Whatever I planned to say, whatever I thought I’d feel—it all just disappears when I see my dad. He paces from the living room fireplace to the window. Pauses. His hand balls in a fist. He glances towards the kitchen.

Looking. And longing for something.

Not someone.

I’ve seen that craving before. A look that screams, just one drink. For as long as I’ve been alive, he’s never fed that demon. Never sipped alcohol.

Never broke sobriety.

But he’s looking again.

I stand on the second floor balcony that oversees the living room with vaulted ceilings and skyscraping windows. Sunlight pierces leather furniture and wooden floors, and outside, snow dumps hard in the cold morning.

I can’t help but think about everything I unloaded on him at the Charity Camp-Away. When he didn’t believe me about the rumor, I yelled at him in a way that I never do. I showed my disappointment. I iced him out.

Wounds are still open. Freshly cut. And what if I pushed him? What if I caused him hurt so deep that he’d want to numb it with whiskey?

My chest is on fire.

I death-grip my phone, and I loosen my clutch at the sight of a rugged and brooding Ryke Meadows. My dad’s half-brother who’s one year older.

Any anger I had at Ryke’s reaction towards my boyfriend—it takes a backburner right now. I’m glad my uncle is here in case my dad needs him.

Connor Cobalt saunters confidently past the leather couch to reach my dad and Ryke. I didn’t think my uncles would join my parents at the lake house, but as they place a hand on my dad’s shoulder and speak toughly but calmly—I realize they’re here for him.

They’re his support. And my dad isn’t okay.

“Moffy,” Connor says and angles his body towards the balcony. All their eyes meet mine.

Spotted.

My dad rubs the back of his neck. His cheekbones as sharp as ice, and brows pinched in a multitude of tangled emotions. “Can we talk?” he asks.

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.”

My muscles burn. Don’t get angry. Don’t get fucking angry. Hear him out. I hold his gaze. “But you couldn’t fathom believing me.”

I’m starting to wonder if he brought me to the hot tub because it’d be twice as hard for either of us to just walk away.

My dad squints as the sun brightens. “What do you remember about your grandfather?” His dad. He died of liver failure when I was a little kid.

Most of my memories are good. He always bought me a new toy when I saw him, and he tried to give me life lessons: listen to your parents and be grateful.

But I was also aware that my dad would never leave me alone with him.

“I remember he had a loud, distinct voice. Pretty forceful, but I was never scared of him.” My shoulders stiffen. “I guess he was nice to me.” I know the history.

I know my grandfather verbally abused my dad.

A quick Google search says as much, and I’ve seen a few clips of We Are Calloway where my dad and Ryke talk about their father.

“Nice…” My dad mulls over that word, and then he shakes his head. “He wasn’t that nice. I still loved him, but he was a terrible father. Just…goddamn awful. And it took me years to come to terms with that.”

He leans his neck back, gazing at the hut’s wooden rafters as he says, “Living with someone who tears you down every goddamn day—it’s like living with a constant monster. You start believing his words. That you’re a piece of shit. You’re the problem. Until you just…become him.”

He tilts his head towards me, strength in his amber eyes.

“For the longest time,” he continues, “I thought I was as awful as my father. Some parts of me were. And I believed that those parts would make me an equally terrible dad…it’s why I never wanted kids.”

I didn’t know that.

I rub my lips, hand warm from the water. “What changed?”

“You,” he says. “You weren’t planned. As you know.”

“Yeah.” The media loves toting around that fun fact about the surprise pregnancy and my subsequent birth. It’s not a big deal to me.

My dad stares at the snow-capped mountainside. “When Lily said she was pregnant, I told myself that if I fucked up, I’d ruin everything good and pure in my life. I made a promise to stay sober. To do better. I hung onto something that made me feel like I could.”

I hesitate to ask, “What?”

“I hoped for a girl.”

I bottle something inside. What’s the feeling I feel? I don’t know. I won’t let it rise, but it amasses inside me like a cement block.

“I was afraid to raise a boy,” he explains. “I was afraid to find out decades later that I raised someone just like me.” He lets out a dry laugh. “I don’t know why I thought I’d get what I want. I was such a shitty person back then; I didn’t deserve any kind of shortcuts or easy outs.”

I stare at the water and force myself not to defend his character. I didn’t know my dad in his early twenties, and I need to stop protecting someone who’s gone. My dad isn’t that guy anymore, and he knows it, too.

“Maybe three months after your birth,” he tells me, “I started actually believing I could be a halfway-decent dad. But that fear never really went away. It’s still there. I’ve been terrified that you’d make the same mistakes as me. The same mistakes as my father.”

