Troy went mutinously silent.
“Troy,” the principal said disapprovingly. “I have four witnesses who say you pushed Caden into that railing. Not a single witness said that you were stopping him from picking on someone. Or that something got stolen.”
“Because you asked the guys that were with Caden. You didn’t ask the person they were picking on,” Troy said. “And anyway, I got their stuff back already so it doesn’t matter.”
“And who are we talking about?” she asked. “Who’s the kid who’s being picked on and stolen from?”
Troy went mum.
Tanner looked into the kid’s stubborn brown eyes, which was more than a little bit like looking into a mirror. I got their stuff back…
Aw, shit. The day Troy had gotten caught climbing out of the girl’s window. He’d gone there to return her stuff. “Juliet,” he said quietly.
Troy’s mouth went hard with determination.
Yeah, Tanner thought. It was the girl. He looked at the principal. “Look, I think it’s clear to both of us that he was protecting someone. It’s also clear you don’t have the entire story.”
The principal looked at Troy for a long beat, then nodded. “Yes, I believe you’re right.”
“What’s going to be done?” Tanner asked.
“What’s going to be done is I’ll get to the bottom of this and then decide. Troy,” she said, “who did you step in to help?”
Troy remained mum.
The principal folded her fingers together. “I can’t help you unless you let me.”
“She won’t talk to you,” Troy said. “She won’t tell you because she’s been in trouble before. But those guys bully her because her brother turned them in for cheating on a test. They’ve been just saying mean stuff but today they touched her, and scared her.”
“Who, Troy?”
Troy shook his head.
The principal leaned in. “I want to help you out here, Troy. I want to help whoever it is you’re protecting. But I can’t if you won’t trust me.”
Troy didn’t look impressed by this, and the principal leaned back and blew out a breath. “If what you’re saying is the truth,” she said, “the boys can be suspended, all of them. And if they pull anything like this again, I can expel them next time. Help me stop the cycle, Troy.”
Ten minutes later Troy and Tanner stood on the sidewalk by Tanner’s truck.
“Proud of you,” Tanner said.
Troy looked startled, and Christ, Tanner hated that. Didn’t Troy know by now that Tanner stood at his back no matter what? “So proud,” he said, and willed Troy to believe it.
“For the fight?”
“For protecting your friend. For standing up for someone you care about. For doing the right thing, which is rarely the easy thing.”
“I ratted out those guys.”
“Like I said,” Tanner told him. “You did the right thing. You protected the girl, once by being there for her and again just now by getting help for her so that it doesn’t happen again. But you should have told me all of it, from the beginning.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yeah.” Troy dropped the ice from his eye and looked at him. “You’re really not mad about the fight?”
“Hell, no.” They got into the truck and Tanner leaned toward Troy to check out the bruise. “Does it hurt?”
“Like a mother.”
Tanner smiled grimly. “Other than that, how are you doing?”
Troy shrugged.
“Come on, man. Spit it out.”
“Well, I am kinda starving.”
Tanner stared at him and had to laugh. He’d been afraid Troy would be suffering some long-lasting emotional angst over everything he was going through. But no, he was just hungry.
A damn good outlook on life when it came right down to it.
So Tanner took him to the diner. He intended to get him a quick take-out, but Jane, the diner’s owner, had heard about the fight and insisted they sit down and eat “on the house,” because as it turned out it was her great-niece that Tanner had protected.
Troy was brought a huge tray of food fit for a king and then dessert. When he and Tanner rose to go, Jane hugged Troy tight. “You’re a good boy,” she said fiercely.
Back outside, Troy looked down at his phone in shock. “Kids from school are texting me. Like a bazillion texts. They’re happy Caden finally got in trouble.” He looked up at Tanner in surprise. “Some of these texts are from the kids that wouldn’t give me the time of day ’cause I was the newbie.”
“Welcome to the most ridiculous years of your life,” Tanner said. “High school.”
“But how did people hear?” Troy asked.
Tanner slung an arm around the teen’s shoulders. “It’s Lucky Harbor, son. It just is.”
Troy shook his head in disbelief. “My mom was right. This place is crazy.”
“You that unhappy here?” Tanner asked, keeping his voice even. “Because if you are, we could talk about it and visit our options.”
