Page 31 of Serenity
ChapterThirteen
Dillon
I’d just pulledinto the driveway when my phone rang. Again. It was about the tenth time already thatmorning.
“You can’t avoid them forever, Dillon. They’re your family.” Faith squeezed my hand before climbing out of the SUV. The hospital had discharged her an hour ago, but she’d insisted that we needed to stop at the grocery store on our way home because we didn’t have anything healthy to eat in the house. When I suggested that it’d be better for me to drop her off and head to the store by myself, she refused to hear of it. And with the big puppy dog eyes she was giving me, I couldn’t bring myself tosayno.
“They’ll have to wait,” I told her as I pulled bags out of the back of the SUV. “We’ve got groceries that need to go into the fridge and freezerrightnow.”
“Groceries,” she snorted. “I guess that’s as good an excuse as any other to keepavoidingthem.”
Her point was valid, but it also felt unfair. “It’s only beena day. They lied to me forfiveyears.”
She waited until we were inside the house, setting the groceries on the kitchen counter, to respond. “Sometimes one day can feel like an eternity. Like when you know that someone you love is angry, but you don’t know where they are and they’re not picking up the phone any of the timesyoucall.”
Which was exactly what I’d done to Faith after she’d shown me the letters. She’d led a life where she hadn’t been given many reasons to trust, and I was asking her to do just that with me after I’d hurt her. Which meant I needed to do whatever I could to prove to her that her belief in me wasn’t misplaced. And that included balling up and facing my parents sooner rather than later. “You’reright.”
“Iam?”
“I learned my lesson the hard way, seeing what my silence almost cost you. I’m not going to make the same mistake again. Not with you, and not with myparents.”
“Really?”
The sweet smile she gave me and the way her eyes lit up told me I was making the right decision. “Yeah,really.”
She wrapped me up in a hug, and whispered against my chest, “Thankyou.”
“It’s as much for me as it is for you, baby.” I just hadn’t realized it until I felt a surge of relief once my decision had been made. “But I don’t want to do this over the phone. It needs to be face-to-face.”
“I think that’s smart. It’s better to talk the serious shit out in person because it’s too easy to hang up on someone. It’s a lot harder towalkaway.”
“Fuck,” Igroaned.
“Shit.” She reared back and looked at me. “I didn’t mean it that wayatall.”
“Yousure?”
“Yeah. You promised me you’d never do that again, and I’ve chosen to believe you. That means we both need to let it go. I know I just brought it up to try to get you to understand why I feel so strongly that you need to talk to your parents. But I can’t keep dragging what happened into arguments, and you can’t wonder if I’m hinting at it all the time. The past is the past as far as our relationship is concerned, and we’re moving on fromit.Deal?”
Inodded. “Deal.”
“Good.” She rose up on her toes and pressed a quick kiss against my mouth. “One problem down, but we still have a doozy to go. What do you want to do about your parents? I bet your mom’sathome.”
“But my dad should be at the office, and I need to talk to both of them together.” Not just for me, but for them too. My mom was bound to fall apart when I confronted them over this, and she’d need my dad at her side to getthroughit.
“We’re any of those calls this morningfromhim?”
“Yeah, about halfofthem.”
She tugged my cell out of my pocket and handed it to me. “Then send him a text. Tell him you need to talk and you want to meet with them at their house as soon as possible. If he’s at work, I’m sure he’ll cancel whatever he has on his calendar and rush home if you tell him you need him. He’s got to be frantic with worrybynow.”
She was right, so I tapped out a text while she put the groceries away. I’d barely hit send when three little circles popped up beneath my message, letting me know he was writing areply.
Dad:Come home now. I’ll bethere.
Me: We’ll be there in thirtyminutes.
“He wantsus to comeovernow.”
