“Hello? Do you speak? Are you deaf?” she asks, pointing to her ear.

“What are you doing here?” I demand, ignoring Kendall. But he’s staring at her like she’s a ghost, so distracted, I don’t think he’s hearing a damn word that I’m not certain yet if I care to waste my breath on.

“Dad!” I watch his head jolt back to me. “What in the hell are you doing here?”

“Dad?” Kendall not so quietly whispers in shock.

I watch his face crumple as he looks at me, his eyes running over my face, making me feel uncomfortable and anxious. A single tear rolls down his weathered cheek. “I wanted to say I’m sorry, and that I love you, Son.”

His words don’t serve to comfort or relieve me. They hurt. They remind me of David and his acceptance and compassion. They echo the loss of my own father, and how long it’s been since I’ve heard these words—the words I should have been hearing for the last thirteen years and haven’t. If there hadn’t been so many shocking moments over the last year, this might actually make me think I was dreaming. Granted, when I dream I don’t talk to my dad. I talk to her.

I slam the door in his face and stalk back to the kitchen, where I down two shots.

Hours later, my dad’s sitting on my couch, looking comfortable, like he does this every Sunday. The only thing that seems to have him on edge is Kendall, and I’m not certain if it’s because he thinks she’s hot, or what, but it makes me defensive.

“You look really familiar, Kendall. Do you have family in New Orleans?” His voice comes out with a twang that I don’t remember hearing.

“No, I have three sisters here, and another on the East Coast,” she admits the latter part quietly.

“Five girls?” He looks at her as if he’s trying to confirm something.

“Yup, five girls.”

“Maybe I met one of your parents at some point?” he suggests.

Kendall shrugs, not really seeming to find his line of questioning to be as strange as I do. She notifies him that she’ll be right back and disappears, returning with a framed picture that she brings to his side. Before I can think to tell myself not to look, I’m staring at a family photo of the Bosses from last spring. My eyes are focused on one person in the crowd of twelve, at the same dark brown eyes that I’ve startled myself awake seeing in my dreams. I squeeze my eyes shut and look the opposite way, but it’s too late. The image of her is burned into the back of my eyelids.

“Wow, you girls are all beautiful. I bet your poor dad had a hell of a time keeping the boys away.”

“Had?” Kendall asks.

I look over to see her eyebrows raised. I hadn’t even noticed the past term reference. Leave it to Kendall to do so. She can read into nearly anything. In my book it’s one of the strikes against her that I’m more than happy to vocalize.

“Well, you all look pretty grown-up. Parents only have so long to keep some things at bay,” he explains as he gives her the frame back.

“Like you’d know,” I quietly sneer.

“Do you have a place to stay?” Landon asks as he ties a garbage bag off and lifts it to take it out.

“Oh, I was going to go check into a hotel.”

“Stay. We’ve got room,” Landon offers.

My head turns to look at him. He ignores my every effort to catch his attention so I can show him my displeasure. Fucking hell, is he seriously inviting a man that I don’t even know from a perfect stranger to stay in our fucking house?

“I’d really like that. It would be great to get some time with my son.”

Fucking hell.

I spend the next few days working to avoid my dad, attending more classes than I have since I met Erin, and doing extra conditioning at the gym. I haven’t reached out to Wes, and he hasn’t made any attempt to contact me. I still don’t know what I think of everything he told me, ranging from the fact that she was the girl that he liked—another secret that she’d kept from me—to his clearly disgusted feelings about Erin, whom I have no intention of breaking things off with. I’m not going to create a false illusion in my head and say I want to marry her, but we’re both having a good time, and my dreams and thoughts are finally starting to minimize. I need her right now.

“Babe, did someone eat the rest of my soup?”

I shake my head, barely able to refrain myself from telling her that no one would ever intentionally eat her cabbage soup. That shit is nasty and smells worse than the time Jameson left his gym shoes in the car we eventually bought in Alaska for a weekend. The sun had baked the scent into the interior, creating a stench we never could erase.

My dad rounds the corner, freshly showered, with a smile that’s getting more familiar every day. He stops when he sees Erin. Fucking piece of shit really is into younger women.

“Oh you must be Tim! I’m Erin, Max’s girlfriend!”

The word girlfriend makes my lungs stop. Girlfriend? When in the hell did she become my girlfriend?

My attention flips back to my dad as he takes a step closer to her. My eyes narrow as I watch him, waiting for him to say something even slightly provocative so I can kick him out with a clear conscience. He shakes her hand and turns to look at me, his graying brow furrowing.

“Max’s girlfriend?” he repeats.

My jaw clenches as I feel a new wave of defensiveness rise in me. I don’t know what he’s even insinuating with his question, and before he says anything more, he turns back to face Erin. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Erin.”

She smiles at him and then giggles before she steps over to me and smacks my shoulder. “You didn’t tell me he was staying here!”

I had, but it really doesn’t matter. I nod to my dad again. “Yeah, Erin, this is my dad, Tim.”

“You look a lot like your son, Ben.”

“Billy,” I correct her.

“Billy?” she asks, her eyebrows knitting together as her eyes drift toward the ceiling in thought as I nod.

“Billy, not Ben,” my dad patiently explains.

“Oh right!” She giggles once again and then sags into me. “Are you ready to go?”

“Where are you kids heading?” my dad asks, as though this is a standard routine question.

“We’re going to a party!” Her eyes gleam. “It’s supposed to be totally drunk.”

“Drunk?” he repeats.

She nods excitedly. “We have to go. We’re going to be late.”

My dad’s eyebrows remain raised and his eyes blink in rapid succession, telling me he has no idea what she’s talking about. I doubt I’d explain it to him if I did.

It takes me thirty seconds from the time we arrive at the party to wish that I’d taken a couple of shots before we left because the sounds and people are so intensely loud.

I follow her in as she greets a couple of people I don’t know, introducing me as her boyfriend, which makes the other girls squeal and Erin to giggle again.

“I’m going to get a drink,” I yell over the music and excited chorus of voices surrounding us. I don’t wait for her to reply. I make my way through the house, my eyes scanning the rooms looking for alcohol.

I finally see a couple of kegs set up in the backyard and quickly slide outside and stand in a short line to fill a cup.

“So you found a new Cassidy. That took you a long time.”

I look behind me and feel my eyes narrow as I work to place her face. I know I recognize her from somewhere.

She points an index finger at her chest. “Your neighbor,” she explains with an annoyed tone.

Yes, the neighbor that called me out for making out with her roommate, I remember you.

“No, her name’s Erin.”

Her eyes roll as she shakes her head. “Sure, you keep lying to yourself.”