“I have no clue,” I say. “Let me know when you find a less heartbreaking hobby.”
“We could get into knitting,” he suggests. He speaks slowly, and I hardly recognize the sound of it. He’s off.
“Your fingers are too big for that.”
“Yeah. Probably.”
Short sentences. I’m becoming even more on edge. What’s on his mind? Interrogating him would be easy. I do it all the time. But something tells me that, right now, it’s better to act normal and wait for him to come out with it on his own.
Maybe he’s just tired.
“Look at all this shit,” he says with a sad laugh while holding up an empty box of cookies.
Between our dinner, jumbo bowls of popcorn, and every unhealthy snack in the pantry, the bunkhouse living room looks like an entire group of starving tweens were left unsupervised at a sleepover.
“No regrets,” I mumble through another mouthful of popcorn.
He smiles and turns his attention back to the late-night game. We sit quietly next to each other on the couch for a while, and I start to miss our usual comfortable silence. We’re normally great like this, him and me. No pressure to entertain or please. Just be.
Except tonight, the tension hangs thick in the air. It lasts ten more minutes before Tripp finally bends a knee and twists to face me.
“I got a phone call before you got here.”
I lean forward to set the bowl of popcorn on the coffee table and then pull the blanket up onto my lap. “You did? Was it a good phone call or a bad phone call?”
He looks at me like he wants to talk about it. I focus on choosing my words carefully. Something about this really affected him; that much is clear. I knew it the moment I stepped into this room hours ago.
My gut told me it wasn’t about us messing around and taking things too far last week, either. My instincts were right: if he’s ready to let me in on what’s bothering him, then I need to let him lead the conversation on his own. No pushing.
“Well, I don’t know how to answer that. It was my dad.”
I nearly swallow my tongue and let out a choking sound. His arm on the back of the couch lowers so that he can pat me on the back.
“Sorry.” I clear my throat. “You mean, like . . . your biological father?”
“Yep. I hired a private investigator a long time ago. She followed a wild hare rumor that one of my old case workers told her. It led her to a guy she had evidence to believe might be my dad, and she convinced him to spit in a tube just to see. It was a match. Anyway, we exchanged numbers. I spoke with him.”
The bit about a private investigator is the first thing I’m tempted to quiz him about. But I can read between the lines, and sticking to the subject of his dad is more important right now. I can fish for details later about how and why Tripp has his own personal P.I.
I sit up straight and scoot closer to him. “I can’t believe it. How do you feel about this? I mean, you talked to yourdad. What did he say to you?”
“I didn’t even know he was alive. So, yeah, I’m happy about it in a way. He—said he was looking for Iris Lathan. That’s my mom’s name. I told him she was dead and that he was speaking to her son. He didn’t know she’d passed.”
Without hesitation, I gently reach for his hand. Our fingers don’t lace together. Instead, our palms rest softly against one another, and I curl my fingers in a slight grip. He brushes the back of my hand with the tips of his fingers.
We’ve never held hands like this before. Not really. Yet, there’s no awkward shuffle. It feels less charged and more grounded. Natural, like breathing or blinking.
His grip tightens slightly as I mull over what to say that will help him open up. He doesn’t need saving right now. His eyes say he just needs something solid and real to hold onto. Just me.
Tripp has a way of wearing emotions that I’ve never seen before. On one hand, he’s open and obvious in his joy or disappointment. There’s no work to put in when trying to figure out what he’s feeling.
Other times, like now, the dejection is hard to decipher. The intense hurt seems buried deeper than his other emotions, andhe’s an expert at masking it. The only reliable clue is his voice. It’s lost all its usual spark of humor and light. It’s low. Hoarse, almost.
“Tripp,” I whisper. He looks down, and I pull his hand into my lap. “This is a lot, but I’m glad you told me all of that. Your mom—” I fight back tears I have no right to cry right now. “I’m so sorry. Did you know her?”
His eyes meet mine again while he shakes his head. “No. I don’t know much. She died when I was a baby, and we have the same last name. It’s on the back of a picture that I was given at some point in foster care. It’s why I came here, actually. To Westridge.”
My lips part, and I lift my brows. My free hand soothes over his forearm to help validate the strength it took for him to let me in on the few details he knows about his mom. He’s been keeping those to himself until now, I think. The invisible weight they carried seems to evaporate into thin air after voicing them out loud.
