Page 54 of Off the Mark
I shook my head, but he was still speaking.
“It’s not your job to fix all this, though I know you want to. Know you have in the past, more times than I can thank you for.”
Yeah, I know, I wanted to say,because who else was going to do it when we don’t have any other options? My family had lived race-to-race and paycheck-to-paycheck for so long, part of me always knew there’d come a time when all the borrowing and scrounging and whispered prayers would come up short.
“Dad, I appreciate you saying this but I’m not even sure we can sell it at this point in the process. And more than that, we’re not…” I swallowed. “We’re not losing that house. It’s ours. After mom left, it was all we had, that track was all we had. I want you and Penny to be able to stay there for as long as you can. I’ve got a plan and Iamfixing it.”
“We might not have a choice,” he said. “I hate it as much as you do.”
The skin around my eyes was growing hot. “It’ll be okay. I’m winning this championship and we’re keeping your house. It’s non-negotiable.”
His smile looked tired around the edges. “Stubborn as your old man, huh?”
There was a knock at the door and relief coursed through me.Rowan.
“You raised me right,” I said. “And I hate to go like this, but Rowan’s here, and I need to go not trust any of those reporters.”
He was nodding but didn’t look entirely convinced by my promises. “Have fun. Don’t let them get to you. And I love ya, Charlie. So much.”
I bent down closer to the screen and felt the miles stretching long between us. “Love you too.”
The first year after my father’s final accident made it impossible for him to compete, I used to come downstairs in the middle of the night to find him watching old videos of his races. The sound would be muted, so he wouldn’t wake me, and the lights would be off.
He was always crying.
It wasn’t an all-out wail or anything. Wasn’t even the way he used to swipe angrily at his cheeks the first months after mom left. It was a silent anguish, the struggle of accepting that everything was permanently different.
I was only a teenager then, but I always crept back upstairs to give him privacy. Even at that age, I figured being a broke single dad, in chronic pain, was the sort of thing where crying by yourself at the kitchen table was just gonna happen.
Sometimes I wished I’d told my dad how scary that time was for me.
Sometimes I wished he would have talked to me about what he was going through.
And on those mornings after, before school, if he asked me if I was okay, if anything was wrong, I did the same thing I’d just done on that call.
Pretend. Tuck every burden deep inside so I could carry it along.
Perhaps that’s why—when I finally opened the door to find Rowan in the hallway—I walked right into his open arms and hugged him without a single hesitation.
I sensed his surprise, but then his arms wrapped around me, strong and steady. His lips came to rest on the top of my head, stirring my hair.
“Are you okay? Did something happen?” he whispered.
I pushed back, a little too quickly, and motioned him inside my hotel room. He slid past me, moving easily into a space that felt on the larger side a few minutes ago. But now I was only aware of the magnificent width of his shoulders as he perched on the edge of the dresser.
“Oh, I’m completely fine. I…I, uh, thought I saw someone. Just keeping up the ruse,” I said, standing next to him and facing the mirror. I tilted my head to check my earrings, feeling the weight of his perusal on my profile. “I enjoyed your gift this morning, by the way.”
He made a rumbling sound of approval. “I was hoping Tina would deliver for you. Did she send what I ordered?”
I half turned to face him as his lazy grin appeared. “Fried eggs, home fries, scrapple, and white toast. And it was the best breakfast of my damn life.”
“Well, aren’t you lucky,” he drawled.
“I’ve got a fake boyfriend who knows how to treat me right.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “I thought about sending you some flowers. You know, in case a gossipy fan saw you get a delivery. But you seem like the kind of lady who would take fried meat over a bouquet.”
My lips quirked, and I crossed my arms. “How’d you know?”
