
“Look.” Her father rubbed at his brows with a thumb and forefinger. “Just get him cleaned up, get him some clothes, and send him home. You and I need to have a talk.”
She tensed. “About?”
“The future.”
She hauled in a breath, then released it unused and went to do as he asked. She found Nick by the kitchen sink, still shell-shocked.
“This is bad,” he said. “This is really, really bad, isn’t it?”
“It could definitely be better.” She fitted the butterfly into place. “But my dad’s reasonable. I can make him understand.”
Nick nodded, but looked no less stricken.
By the time Aubrey had gotten him into a clean shirt, he’d recovered somewhat, enough to approach her father on his way out through the living room.
Nick straightened to his full height and made unflinching eye contact. “I’m sorry. I wish we’d met under different circumstances. But I want you to know I genuinely love your daughter. With all my heart.”
Aubrey’s chest swelled. This surpassed his earlier defense of her and left it gasping in the dust.
Her dad raised bushy red eyebrows. “I’m glad to hear that.”
“Have a good evening.” Nick made for the door. “Sir.”
Once he’d gone, her father set her down on the blue chesterfield. He settled beside her with a sigh that added ten years to him, even though he’d just turned forty-five. “So. That’s the famous Nick. At last.”
Aubrey clasped her hands in her lap. “That’s him.”
Another sigh. “You’re serious about him?”
“Yes.”
“How serious?”
“Very.” Her fingers tangled together. “He’s the most honorable person I’ve ever met.”
“Honorable? He didn’t look honorable, with his hands all over you like that.”
Her heart wriggled up the back of her throat. How she wished she could go back in time and beg Nick to come to dinner on a night when he could’ve showed up with a bouquet for her mother and a handshake for her father. A wasted wish. “I know, but—”
“Andhe started a fight over you.”
“He didn’t,” she rushed out, absurdly grateful for Nick’s first-punch policy. “Brent started it. Nick just hit back.”
Her father grunted. “He’s not beingraisedright, Aubrey. That probably means more to me than it does to you, but people learn from their parents. They turn into them, someday.”
She hissed in protest. “That’s prejudiced.”
“It’s realistic.”
She dug her heels in at that point. So did her father, and Aubrey ended up parroting the same speech she’d delivered to Tansy. She wished, then, that she had Nick’s aptitude for words, because hers failed in every way to convey the breadth of what he meant to her. She couldn’t explain how his arms offered a haven, or that his letters scorched into her, each word a fizzing star slingshotted across her sky. She had no poetry to describe her certainty that Nick was worth it. Worth anything.
Still, her father listened, and when she finished, he cradled her hands in his. “That’s all well and good,” he said. “But it’s probably for the best that this thing is ending in a few weeks.”
