Another hour of deep conversation followed, and we would have continued, too, if she hadn’t looked so tired. It was ten by the time she left.

I couldn’t believe I’d spent all that time hanging out with a sixteen-year-old. Apart from Noah, I had Shauna, who lived in Malibu, and Janine, who didn’t live too far from me in LA, though I couldn’t remember the last time I’d spoken to either of them for the length of time I’d spent with Aria.

Also, speaking to them meant Craig’s name would pop up at some point during the conversation. Shauna was married to Craig’s best friend and Janine worked at the same lawfirm as him. So awkwardness was something I couldn’t avoid sometimes.

Aria’s presence had been a welcome break, but her departure brought all my worries rushing back in. Instead of getting ready for bed, I jumped online to do some more research on Sally. I checked out previous interviews she’d done and emailed Bob Jacobe who’d done an exclusive on her a few years back for ESPN. He got back to me right away, told me she could be a little difficult at times, and said it was best to talk about things she liked.

That led me to look up all the things she liked, and I mostly stuck with her career. I knew she loved that, and there wasn’t anything she loved more than running.

I made so many notes, pages of them, notes documenting her early achievements and everything else going forward. I’d done a lot of this before, but now that I’d met her, I knew more of what to look for.

I figured it would be good to arm myself with as much knowledge as possible.

But…it was all for nothing.

I got to Sally’s house bright and early the next day. I was nervous as hell, but a little more confident. Her butler opened the door for me just like he had the day before and told me quite bluntly that Sally didn’t wish to have any visitors today. That was it.

When I tried to ask him when I should return, he said that was the message he’d been told to give me and practically closed the door in my face.

I skipped the what do I do now? thoughts that ran through my mind and went straight to anger.

What a bitch. She had my number and could have sent me some kind of message telling me not to come; why hadn’t she? And to send her butler out to dismiss me like that was…

It was awful.

I went back home to regroup and re-strategize, thinking I would send Sally a message that afternoon.

The message I sent was nice. I simply asked her when would be a good time to meet, that was it. There was nothing there that could be misconstrued to mean anything it didn’t.

However, it wasn’t Sally who contacted me next.

It was Perry.

He called and screamed at me over the phone, telling me I couldn’t fuck things up. I didn’t have a leg to stand on because he threatened to pull me from the assignment, an assignment I’d always dreamed of. The most I could do was assure him I would do better, although I really hadn’t done anything wrong.

I didn’t sleep that night, not at all.

It was all bad luck. Some stroke of fucking bad luck had followed me to North Carolina. I didn’t know where it had come from, but it was very much present.

Then, as if things couldn’t get any worse, the next morning I was stopped in the middle of opening my car door by a psychotic-looking Officer Asshole.

“You,” he bellowed, rushing over to me, his gorgeous face contorted into an evil scowl.

“What about me?”

“Who do you think you are giving my daughter advice!” he barked.

I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. He had a daughter?

“I never spoke to your daughter.”

“Yes you did. Aria told me she talked to you about college.”

God in heaven, he was Aria’s dad!

I couldn’t have been more shocked. When she’d said she lived next door, she’d literally meant next door.

Still, though, I never would have imagined he was her father, and it was weird since I didn’t think he was that much older than me.

“You told her it would be better not to go if she didn’t know what she wanted to do.”

God, I had said that, but I’d said some other good stuff too.

“I think you’ll find that I encouraged her to go.”

“By saying she shouldn’t go?” His eyes blazed, and I could totally see the melodramatic psychopath Aria had described. “You wouldn’t believe the hard work and effort I put into making sure she has a chance to go to college, so I don’t need her taking advice from some walking Barbie with daddy’s credit card who probably never went to college.”

Something snapped inside me, just snapped. In the back of my mind, I remembered Aria telling me her father never listened to her. I saw firsthand that it was true, because I doubted she would have forgotten to tell him I went to Yale.

Once again, someone else had formed a negative opinion of me that they believed to be true, and it infuriated me. It infuriated me more because of what he said and because it was him saying it.

My hand rose up and landed upon his cheek so hard it left a mark.