This is where we diverge.

“You know me,” I refute. “You know I would never—”

“You haven’t lived in my house for four years, Moffy,” he interrupts with quick-paced words. Eyes on mine again. Intensity laces his voice that silences me. “We talk, but you’re not around all the time. I’ve been more concerned with Luna, Xander, and Kinney. And I know who you are. You’re kind and compassionate, and I’m so goddamn proud of the man you’ve become.”

My eyes burn. I know there’s a but coming.

“But I thought somewhere in those four years you could’ve become someone different, and I missed something. People change.” He gestures to me. “You can change.”

I shake my head. “I don’t feel like I can.”

My dad looks like he wants to reach a hand out, but his face twists as he keeps to himself. He shakes his head once. “You’re stubborn like Ryke. He thought that too, but he’s not the same as he was at twenty-two. You have years to grow and be someone different. Someone you like more or less, and it’s terrifying. I know it is. Because at twenty-two, I was shitting myself thinking about it.”

I don’t blink as I take it in.

“I know you’re a lot like my brother. But you’re still my son. You have all the best parts of Lily—thank God for that. But there’s a chance you could have the worst parts of me.”

I open my mouth, but everything I’d say next to appease him would be a lie.

“You know it, too,” he says. “If you didn’t think there was a chance, then you wouldn’t be as careful around alcohol.”

A chill bites my exposed skin, maybe by the weather or his words. I drop my shoulders beneath the hot water, and I listen intently as he keeps going.

“The thing about addiction is that it changes you,” he tells me. “You don’t care about the people you love. All compassion and kindness dissolve in the face of your own wants and needs.”

He extends an arm in the freezing air to point towards where Ryke disappeared. “I was that person lying to my brother. To my family. To your mom, a woman who has half my soul. That’s how bad it gets. And when we confronted you at the summer camp, all I could see was myself.”

My stomach knots.

“I wish I handled it differently,” he says. “In hindsight, I should’ve given you more time to speak, but if I never questioned you, I would’ve hated myself every goddamn day. Because I was raised by a father who didn’t give a shit where I was. And your mom was raised by parents who couldn’t care less about her.”

He sits forward. Closer to me. “The moment I held you in my arms, I vowed to always care. In my world, that means questioning you when I sense something’s wrong. Even if I turn out to be the jerk in the end.”

I stay completely still.

My dad has always been candid with me, but this is different. How he’s speaking—it feels like he’s reaching to a place he rarely touches and he’s splitting himself open.

He’s fallible. Imperfect. He’s been telling me that since I was little, but my dad had always been a superhero in my eyes.

He’s so human. It hurts.

“Me and your mom, your aunts and uncles—in almost every circumstance, we wouldn’t trust the media over your word. But security’s intel about your NDAs and the ‘mystery girl’ that we wouldn’t approve of—it aligned with the media. Something wasn’t adding up. We thought it could be anything, not just the rumor. You could’ve been drinking or…” He takes a giant breath.

I was lying about Farrow.

I take fault for that.

“Interrogating each other,” he tells me, “it’s how we deal with lies. Your aunts and uncles have done it to me, and I’ve done it to them.” He pauses. “We were all worried you and Jane were in trouble…and I just needed…” He turns his head away, but I catch sight of his pained face. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright.” A lump lodges in my throat, and a question gnaws at me. I ask as carefully as I can, “What would your dad have done if he were in your position?”

He drops his head.

“You don’t have to answer—”

“I can. Easily.” His jaw sets sharp. “The Jonathan Hale damage control handbook. First, he takes away your trust fund. Then he conducts a meeting where he lists all the steps you have to follow to rebuild your image. Mainly for the sake of the family companies. The trust fund is collateral.”

“Fuck.”

“He’s not done,” my dad says. “You’re broke now. That is, until you complete those necessary steps. One of which, you’re getting married. In his timeframe. And definitely not to your bodyguard. But at least in Jonathan’s handbook, he talks to you face-to-face. You pick up the Calloway handbook, Lily’s parents, and they’ll just send the lawyers to deal with you.”

I stare haunted. “Something like this happened to you and Mom?”

His face says yes. “I love you more than you’ll ever realize, and I hope one day, you can see that our reactions at the camp were out of fear and love. Nothing else.”

I’m starting to see now.