Troy was boggled. “You mean…move?”
“Whatever it takes to make this work between us,” Tanner said.
Troy stopped walking to stare at him. “You’d really do that? Move? For me?”
“Whatever it takes,” Tanner said again, and was stunned when Troy leaned in for a hug. Tanner didn’t hesitate, just wrapped his arms around his kid and held tight for the moment it was allowed, closing his eyes while his heart swelled until it squeezed against his ribs.
All too soon Troy pulled back and looked away, clearly uncomfortable with the need for physical touch. “I don’t want to move.”
“Good,” Tanner said. “Because I’m getting tired of buying paint.”
He took Troy home and was halfway up the walk when he realized what time it was—six-thirty—and went still as stone. “Shit!”
Troy glanced back at him. “What?”
Christ. He’d done some difficult things in his life, but being a dad took the cake. He was overwhelmed by the sheer emotional drain on his system and the fact that, without Elisa, it was entirely up to him to give Troy everything he needed.
And in doing that, he’d forgotten Callie. He’d fucking forgot her. He whipped out his phone and called her.
His call went right to voicemail. Not a good sign. “Callie,” he said. “I’m sorry. I got held up, but I’m coming now.” He wasn’t about to use Troy as an excuse, but an uneasy anxiety curled in his gut. He’d left her waiting for him, which killed him. He looked at Troy. “I’ve got to go.”
“You had a date?” Troy asked.
“Yeah.”
Troy studied him. “A big date?”
“Pretty substantial.”
“Like you were going to ask her to marry you substantial?”
The kid was a mind reader. “I’ve been thinking about it,” he said. Thinking. Breathing. Eating. Fantasizing… “Would that be okay with you?”
Once again Troy was dumbstruck. “You’re asking my opinion?”
“Well, yeah,” Tanner said. “We’re a package deal.”
Troy stared at him from eyes that were suddenly a little shiny.
Tanner cupped the back of the kid’s head and lowered his own to be at eye level with his son’s. “Right?”
Troy nodded.
“Good. Go inside. Do your homework. Don’t leave without being in contact with me.”
“I won’t,” Troy said. “I’m sorry I made you late.”
“Not your fault,” he said, and when Troy just looked at him, expression uncertain and worried, Tanner reached out and clasped his shoulder. “Seriously. This isn’t on you.”
“Bring her flowers,” Troy said earnestly. “That’s what her site says to do. You bring a girl flowers when you screw up.”
Tanner was pretty certain flowers weren’t going to do the trick. He drove to the docks, which were deserted. Of course she wouldn’t still be waiting there an hour and a half hour la
ter.
He went to her place next.
She didn’t answer his knock.
He texted her: Open up, it’s me.
No response.
He knocked again, and Becca poked her head out her door. She was wearing Sam’s shirt, knee socks, and I’ve-been-thoroughly-fucked hair. “She’s not home,” she told him.
“Do you know where she went?”
Sam appeared behind Becca. He was wearing nothing but a pair of faded jeans slung low on his hips to reveal the waistband of pink boxers speckled with red lips. His feet were bare, his jaw rough, and his hair was as wild as Becca’s. “Hey, man.”
“Didn’t mean to interrupt,” Tanner said. “I’m just looking for Callie.”
Sam and Becca exchanged a long look.
“What?” Tanner said.
“We saw her a little bit ago,” Sam said. “She was leaving.”
“Leaving?”
Becca sighed and came forward, putting a gentle hand on his arm. “She said she was going out for a little while, that she needed to clear her head.”
He didn’t like the look that crossed Becca’s face. “What aren’t you saying?” he asked.
“She looked like she’d been crying.”
“Shit.” Tanner slid his hands into his hair. “Fuck.”
“Why does it matter to you so much?” Becca asked. “Considering that the two of you are just”—she paused—“friends.”
His gaze snapped to her. “That’s the way she wanted it from the beginning. She didn’t want a relationship.”
Becca looked at Sam and did an impressive eye roll.
“It’s not his fault,” Sam told her.
“What’s not my fault?” Tanner asked.
“That you’re an idiot,” Sam said.
“Hey, I thought I was just giving her what she wanted.”
“What she wanted?” Becca said. Actually, it was more like she yelled it. “Are you kidding me? You were a Navy SEAL, for God’s sake. I know you’re smart as hell.” She was hands on hips now, glaring at him.
