Lovers Like Us (Like Us #2)(17)

I nod. “Yeah.”

We all agree to take a short hike to the hot tub. Apparently the blizzard is moving east, so we just have to deal with five inches of snow and counting.

After putting on winter gear, the four of us trek up a snowy ridge. Weaving through skeletal maple trees. Ryke and I gain a good amount of distance on my dad and Connor. Both out of earshot.

So I ask him, “Did he relapse?” I should’ve kept my phone on. I should’ve talked to my dad. I should’ve called him and not acted like a fucking punk—

“No,” Ryke says, our gazes attached for a painful second.

“He almost did,” I infer, my breath smoking the air. Guilt crushes my ribs.

“It’s not your fucking fault,” he tells me. “Your dad would never put this on you.” I feel his narrowed gaze, but I just stare straight ahead.

I lick my chapped lips. “I keep thinking about what happens if I accidentally break my dad down. I keep thinking of how it’ll tear apart my mom, my sisters—God, Xander…”

“Stop here.” Ryke clutches my arm. And he means to literally stop. Fir trees flank a log hut, visible on the ridge’s highpoint. The hut covers an eight-person hot tub.

My dad and Connor reach our spot on the trail.

“Everything okay?” Connor asks us.

“Go ahead.” Ryke motions to the hot tub. “We’ll catch up in a fucking second.”

I can’t even look at my dad, but I sense them nodding in agreement. When they leave, Ryke faces me.

I pull up the hood to my green Patagonia jacket. He wears a similar style but a darker shade of green. Right now, I don’t give a fuck. The media isn’t around to write up articles about our similarities, but even if they were, I don’t care anymore. Compared to what else is on my plate, it’s insignificant.

I don’t care if you know how much I love him.

How much he means to me.

How much he influenced and shaped me.

I am who I am, and I’m not changing. I can’t change for anyone. Not even for my own dad.

“Look,” Ryke says, “you have to be honest with him, even if it fucking hurts him—”

“No—”

“Moffy.” Ryke grips my shoulders until I stare him in the eye. “You can’t be afraid to hurt him. It’s going to fucking happen.”

It already happened.

I’m rigid and cold. “You know what I think?” I take a tight breath, my gaze hardening. “I think the Hales are a line of dominos, and when my mom or dad falls, my siblings topple with them.”

Ryke doesn’t refute.

I nod a few times. “And I already pushed them down. I’m never doing it again.”

“That’s your fucking choice, but I’m telling you that I’ll keep your dad and your mom standing. If you need to be upset—”

“I don’t.” I make a plan. I’ll be honest with my dad, but not enraged or overly emotional. I’m not coming at him with guns blazing.

Ryke lets go of my shoulders. “They can handle a lot.”

“But you know I still have the power to hit them where it hurts the worst. And they’ll relapse.”

Ryke brushes snow off his dark hair. “But here’s the thing, Mof. You’ll never hit that place.”

“How do you know?”

“Because you’re the furthest fucking thing from callous and vindictive.” He gestures with his head to the hot tub. “My brother raised a good man.”

I inhale stronger, and in a silent beat, a lot goes unsaid in our eyes. Less about my parents. More about him and me. And his aggression towards me dating a bodyguard.

“Later?” Ryke asks.

“Yeah.” One thing at a time.

We rejoin Connor and my dad at the hot tub. Steam rises off the water, and my uncles decide to take a walk and make some phone calls.

Leaving me and my dad alone.

Not saying much of anything, we shed to bathing suits and then quickly lower into the hot, soothing water. Snow flutters in the horizon, and I watch white powder cake on the mountainsides and frozen lake.

I hear a splash, and I turn my head.

Across from me, my dad slicks his hair back with his wet hands. When he was in his twenties, he modeled for a single day and then quit. But he could probably still model if he wanted to.

Why the fuck I’m hanging onto this—out of everything—I try not to overanalyze. Yay me.

“I was wrong,” he says. “That’s the first thing you need to know.”

I already knew that. My words aren’t even close to surfacing. I just stare at the one man who means the most to me in my life. I teeter between worry and hurt. I fear saying the wrong thing, but I wade in this murky pain from our blowup.

My dad rubs the back of his neck again. “At your charity event, I made a mistake.” His amber eyes lift to my forest-green.

I cradle all my words before I let them loose. I speak with ten-billion times less emotion than I really feel. “This isn’t a normal mistake, Dad.” I rest my arm on the hot tub edge. “This isn’t forgetting to sign a field trip slip or missing a birthday. You sided with the…” I pause to avoid a curse word. “You sided with the media over me.”

His brows cinch. “I didn’t side with anyone. I didn’t know what to believe.”