“Fucking asshole. How dare you speak to me like that?” I cried, shocked at myself that I’d just slapped him—him, a cop who already had my name on his hit list. I didn’t care though. I really didn’t. He was out of line and deserved it. He didn’t know me; anyone who knew me knew to never talk about my father. “I went to Yale, and my father died for his country with a Medal of Honor.”

Just saying that stirred up memories I didn’t want to think about.

Walking Barbie with daddy’s credit card…

I wish.

Leaving him standing there, I jumped in my car and sped off.

The previous week I’d been so excited to be here, but now I just wanted to go home.

It seemed like fucking things up was a daily thing for me, completely and utterly.

I remembered when I was sixteen and I first went to juvi. Mom and Dad were so disappointed in me, hated the self-destruct mission I’d been on. I hadn’t seen it that way then, and I didn’t until maybe years later when I started to look back on all the things I’d done. Having a child had made me grow up fast—faster than fast, like overnight fast. I had to.

This felt like that time when I was intent on destroying myself. I couldn’t see what I was doing until things went wrong, went to hell, and I’d ended up hurting people I shouldn’t.

Brooke couldn’t have been more right. I was a fucking asshole, and that was all I’d been to her since she arrived.

What was worse was that Aria saw what happened and was mad at me too.

That morning, we’d been talking about college. I’d said I wanted her to get home early so she could study, and that was when she’d told me about Brooke.

I remembered her talking, us arguing, and then she’d told me what Brooke had said. I hadn’t stayed to find out what else Brooke had said because rage had built within me. It had reached a boiling point when I saw Brooke sauntering out of her house without a care in the world, and suddenly I was moving—moving toward her and screaming at her.

I was basically telling her to keep her nose out of our business. Then I was offensive. Even if I didn’t know her, I shouldn’t have called her a walking Barbie with daddy’s credit card.

That slap had woken me up and made me feel like the asshole I was.

“I went to Yale, and my father died for his country with a Medal of Honor.”

Her words echoed in my mind, repeating long after she sped away and left me standing there, and they were still there as Aria launched her attack on me, telling me off for making her look bad to someone she admired.

The words were still in my mind now, hours later.

So was the way she’d looked. Brooke had looked like I’d really hurt her. The expression on her face had been one of someone who’d lost someone close to them—her father. I should have recognized it more than anyone because of the loss that had gripped me when Olivia left me.

Left me—better to say that. She’d died, but it felt like she’d left me.

And…there I was thinking about her again.

Not good, definitely not good.

I didn’t go to work that day, instead taking a personal day and spending it on the beach.

When I got back, I had one thing on my mind, one thing I had to do before the day ended, and that was apologize to Brooke. Thankfully she was home when I got back.

I rang her doorbell and waited patiently outside. It wouldn’t have surprised me if she didn’t answer the door, but I hoped she did. After a minute or two, I rang the bell again and heard strange noises coming from inside the house. It sounded like water.

“Brooke?” I called out. Her name felt foreign on my lips, and I realized it was the first time I’d said it out loud.

Then the door flew open and a very distressed Brooke stood before me, drenched with water and dripping head to toe.

Inside the house, it looked like someone had turned on a river because water was everywhere. The sound I’d heard had been water, and it seemed to be gushing from the kitchen.

“Oh God no, not you. I can’t deal with you right now so please go away.” The frown on her beautiful face was enough to tell me how pissed off she was at my ass.

She went to close the door but I stopped her.

“Please, wait.” I put my hand up. “I’m sorry about this morning.”

“Just this morning?” She gave me a pointed look.

“The other day too, but this morning was worse.” I nodded.

“Yes, it sure was.” She held me in place with her gaze, intense but with something else that flickered in the depths of her eyes.

“What happened in here?”

She looked me over hesitantly then pressed her lips together. “Burst pipe.”

“Let me fix it?”

That hesitant look returned to her face.

“Come on, it looks pretty bad in there, but there’s nothing I can’t fix.” I offered a small smile.

This time she blinked and nodded, but I noticed a slight flush to her cheeks.

“Okay.”

My whole body sighed with relief, and it felt like the first right thing I’d done in days.

I stepped inside, hoping I could fix more than just her burst pipe.