The One Who Loves You (Tickled Pink #1)(107)

She’s trying for a joke. I know she is. Another day, I might laugh at it.

“I need to go back to the city,” I tell her. “There’s not much left for me there, but whatever I do next, there or elsewhere, I think I need to tie up a few last loose ends.”

She rubs her hands together and smiles brightly. “Are we going to ruin Fletcher? Destroying assholes always makes me feel better.”

I wish I could say the same. “No, Mom. That won’t make me feel better. But closure will.”

“Can I destroy him after you have closure?”

“Mom.”

She sighs. “Fine. I just won’t tell you.”

“It won’t make you happy either,” I say quietly.

She’s silent for a long time.

“That place really does change you, doesn’t it?” she finally says.

“It really, really does.”





Chapter 37


Teague


After a long night of sitting at the lake, catching up with Jonah, double-checking everything he told me with internet searches I haven’t let myself make in twenty years, I start the new day staring at the old high school.

I owe Phoebe an apology.

You owe her a lot more than that, those annoying shoulder angels chime in.

She yelled at me first, I remind them.

They don’t answer, because they’re not real.

Or maybe because she had a right to be mad, and I let panic and fear override the man I want to be.

Funny thing about realizing everything you knew growing up was bad for you—it makes you question your own actions every time you catch your parents coming out of your own mouth or your feet or your hands or your facial expressions, and that self-awareness doesn’t go away, even with twenty years of practice.

I know exactly what she’s going through.

But while she laid out all her feelings and fears and struggles, I nodded and listened like she was the first workaholic socialite heiress to ever struggle with the questions of who am I and can I be better enough to be worthy of happiness?

I’m living, breathing proof that people like her—people like me—can change.

And I kept that from her.

I could say she used me as her personal therapist. That she got more out of our relationship than I did.

But that’s not true.

She made me see me in a new light.

In a lot of ways, she’s a fuck ton braver than I am. I got to go on my own self-improvement journey quietly. Away from gossip pages. Away from the constant reminder of who I’d been. Away from any preconceived expectations from anyone other than myself.

She did it out in the open, all over the Tickled Pink Papers, landing on her face in sawdust on the snowshoe baseball field, falling into the lake, knowing that everyone in her old life was laughing at her too.

And I thought I had any right to be mad at her for being smart enough and quick enough to put two and two together when she met my brother last night.

“Excuse me, but where the hell do you think you were all night, young man?” my daughter demands behind me.

I turn and give her the watch your mouth look, and her brows shoot up to her forehead. “Whoa. Sorry, Dad. I didn’t—you look like shi—like you’re sick. Are you sick? You never get sick. Do you want me to run to the store for chicken noodle soup and crackers? Or the library for a book? I can read you a book. You should go lie down. Has Mom seen you like this? You cannot let Phoebe see you like this. Death-Dad look is for, like, the seventeenth date. Or maybe not until after marriage.”

“Phoebe’s not here.” Tavi strolls down the school steps under the BOYS entrance, decked out in tight pink jeans, heels up to her knees, that idiotic boa strangling her neck and shoulders, sunglasses big enough to use in a pinch as an emergency alien-signaling device, and her dog poking its head out of her purse. “She’s having private soul-reflection time. Sounds like she’s not the only one who needs it.”

She lowers the glasses and glares at me.

“Dad?” Bridget says quietly. “What did you do?”

“Yes, Teague,” Tavi says, “what did you do?”

I don’t know if the Lightly hellion is asking because she knows or because she doesn’t, but I know my heart’s suddenly not in my chest where it’s supposed to be. “Where is she?”

“Not here.”

“Not at the school here, or not in Tickled Pink here?”

“Tavi?” Bridget whispers.

She slides her glasses back up her nose. “Bridget, we are totes having coffee tomorrow. And nails next Tuesday. But right now, I can’t stand the sight of your father, and I need to go puke in private. His presence makes me nauseous.”

“Where—” I repeat.

She stops at the bottom step. Even in her heels, she’s not tall enough to look me straight on. “I don’t know if you know this or not, but a socialite scorned is not someone you mess with. And I’m feeling scorned by association. The only reason I’m not planning your evisceration is because she’s asked me not to. Yet. But be warned, Teague Miller. If we decide to destroy you, we will destroy you.”

Bridget looks between us as Tavi struts away.

I rub my eyes, because I can’t reach into my chest, locate my panicked heart, and rub it. “You know how we talk about apologizing and forgiving each other?” I say to my daughter.