Page 97 of Final Drive

“For me leaving. Yes.”

“And you called me.”

“I’m standing on his terrace with the phone in my hand and I haven’t told him anything.” My voice isn’t steady. “This is the room, Reese. I’m putting you in it.”

The silence runs long enough that I check the screen.

“Gray.”

“I’m here.”

“If you take that deal I’ll row at nationals. I’ll win.” Her voice cracks straight down the middle. “And I’ll spend the rest of my life knowing the only reason I got to was that a man decided for me what I could afford to lose. Don’t you dare buy me my season.”

“That’s not an instruction.”

“Tell him no.”

“Reese.”

“Tell him no, Gray. Then come home.”

I stand out there a second after she hangs up, with the frogs still going and the light from the study falling across the flagstones in a long yellow rectangle.

Then I go back in.

“No,” I say.

My father looks at me for the better part of a minute.

“Think carefully.”

“I did. I called her and asked. That’s the part you won’t understand, so I’ll only say it once.” I put my keys in my pocket. “You’ve never asked anyone in your life. Not my mother, not me, and not her.”

“You’re twenty-two.”

“I’m the stroke seat of a boat that’s going to win a national championship in eight days. After that I’m a man with a degree, no job, no trust, and eight people who’d stand in front of a car for me.” I hear how it sounds. I don’t care. “You have one thing I want. I’m not paying for it.”

He nods slowly. He isn’t angry. That’s the part nobody believes when I describe him.

“All right,” he says.

“That’s it?”

“What did you expect? Shouting?” He opens the folder again. “You’ve made a decision with your eyes open. I’ve no interest in a scene. The accounts close at the end of the month. Your mother will want to speak with you at some point, and I’d ask you to take her call. The Charlotte property was never in your name.”

“I know.”

“Then there’s nothing else.” He picks up his pen. “Drive carefully. The road out is dark.”

I make it three miles before I have to pull onto the shoulder. I sit there with my hands on the wheel and the hazards going, and I cry for about ninety seconds. Then I stop, and I put the car back in gear.

The porch light is on when I get there. All of them are up. Nobody says a word to me. Bo hands me a beer I don’t open. Zane puts a plate in my hands and takes it back when he sees my face. Tyler says “You should eat,” and I say “Later,” and that’s the entire conversation.

Reese is on the stairs.

She’s in a t-shirt and nothing else I can see. Her hair’s down over the bite at her nape. She’s got one hand wrapped around the newel post, and she doesn’t let go of it when I come in.

“You told him no.”