“Hey,” I curled my hand around his neck, “I felt it.”

Jake studied me a moment and then whispered, “I love you.”

I gave him a weak smile, pulling him down for a kiss so I didn’t have to see the disappointment in his eyes.

Desperate to move past those three little words and the sudden disconnect between us, I broke the halfhearted kiss to change the subject. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner about Alex.”

Jake rolled off me to lie on his back. I was relieved when he curled an arm around me to pull me into his side. “It’s okay. We’re a work in progress.”

“That we are.”

Silence, not entirely uncomfortable, fell between us and I didn’t know whom I was most disappointed in—myself for being emotionally stunted or Jake for ruining the moment with another “I love you.”

Lanton October 2013

In silent mutual agreement, Claudia and I didn’t talk about Lowe’s party. She knew it was final between me and Jake and that I wouldn’t be accepting any new requests to hang out with the guys. She seemed fine with that because it meant she could hide from Beck.

I was sad to lose the guys in losing Jake. Especially Lowe, despite his move to the dark side. We’d traded a few texts over the last few weeks but it was clear that our friendship wasn’t really going to go anywhere if I was hell-bent on avoiding Jake.

Senior year and studying for the LSATs were a great distraction from everything, as were Alex and Sharon who always had something planned for us on the weekend. I wanted to be distracted from Jake. He was a lost cause for me.

My parents weren’t a lost cause, however, and it was becoming increasingly difficult to deal with the estrangement between my dad and me. I think the finality of losing Jake finally broke me. After talking it over with Claudia, I packed a bag the weekend before Halloween and headed to Lanton.

Dad didn’t seem to care whether I tagged along with him to work that Saturday, which hurt my feelings since he loved me tagging along when I was a kid. I was his little assistant. Andie was never interested in cars, but I was curious about anything my dad found interesting and he loved that he could share his work with me.

It was a different story altogether now.

We got to his auto shop and instead of stopping to have coffee and donuts with the two guys on his payroll like he normally would, he went straight to work. He left me in the office with Jed Stewart, a guy around Dad’s age who’d worked for him for ten years, and Milo Atwater. Milo was a cute, slightly unkempt guy who’d been in Andie’s class at school. He’d graduated high school with his GED and come straight to work with Dad because he loved cars more than he loved anything else.

Jed frowned at the door as Dad walked out. “I suppose I’d better get to work too, then,” he grumbled, taking another sip of coffee before striding out.

I picked up a donut and looked at Milo. “You going too?”

He gave me his lopsided grin and leaned back in his chair. “Nah. We don’t start for another ten minutes.” He nodded toward the door. “What’s up with Jim?”

I chewed on the donut and slumped against the wall. After swallowing, I replied honestly, “I’m here.”

Milo raised an eyebrow. “He thinks the sun shines out of your ass. What the hell could you have done to piss him off?”

“It’s complicated.”

“Drugs?”

“No,” I laughed and shoved the rest of the donut in my mouth.

Milo smirked at me. “Sex?”

I made a face at him.

“Gambling?”

I finished eating. “No. Like I said, it’s complicated.”

His eyebrows drew together. “Now I’m curious. I want to know what the Great Charley Redford could seriously have done wrong.”

Now it was my turn to make a face. “The Great Charley Redford?”

He laughed. “Yeah. You have to know you’re kind of a legend around here. Supergirl.”

I tried not to flinch at the nickname. “I’m not perfect.”

His eyes raked over me. “I don’t know about that,” he murmured.

“Are you actually flirting with me right now?”

Eyes filled with laughter, he shrugged. “Can’t a man appreciate a pretty woman?”

“Not when she’s his boss’s daughter.”

“See, now you’re just turning me on with the whole ‘forbidden fruit’ thing.”

“I’m going to seriously kick you in the nuts.”

“There she is!” he laughed and stood up. “It’s not like you to walk around town looking like a kicked puppy. I don’t like it. It throws everything off.”

Grimly, I stared out of the office. “Yeah, well, my dad has a way of making me feel like a badly behaved four-year-old.”

“Hmm… it’s not got anything to do with that guy that was here a couple of weeks ago, does it?”

My eyes snapped to his face. “What guy?”

“That kid.” He gesticulated with a donut in hand. “The kid… you know… the kid you used to date. Jesus, I can’t remember his name.”

A wave of nausea crashed over me and I felt slightly faint as my heart rate knocked itself out of whack. “Jake? Jake Caplin?”

“Mmm-hmmm!” Milo nodded profusely as he chewed.

Jake had come to see my dad? And Dad hadn’t said anything.

I hurried out of the office and across the workshop to where Dad was glowering at a computer screen. “Dad, I know you’re working but we need to talk.”

He didn’t even look up at me. “Charley, I am working. I can’t talk.”

Maddened, I growled, “Jake came here and you didn’t tell me?”

Dad froze for a second but only for a second because suddenly, my arm was in his tight grasp and he was marching us both through the auto shop and out back into the courtyard.

“What did Jake want?” I asked without preamble.

Dad put his hands on his hips and stared at the ground for a bit. It took every bit of patience within me not to force an answer out of him.

Finally he looked at me, squinting against the low autumn sun. “Jake is worried about you. He was looking for answers, answers I couldn’t give him. He doesn’t seem to know why you two broke up but thinks I might be to blame.”

“Oh God,” I leaned against the building. “Everything is so messed up, Dad.”

“You want to know what I told him?”

Actually, I really wasn’t sure I did, but I nodded anyway.

“I told him maybe you broke up with him because he’s a jackass.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Eloquent, Dad.”

“What else was I supposed to say?”

“Not that,” I replied, infuriated. “I treated Jake horribly. No matter what you think of him, I shouldn’t have treated him the way I did, and he didn’t deserve that from you.”

Dad shook his head. “He was looking for answers in the wrong place—what did he expect? Only you can tell him why you broke up with him.” It sounded like a question but I ignored it.

Now that I had my Dad talking, I guess we had a more relevant topic to discuss. “You know, I came home this weekend to spend time with you. To try to mend fences.”

He cut me a look and his voice was hard when he replied, “This ain’t the fence you should be trying to mend.”

Shot down on my first attempt?

The unbending disappointment from him finally snapped something inside of me. “Are you perfect, Dad?” I yelled, jerking away from the auto shop’s wall.

“Charley, don’t start—”

“No, really, are you perfect? Can you just deal with anything life throws at you? Can you answer to your mistakes?” I sagged back against the building. “Haven’t you ever been so paralyzed, because you’re terrified whatever move you decide to make is the wrong one and it’ll just make everything worse?”

The quiet in my voice, the question, caused some of the hardness to soften in his eyes.

“You were one of my best friends,” I whispered, trying to hold down the emotion. I didn’t want to cry right now. I didn’t want to be hysterical. I just wanted him to stop hating me. “And now it’s like you can’t even stand to look at me… and I don’t know if I’ve really done anything to deserve that. I’m not perfect, Dad. I make mistakes, and sometimes I don’t know how to fix them. But you shutting me out… I feel alone.” And damn those fucking tears but they pushed forth, spilling down my cheeks. “I’m lonely.”