“Yeah, for the past few months now.”
“It doesn’t make you an asshole for needing some time out. Jade understands that more than you probably know. She’s always had that compassionate side to her, a lot of people have taken advantage of her good nature in the past. I know you’re not like that.”
“I’d never hurt her,” I murmur.
“I know it,” he says. “What are you going to do with your mom?”
I run a hand through my hair. “I don’t know. She gets me all messed up inside,” I admit. “And I don’t want to feel like that again. I worked too hard to go back to that place.”
He pats me on the shoulder again, but keeps his hand there in a fatherly way. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. I’m proud of you, no matter what.”
There’s that tight feeling again in my throat and that fucking tear finally drops. I wipe it away with the back of my hand. “Thanks, Billy. You’re the closest I ever had to a father.”
If I’m not mistaken, he looks a little glassy eyed and choked up himself. “I might be jumping the gun here, but I hope someday you might become my actual son-in-law.”
He must think I’m a sap, but more hot tears make their way out of my eyeballs. I try to hold them at bay and collect myself by using those breathing techniques I’ve heard Jade talk about, the same ones Taylor is always thrusting upon us. “I hope for that too, if she’ll have me.”
“You’re good for each other,” he says. “I’m not surprised you got together. Just look after each other, that’s all I ask.”
“I will. You know it.”
“It’s easy a few weeks or months in. But it’s the years that go by that count, you need to show up every day for each other, if that’s what you decide to do. If you can do that, like you’ve done for your hockey career, you’ll never let it go.”
“I agree. I love your daughter,” I say. “I think I always have.”
“She loves you too, I can tell by the way she looks at you.”
I pique an eyebrow, shocked at his words. “You can?”
“I know my daughter,” he says.
“All I want is to be worthy of her. And that’s the part I struggle with. I’m trying,” I sigh.
“You are more than worthy, Jay Jefferson. Don’t let anyone ever tell you any different, okay?” He wraps an arm around my shoulders and pulls me to his side, and I hug him as Robbie jumps up at me again.
“Okay.” I nod.
And it’s like he’s saving me all over again, just like he and Robbie did that day in the storm. At least this time, the circumstances are different and we’re not being pelted with crazy ass rain and I’m not drunk.
“Now, will you come away from that fucking edge, the last thing I want you to do is slip.” He tugs me away from the cliff face and we walk back to the parking lot with Robbie happily walking between us.
It’s then I see Jade leaning on the bonnet of her dad’s car. I turn and look at Billy. He shrugs like he knew nothing, but he knew all along.
“I insisted on coming along,” she says as we draw closer. “Dad said he knew where you’d be. I guess he was right.”
“Usually am,” Billy adds, opening the passenger door and letting Robbie jump in.
“You two talk, okay? I’ll see you at home.”
“Thanks,” I say to Billy, he truly is one of my favorite people on the planet.
“See you at home, Dad,” Jade says softly.
I stick my hands in my pockets after we wave him goodbye and look at my shoes. “I’m sorry I took off like that,” I say.
She reaches out to take my hand and holds it around mine. “Jay, it’s alright. I know this stuff is hard. You don’t have to apologize. You don’t always have to be the guy that has all the answers. It’s okay to not know sometimes.”
“I’ve had to keep all the pieces together my whole life, Baby Girl,” I say. “I always felt like if I dropped one of those pieces, everything would be even more messed up. And I couldn’t afford for that to happen.”