Before, I couldn’t comprehend why and how my parents could doubt me, but he just gave me their viewpoint. I wanted automatic loyalty, but my dad cared enough to question me. They all fucking did. They took the chance of being wrong and dealing with this fallout because if they’d been right and did nothing…

I could be drowning in alcohol. I could be hurt and floundering alone. I could be silently screaming for support and no one’s there to answer the call.

So I get it.

I wish that doomsday could’ve been avoided altogether, but if it had to happen, at least I have parents that love me enough to be there for me.

I nod stiffly. “About Hale Co….” We haven’t talked about the billion-dollar baby product company, built by my great-grandfather. The rumor about me and Jane doesn’t exactly help sell bottles and diapers.

Hale Co. stocks dropped, and I’m sure it’s made my dad’s job as the CEO even harder.

He frowns. “You think I care about the company? You could drive my business into the ground, bud, and as long as you’re breathing and alive and happy, I wouldn’t care.”

I nod again. Thinking about everything he’s said. Forgiveness isn’t that hard for me—maybe it even comes too easily—but when faced with love or a pointless grudge, I’m going to accept love.

Once I find the words, I tell him, “I wouldn’t trade you for any other dad. No bullshit.” I figure he’ll think I’m tiptoeing around him because he’s in a bad place. I kind of am, but I still mean what I say.

He usually has a response for everything, but he grimaces in thought. Maybe he can tell I’m overly praising him.

I run my hand across a hot tub jet. “How’s mom?” I still regret snapping at my mom at the camp. I’ve never yelled at her before, and it may seem like a stupid comparison, but I feel like I kicked her.

“She’s sad,” my dad says, “but I’ve seen her sadder.”

Great.

He gives me this weird look that’s been forming for a while. Like I’ve floated into outer space halfway through our conversation.

“What?”

“You’re worried about us, and we’re the people that hurt you. Jesus Christ, it’s strange.”

“You’re my parents—”

“And we fucked up.” He winces and then flashes his iconic half-smile. “Where’s the condemnation and the tantrum and the I hate you so much, Mom and Dad, huh?”

He wanted me to put up a fight and knock him down at least once. I actually think there’s a part of him that felt like he deserved it—and fuck that. “I guess I’d just rather love you than hate you. Sorry,” I say with edge that matches his.

His face scrunches. “When’s the last time you’ve cried?”

I almost shake my head. “Why are you asking that?”

“Concern. I told you it’s okay to cry growing up, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, you did. All the time.”

He would say, you can cry, bud. But I must’ve been thirteen the last time I really cried. Someone kept stuffing notes in my locker like your mom sucks a lot of dick with penis doodles. There I was, sobbing into my pillow, and my little brother knocked on my bedroom door. Wanting me to read him a fantasy book.

He was super fucking young, and I remember rubbing my face until all the tears dried. I didn’t want Xander to be afraid of bullies. I realized then that if I showed my cousins and siblings that I couldn’t handle the world—young kids who saw me as a role model, their leader—then they’d never believe they could.

“I was thirteen,” I tell my dad. “There just hasn’t been a lot to cry over since.”

Twigs rustle in my peripheral. I crane my head over my shoulder. Two figures hide poorly behind leafless maple trees. Only about twenty feet away.

85% chance of eavesdropping.

My dad gapes in mock surprise. “Christ Almighty, I wonder who the hell that could be.”

Connor and Ryke emerge and glare at each other, shirking blame for being discovered.

My dad touches his heart. “I had no idea.”

I almost smile. As they dip into the hut, Ryke removes his gloves and stomps snow off his rubber soles. “Cobalt wouldn’t move his ass any higher up the fucking ridge.”

Connor unzips his navy blue jacket. “I lost cell signal. Of course, you wouldn’t understand the importance of needing to be reachable because not many people need to reach you.”

“Fuck off.” Ryke throws a glove at Connor’s face, but without even looking, Connor dodges the glove and it plops in the hot tub.

I grab the soaked glove and toss it back to Ryke. “If I remember correctly, you both were also at Camp Calloway doubting me and Jane.”

Ryke sheds down to his bathing suit. “We were also there trying to fucking protect you—”

“Is an I’m sorry that damn hard?” I ask.

His frown darkens, and he climbs into the hot tub. “I’m fucking sorry.” It sounds sincere, and he wraps his arm around my shoulder. Giving me a side-hug.

Connor places his jacket on a wooden table. “I apologize for hurting you.”

“I accept,” I say, “but Janie’s gonna need more than that.”

Connor nods. “I’m aware. She already asked her mom and me to write a three-thousand word essay on why we love her.” His lips pull upward, admiration for his daughter clear in his eyes.

