I told myself I was doing it for Tess. That I wanted her to see me try. That I don’t give a flying dick if her father approves of me or not.

Lies.

I care.

I want her father to believe that I’m good enough for her, even if no one else does. I want him to look at me the way he looks at Con. Shake my hand and tell Tess what a nice young man I am after I leave. And even though I knew there was no way in hell it was ever going to happen, that there are going consequences for shoving my relationship with his daughter in his face, I still hoped.

I didn’t even realize it until he left me hanging. As soon as he turns and walks away, I feel Tess go stiff. Ready to charge after him.

“No.” I look down at her and smile, refusing to let her see how shitty I feel. “It’s okay. Let’s go.”

I can feel her father’s glare drilling holes in my back as I lead Tess outside. As soon as she sees it she takes a couple of fast steps forward, toward the truck parked on the tarmac in front of the garage, handing me the cat so she can check it out. As far as I can tell it’s a piece of shit but if the internet is to be believed, the rusted out 1957 Chevy 3100 I bought from a hobbyist in Connecticut is a classic. Anyway, it looks like shit but has new tires and it runs. It’ll get us where we’re going.

“Is she—”

“Stolen?” I lean down and whisper it in her ear, grinning when she narrows her eyes at me. “Nope. Bought her, fair and square.”

“I was going to ask if she was yours,” Tess says, her tone caught somewhere between envy and awe while she runs a hand over its rust-pitted fender, eyes glued to the hunk of dull metal in front of her.

“Nope.” I shake my head. “She’s yours.”

She stops walking. Lifts her hand from the fender and looks at me. “No…” she starts shaking her head. “No way. I can’t take this, Declan. It’s too much.” Any other girl, I’d be able to convince her that I bought this piece of shit for a hundred bucks. Tess knows better. She can see past the rust and body damage. The cracked windshield crumbling headliner. She could probably tell me, to the penny, what I paid for it.

And Tess is worth every single one of them.

“No arguing on your birthday,” I tell her reaching through the open window to set the cat on the seat of the truck.

“This isn’t one of your my way situations,” she says, tilting her chin up to look at me. “You can’t make me—”

Despite the fact that I can feel her father watching, I reach for her hand, giving her a tug toward me. “The only reason this isn’t a my way situation is because we’re standing in front of your father’s garage and he’s currently staring at me from the doorway like he’s trying to figure out how many bags of cement it’s going to take to sink me when he tosses my body into the Charles.” I lean over her when I say it, so I can watch her eyes go dark when she understands what I’m saying to her. “If we were alone, this would definitely be a my way situation.”

“You’re a big talker, Declan Gilroy,” she says, pushing herself up onto to the toes of her boots. “But …” She drops herself flat with a shrug. “You’re really not the incorrigible badboy I’ve been led to believe you were.”

“You want incorrigible?” I say reaching around her to jerk the passenger door open. “Get in the truck.”

It takes her thirty minutes to ask me where we’re going.

“It’s a surprise,” I tell her, shooting her a quick glance.

“Are you kidnapping me?” She narrows her eyes at me in mock suspicion and it reminds me of the night I came and found her at the garage in the middle of the night, asking her for help. This time when she says it there’s zero trepidation. No apprehension.

“You’re gonna have to make up your mind, Tess,” I say. “Am I incorrigible or not?”

“I’m not sure,” she says picking up the bunch of flowers on the seat between us so she can slide a little closer to me. “Ask me tomorrow morning.”

“Remember you said that,” I say arching an eyebrow at her and she laughs.

Laying the bunch of flowers across her lap she brushes a fingertip against a fragile pink petal. “They’re pretty.”

I picked for her on the way home from Connecticut this morning. It was an impulse thing. I saw them, growing along the side of the road and pulled over.

“You’re pretty.” It just tumbles out and I feel like an asshole for saying it but she doesn’t laugh. Doesn’t roll her eyes.

She pulls a flower free from the bunch. A pale green stalk with tiny blue flowers. She uses its petals to tickle Shad’s ear. “Most people just assume that I don’t like stuff like this.”

“Like what?”

“Like flowers.” She shrugs, still focused on the cat in my lap. “Like being told that I’m pretty.”

I don’t know why that makes me angry. I just know that it does. “You are pretty.”

“You don’t have to keep saying.” Now she frowns. She’s not looking at the cat anymore. She’s looking at her hands. The thick lines of black under her nails. Caked around her cuticles. “I know what I look like.”

Giving my mirrors a quick check, I pull off the road, onto the shoulder letting it roll to a slow stop. We’re about ten minutes away from where we’re going but this can’t wait.

She looks out the window at the side of the highway before giving me a puzzled look “Are we here?”

“No, smartass,” I say, taking the flowers off her lap, I toss them on the dash before pulling her even closer. “Why don’t you want me to tell you you’re pretty?”

“Did you hit your head?” she says, scowling up at me. “I just said I did like it.”

“No, you said most people assume you don’t.” I search her face, trying to find the place where the conversation turned. “That’s not the same thing.” When she doesn’t offer an explanation, I say it again. “You’re pretty.”

“Please stop saying that.” It’s the word please that gets me. She rarely uses it unless I have her naked.

“If you want me to stop, you’re going to have to tell me why,” I tell her shaking my head. “I’m just trying to understand, Tess. I just want to—”

“Because I look like her.” She blurts it out so fast her mouth hangs open for a second before she snaps it shut, her chin tipped up, jaw held tight to keep it from trembling. Finally under control, she continues. “Because when people do tell me I’m pretty it’s always followed by just like your mother.” She swallows hard and looks away from me. “They get to remember her that way. They get remember her pretty and laughing and happy. They don’t have to re—” Her voice breaks and her eyes fill with tears. “remember what I remember.”

We’ve never really talked about her mom. What she told me that day on my parent’s back porch sits between us, pulling us together and pushing us apart, pulsing between us like a heartbeat and what kills me is that I can’t fix it for her.

So I do the only thing I can do. The only thing I know how to do.

I pull her close and hold her while she cries.