Tanner looked at Sam.
“Maybe we should spell it out for him,” Sam said to Becca.
“Fine,” she said. “Let me do that.” She pointed at Tanner and though she was a good eight inches shorter than he, she got right up in his face. “She grew up with quiet, introverted parents. They loved her in their own way, but it was a distant, pat-her-on-the-head kind of way. And everyone who’s come into her life ever since has been the same. Loving her in their way.”
Tanner opened his mouth to tell her he got that, but she jabbed her pointer finger at him again. “No, you just shush a minute and listen. I mean really listen,” she said. “Not that I should have to be saying this to you because you knew her before I did and you should’ve already been clued in.” She shook her head in disgust. “She’s smart. So damn smart. In the past, that’s alienated her, Tanner, and those smarts of hers don’t keep her company. Yeah, maybe she was paid by the athletes to do their homework, but none of them wanted to date her. Especially not the hottest one of them all.”
He grimaced.
“Yeah,” she said. “You.”
“Jesus, Becca. I was older than her,” he said in his own defense. “She wasn’t on my radar.”
“Well, you were on her radar,” Becca said. “She was lonely, which made her ripe pickings for a guy to come along and trample all over her heart.”
“Eric,” Tanner said in disgust.
Becca nodded. “She’s grown up a lot since then, but deep inside she’s still that lonely little girl looking for someone to love her just for her.”
“I want her just for her,” he said, thinking of how he wanted her for the rest of their lives. “She knows that I do—” He broke off as a terrible realization sent his stomach dropping into his boots, feeling like it was down for the count.
Did she know?
Because how could she? He’d been careful, very careful, to abide by the rules. Not because she’d laid them down, but because he was a fucking coward. From the beginning Callie had made him promise that sleeping together would change nothing. And he’d given her that promise.
Freely.
Looking back on it, he’d done so with a cockiness that disgusted him now. In the beginning, he’d honestly believed he could stay detached and had just as honestly believed the same of her. There’d been safety in that, the two of them both vowing to remain emotion-free. But that ship had sailed because for the first time in his life, it wasn’t enough.
With her, it wouldn’t ever be enough. She’d wrapped her fingers around his heart, when he hadn’t even been sure the organ still worked. But it did. And she owned it. She owned him.
Without even realizing it, he’d come to trust her with his heart and now he wanted her to trust him with hers. But he’d kept her in the dark. “Shit. I am an idiot.”
Becca patted him very kindly on the arm. “They say knowing is half the battle.”
Chapter 28
Callie sat at her grandma’s kitchen table. The tablecloth was a soft, battered cotton and had been there as long as she could remember. In fact, the entire kitchen brought back memories. The scent of cookies in the oven and last night’s roast. The lace hanging in the window. The linoleum floor, with the dent from the time Callie had dropped the deep fryer.
Lots of decisions had been made here, right here, with her grandma sitting across the table offering advice and food. Things like whether she could ride her bike to the store by herself, or if she really needed yet another memory board for her computer, or where to go to college.
But this decision was a biggie. “I think selling TyingTheKnot.com is the right thing to do,” she said. “It’s not making me happy.”
“No, you’re not making you happy,” Lucille said. “Selling your business won’t change that.”
“Grandma, you’re not helping.”
“Well, someone has to tell you how things are.”
“I know how things are,” Callie said.
“So you know you’re being reactive and also a big, fat chicken by turning tail? Selling your business and running back to San Francisco isn’t going to fix anything, Callie Anne. You’ll still retreat inside of yourself and block people off, good people, great people, including a man who actually loves you. My God, Callie, the man forgot a date, not you as a person.”
Well, when she said it that way, Callie felt silly and juvenile. But she couldn’t discount her feelings. She couldn’t, because she had a habit of letting others discount them for her. “He left me standing there waiting for him on the dock like—” She cut herself off because there was a sudden lump in her throat.
“This is not the same thing as being left at the altar,” Lucille said gently. “Tanner wouldn’t do that. I’m sure he has a very good reason for whatever happened today.”
“I know it,” Callie said. “My point is that my overblown reaction is telling. It means I’m not ready for a relationship. And by the way, he never said he loves me.”