My dad flashes a dry smile. “That’s what happens when you raise a bunch of geniuses and make your family motto: loyalty to the death.”

Connor grins a billion-dollar grin.

I lie back, but my shoulders won’t unwind. “Isn’t the Cobalt motto, ‘let me play the lion too: I will roar’ and whatever else Eliot says?” My younger cousin always recited that Shakespeare quote from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and it’s weirdly become the unofficial Cobalt rallying cry.

“We have many mottos,” Connor says and finishes undressing to his blue bathing suit. He joins us in the hot tub, sitting closer to my dad while Ryke stays next to me.

Connor sets his phone in a cup holder, and I remember what I’ve been meaning to tell all three of them.

“I’ve been working with a tech & security company.” I capture their attention. “The engineers are updating all of our electronics and the security team’s to ensure no hacks from any outside sources. Phones, computers—everything will be safer to use. It was supposed to be my Christmas present to everyone, but I’ll roll it out before the tour starts.”

Connor looks marginally impressed. Which is more than he gives most people. He nods repeatedly. “This’ll allow you to text Farrow without fear of a public hack.”

Sudden mention of my boyfriend/bodyguard heavies the air. “Yeah. It’s an added benefit.” I start to unconsciously smile when I imagine us texting like we’re together, for real.

I’ve never had that before.

Connor reads my features. “You like him.”

“I love him,” I correct.

Ryke scratches his unshaven jaw.

“Say it,” I tell him.

“Look, we hired these fucking bodyguards. All of our kids trust them. You lower your guard around them, and it feels fucking wrong for security to take advantage of your vulnerability—”

“I’m an adult,” I remind him for the millionth time. “It was my choice, and it wasn’t fucking easy for me.” I can’t lie to my uncle and say that trust wasn’t a factor. Inherently, I need to trust someone before I can be completely myself with them, and I trusted Farrow. But I also knew him before he was a bodyguard.

Ryke digests this. Silent.

“If you’re worried about your daughters or the little kids with security,” I say, “you don’t have to be. The team is professional, and all they want is to keep everyone safe. You all know that.”

“I do,” Connor says like Uncle Ryke is being dumb.

Ryke rolls his eyes.

My dad watches me, but he stays quiet. I can’t tell where his head is at regarding Farrow, and maybe he’s not even sure.

I feel the need to defend my relationship. “I know you want me to be in an uncomplicated relationship,” I tell my dad. “Some guy or girl I met in a coffee shop or at some damn comic book convention, but that was never going to happen.”

My dad twists his wedding ring.

I solidify.

Then I try to straighten up, water lapping the ledge of the hot tub.

I follow his gaze that drifts down the ridge. Someone bundled in gray faux fur hikes towards the hut, and as my dad relaxes more and more, I know it can only be one person.

I climb out of the water. Cold bites every inch of exposed flesh. I shiver and quickly put on my pants, shirt, jacket—the works. I bet they know what I’m about to do. No one protests as I leave and run down the slope, snow past my calves.

I skid on a patch of ice but keep my balance. Wind slaps my face, and right as I round one corner, I startle the gangly, fur-clad figure.

“OhmyGod!” she shrieks, wide-eyed, and then catches her breath as she realizes it’s just me.

“Hey, Mom.” I lean down and wrap my arms around her bony shoulders, hugging her tight. “I’m sorry.”

“Nonono,” she says rapidly and pushes my chest.

I back up, lungs cemented in my throat.

Tears just stream down her round cheeks. “Why are you apologizing?” Her voice cracks.

I yelled at you. I hurt you. “Mom—”

“I had a whole I’m sorry speech planned.” Her chin quivers. “I wronged you.” She jabs a finger at my heart, but the longer I look into her glassy green eyes, the more fragile she seems—the more my resentment just depletes.

“I forgive you—”

“You can’t,” she cries but hurriedly wipes at her tears.

“I just did.” My chest is on fire again.

“Well, you shouldn’t.” She hiccups and then lowers her fur hood to shield her splotchy, reddened face from me. “Ihavetogo,” she mutters.

“Mom.” I catch her hand. “I love you, you know that.” With every word, I do more harm than good. I’m fighting for the right thing to say and do.

She rubs her face with her forearm. “I love you too…I’m so sorry. I’m doing this all wrong again.” She releases her grip, then treks further up the ridge and embraces my dad.

I turn my head.

Last night, the tour seemed like an okay idea—complicated, fucking risky—but in this moment, I love the whole concept.

Because I feel like I should be anywhere but here.