Page 104 of Hard to Hold

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

LENNOX

“IT REALLY IS GORGEOUS HERE.”

I startle at the sound of my dad’s voice and find him sitting on the chaise lounge, staring at the view of the city. “Dad. You scared the crap out of me. What are you doing here?” I move toward his spot in the shade and take a seat in the chair next to him.

“I know you’re sick of us all being here—a couple days of us is a lot—and that we said our goodbyes last night before we headed back to the hotel, but I wanted a moment with you alone if that’s okay. Johnny let me in.”

“Of course. What’s on your mind?”

“I wanted to give you something.” He produces a black box with a white ribbon tied around it.

“What’s this?”

“A little birthday present for you.”

“Dad, you didn’t have to,” I say as I pull the ribbon off and then gasp when I open the box.

“It was your mother’s. She used to wear it, and I thought it was fitting you should have it.”

I take the necklace out of the box. It’s a plain gold chain, nothing special, but it’s the delicate charm dangling from it that makes me catch my breath.

It’s a loose version of a compass. Feathered arrows cross over each other, each one depicting a direction. There is a band around the whole of it with the word wanderlust etched in the daintiest of scripts.

I rub my fingers over the pendant and feel more connected to her already. My eyes are full of tears when I look up to meet my dad’s.

“Thank you. This is the best present, Dad. It’s perfect.”

“For you it is, yes.” He sniffles away the emotion and then sighs loudly. “I nearly choked when Rush jumped in the pool the other day, and I saw a similar image on his chest in that mess of ink he has.”

“You mean his tattoos?”

“Yes, I mean those.” He rolls his eyes as only a father can do.

“It’s for his mom. She had a medallion with a compass on it. He got the tattoo in her memory.”

“Oh.” It’s a simple sound, but it says so much more coming from my dad. The look in his eyes reinforces it. He’s shocked by the coincidence and happy, in a bittersweet way, that I’m seeing someone who understands the kind of loss that’s hard to explain to someone who has never experienced it personally.

“Yes. I know. How odd that we both . . .” I blink back tears and then smile. “Nice segue by the way.”

“I’m proud of it.” He winks at me and then his expression stills.

“If you wanted to talk about him, all you had to do was say so.”

“Okay.” He nods and chews the inside of his cheek for a moment as he finds the right words. “You really like him, don’t you?”

“He’s what I need right now, yes. Does that mean he’s going to be what I need in a few weeks? I don’t know.” I try to sell the lie with a soft smile, but I’m not completely sure my dad buys it.

“You’re not sixteen, Lenn. You don’t have to hide liking a guy because you’re afraid you’re going to get in trouble.” He chuckles. “It’s okay that you do. He seems like a nice man.”

“I think you’re letting me off the hook and not saying what you really want to say.”

“And what’s that?”

“That I told you I was going to recruit him, and I ended up dating him. It’s not exactly putting the most professional foot forward.”

“Sometimes life has different plans for you than the ones you made.” He lifts his eyebrows and shrugs.