Tristan was still tripping over his little chat with Miss Warren as he parked his bike in the garage. He didn’t know how he was supposed to see Helena again. Yeah, he could climb the tower, but with the windows bolted and the dragon on duty it’d be pretty damn hard.

He wasn’t sure if he was up for the fight either.

Avoiding drama and conflict was his MO. He wasn’t too keen on running headfirst into battle with a psycho, book-throwing dragon.

He grabbed the two bags of groceries he’d collected on the way home and then headed up the back steps. Flicking the door open, he walked into the kitchen and stopped, his eyes bugging out at the sight of his father standing by the sink, a dishtowel slung over his shoulder as he rinsed off a plate. A pot was bubbling on the stovetop, a box of Kraft Mac n’ Cheese sitting next to it.

“Uh, what are you doing?” Tristan placed the groceries down and slid the bag off his shoulder. It thudded to the floor.

His father gave him a lopsided grin. “I figured it was about time I gave cooking a try.”

Tristan’s forehead crinkled and he looked over his shoulder, wondering when he’d accidentally walked into an alternate universe.

“I don’t understand what’s happening right now. Why aren’t you on the couch drinking beer?”

His father lowered the dish scrubber with a heavy sigh, his head drooping between his broad shoulders.

“Tristan…” He sighed again, resting his dripping hands against the side of the sink. “What you said a few days ago really got to me. I know I’m a slow, lumbering dinosaur when it comes to dealing with emotions. The divorce, it…it really shut me down. I guess I forgot to notice how much it affected you too.” He spun to face his son, snatching the towel off his shoulder and drying his hands. “I can’t tell you how glad I am that you chose to stay with me, but it always felt like a weird decision. I didn’t know how to help you. I didn’t know what to say or do to make you happy. But then you kind of picked up on your own. You started smiling again and…” His father’s lips lifted at the edges. “I started to feel like we could do this, you know?” His face bunched with a quick frown. “But the last week or so it’s just gone. You’re back to living like a zombie, and I…I don’t know if I can cope with that.”

He kept his eyes on his fingers, drying them until the skin was tinged pink. “Now that I’ve seen you happy, seeing you miserable again is killing me.” He waved his hand in the air and then pointed to the stovetop. The lid on the pot jumped and rattled. Leon lurched toward it, lifting the lid and giving it a quick stir with the wooden spoon. He glanced over his shoulder with a sheepish grin. “I thought maybe I should step up and start playing Dad for a change. Sixteen-year-old high school kids should not be cooking dinner every night.”

Tristan flashed him a sad smile, a thick lump forming in his throat. He nodded a couple of times and finally croaked, “Thanks, Dad.”

His father brushed the air with a bashful smile. “Why don’t you get cleaned up? Dinner will be ready soon.”

Still in a mild state of shock, Tristan did as he was told without argument, clomping up the stairs and reeling over the total weirdness of his day.

Scrubbing a hand over his face, he dumped his bag and kicked off his shoes, heading back down to the kitchen to see if he could help.

His father wouldn’t let him do a thing except unpack the groceries, and twenty minutes later they were sitting down to a slightly crispy version of Mac n’ Cheese and a salad that looked like it’d been made by a five-year-old wielding a machete.

His father shoved a forkful of food in his mouth and wrestled with a grimace, eventually throwing his son a tight smile. Tristan fought the urge to laugh and shuffled in his seat, scooping up a small forkful and tasting it.

He swallowed down the ashy food and cleared his throat. “Ketchup?”

“Good idea.”

Tristan jumped up and grabbed the bottle from the fridge, handing it to his father with a light snicker.

“I’ll get better,” he mumbled.

“Thanks for trying.” Tristan smiled—a small, closed-mouth one, but genuine.

His dad squirted a blob of ketchup onto his plate and handed it to his son. “So, ah, what, um, seems to be bothering you this week?”

“Dad, really?” Tristan tipped his head with a pitiful frown, snapping the ketchup bottle closed and placing it down between them.

“Come on, buddy, I used to be a good dad. We used to go out back and chuck a ball around. You’d tell me everything.”

Tristan swirled his fork through his ketchup. “I’m not a kid anymore.”

His father nodded. “Yeah, I know it, but you can still tell me anything.”

What was it with people and trying to get him to talk? The day had been stuffed full of them. Tristan slumped back in his seat and started spinning his water glass around.

“Is it about a girl?” His dad took another bite of his food, his Adam’s apple jerking as he swallowed it down.

Tristan’s gaze shot to his father’s before it dashed back to the glass in his hands.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his father nod. “She’s pretty awesome, huh?”

Tristan’s lips rose before he could stop them.

His father chuckled, grabbing his glass of water and taking a quick sip before running his tongue along his bottom teeth. “What’s her name?”

“Helena,” Tristan whispered.

“Nice.” His dad nodded again. “You know the first girl I ever fell for, I said her name that way too.”

Tristan’s eyebrows bunched and he glanced at his dad. “What way?”

“Aw, you know, whispering it like that…as if the word tasted like cotton candy in my mouth.”

Tristan grinned, his cheeks starting to burn with color. His father gave him a light punch on the arm.

“Son, you got it bad.” He chuckled and shot him a sympathetic half-smile. “She didn’t dump you, did she?”

“Things got complicated.” Tristan tipped his head.

“You think you can work it out?” The fork scraped his father’s plate as he scooped up more food.

Tristan picked at his salad, flicking a large hunk of carrot to the side. “I’d like to. I just don’t know if I should.”

His father tapped his fork on the plate. “I once dated a girl whose father hated me. I don’t know why. He was the kind of man to greet you at the door with a twelve-gauge shotgun in his hands.”

Tristan’s eye bulged.

“But I liked her too much to not at least try. So one night, after dark, I snuck over there and threw stones at her window. She opened it up, her smile radiant, her pale white hair glistening in the moonlight…”

“Dad.” Tristan snapped his fingers, trying to bring his father back to earth.

The large man shook his head, his lips curling with a sheepish grin. “Her name was Mandy, and I was a love-sick fifteen-year-old.”

“What happened?”

“We snuck out that night. I took her to a fair just outside of town and we had the time of our lives. I won her a panda bear in one of those shooting games and we shared cotton candy and kissed behind the fortune teller’s booth.”

Tristan chuckled. “Did you get in trouble?”

“Oh yeah, I thought he was going to blow my head off when I walked her back home. She was grounded for a month and I was banned from walking anywhere near the house. My father chewed me out and told me to stay away from her.”

Shuffling in his seat, Tristan rested his arms against the table. “Did you?”

“We tried pursuing it for a while, but it got too hard and complicated. She moved out of town at the end of the year, so it was over. It was worth it though, even for just that one night…a treasured memory.”

“A paper crane,” Tristan murmured to himself.