“You never did realize how much I wanted this, did you?” I asked my dad. We’d been sitting in silence for a few minutes since I returned to his hospital room.

Ryan had come out into the hallway, kissed me fiercely, shook his head in apparent frustration, and told me to go back in. Now my dad was looking at me like I’d murdered his perfect daughter and was wearing her skin like a costume. I shook my head at him. “Did you really think an elaborate plot to discourage me was going to work?”

“I’m only looking out for your best interests. That’s my job as your father.” Each word was bitten out like it was a sentence of its own.

“It was when I was a kid, but now I’m an adult. I have to look out for my own best interests.” I frowned. “I have to figure out my own best interests.”

My dad shook his head furiously. He was still that awful shade of purple that he’d been when he was lying unconscious. “You’re so much like your mother that sometimes I don’t know what to do with you, Rosie.”

“Because I don’t want to be controlled?” My mom and I might not see eye to eye on much, but I understood why she left. “Because I picked Ryan?”

My dad just shook his head at me. “Because you’re irrational. You won’t listen. You just plunge ahead with whatever it is that you want, and you don’t care about the consequences.”

“I’m listening. I’ve always been listening. I just don’t agree.” I squared my shoulders. “I have to live my own life. Not the one you picked for me. I’ll live with the consequences.”

“Those consequences could be deadly. Did Ryan tell you what happened to old girlfriend? You could end just up like her. Dead before twenty.”

“Or I could end up like Jason Kane, as an international superstar. I’m smart. I’ll get good advice, I won’t take dumb risks… I’m a big girl.”

“I can’t stand by and watch you destroy yourself.”

“I’m a singer, not a heroin addict.”

He shook his head. “Why won’t you listen?” He looked at me like I was a lost cause.

“Well then feel free to cut me out of your life. Because I’m going to do what I’m going to do. I have to live my life. You can be a part of it, or not.”

My dad’s lips parted in surprise. I saw the moment when he started to believe me, and like the air being expelled from a deflating balloon, something in my dad shrunk. He sighed and then coughed.

“I don’t want to lose you,” I told him. “I really want to figure out a way for this to work. But I need for you to meet me halfway and accept that I’m able to make my own choices and pick my own boyfriends. I won’t ask you to agree with everything I do. I won’t ask you to support me financially anymore.” I shook my head. “Believe it or not, I have a record deal now. I’m actually doing what I said I was going to do.”

“What did you think gave me the heart attack?” he asked. He still hadn’t given me an answer, but a small smile was fighting to break loose on his face.

I blinked in shock and confusion. “I thought it was learning about me and Ryan.”

He shook his head. “No. Ryan just told me about that when you were out of the room.”

My mouth dropped open in shock. “What?”

“So, you’re dating Ryan, huh?”

I couldn’t muster the strength to make words. I replayed the past few hours in my head… it was plausible. He didn’t know.

“Yes,” I stuttered after a moment. “Yes, I’m dating Ryan.”

He frowned. “I can’t say that I like that.”

“Dad,” I told him. “I need to know if you can respect the boundaries I’m asking for. Do we have a deal or not?”

“I really should have played the frail old man card,” he said. Now he was just equivocating. He’d taught me how to make a deal, so I recognized the strategy.

“Dad,” I repeated, “do we have a deal or not?”

He sighed and nodded. “You’ve out negotiated me, Rosie.” The light was coming back to his eyes and it lifted my spirits. “I suppose we have a deal.”