And now I realized what I needed all along was his hug.
“Let it out, Matty,” he murmured. “It’s okay. You don’t have to carry it all on your own. That’s what I’m here for.”
His steady hand was on my back, rubbing in slow circles, soothing the frantic tremor in my chest. The tightness that had been in my throat finally loosened as I leaned into him more, letting the weight of my emotions ease. Dad didn’t say anything but held me and let me calm down in the warmth of his embrace.
After a long moment of silence, he guided me gently to sit beside him on the edge of the lake. He didn’t let go of me but wrapped his arm around my shoulders, pulling me close so that I could rest my head against him. I didn’t fight it. I leaned into him, into the comforting weight of his arm, the solid presence that had always been my safe place, even when I hadn’t realized it.
He sighed, a low sound, filled with heaviness. “It’s been forever since you’ve let me hold you like this, Matty. You grow up, you get bigger, and you start pushing me away. It’s tough, you know? Watching your kid grow, watching them hurt… and having to keep your distance, waiting until they need you enough to let you in. I don’t think that ever gets easier.”
I snorted softly, wiping the last of my tears away. “You should tell that to your wife,” I muttered. “She doesn’t have any problem interfering when it’s not wanted.”
“Your mother.” Dad sighed. “Gertie told me you two had a big row. She wouldn’t tell me what about, though.Said if I wanted to know, I should go be a father. So here I am.”
I let out a dry laugh, shaking my head. “Typical Gertie.” I quieted, a strange lump forming in my throat again. “I remember how much I couldn’t wait to grow up. I thought it would be… easier, you know? Like there’d be some freedom, some… clarity. But the older I get, the more I realize that grown-up feelings are so damn complicated.”
Dad didn’t say anything. Instead, he tightened his arm around me and pulled me a little closer, as though offering some silent reassurance. His hand found its way back to my hair, gently brushing through it again. It was soothing.
“I get it,” he said after a long pause, his voice soft. “I get that it feels like everything should make sense as you get older. But the truth is, the older you get, the more you start realizing how much of it is out of your hands. You can try to control it, to make it easier, but it doesn’t always work like that.”
I let his words sink in. A part of me had always wanted to be in control, always wanted to have answers, to have things figured out. But in that moment, I was learning something I didn’t want to admit. I didn’t have to have everything figured out. And it was okay to not know.
“How did you stand being married to her?”
“Matty—”
“She’s nothing like you. She’s so shallow.”
“But she loves you.”
“Does she? Or does she love the idea of having handsome gay sons she can parade in front of her friends?”
“You know that’s not true.”
“Dad, I want you to be honest with me.” I plucked a blade of grass. “Did you know Hudson and I were involved that summer?”
“Yeah. It wasn’t hard to figure out who you were with on Friday nights.”
“But you never tried to stop me.”
“Why should I?”
“Didn’t our age difference bother you?”
“I can’t say I wouldn’t have preferred him to be younger, but the gap wasn’t that much.” He huffed out a laugh. “Look at me and Ozzie. Nowthat’s an age gap. Plus, you were nineteen going on twenty that year. Not exactly a kid. You could have eloped and married that man if you wanted to, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could have done about it. Not to mention, you were a very mature nineteen-year-old with a good head on your shoulders. Hudson might have been older, but he seemed a lot less grounded than you. I know you, Matty, and trusted you that you would know whether you were being taken advantage of, and it didn’t seem that way.”
“You were livid when you caught me with your foreman.”
He stiffened. “You were seventeen, and he was pushing forty. I’m not even getting into it with you again why that was wrong.”
“I hit on him, you know.”
“I didn’t care then, and I still don’t care. He should have told you no. Should have shot his dick off before I sent him packing.”
My heart fluttered, and I swallowed hard. I clenched my hand into a fist. He could never find out about Grant.
“Your mistakes are yours to make, Matty, and that summer, if Hudson was going to be a mistake, I hoped you would have at least learned from it.”
I shifted, my back going ramrod straight. “I didn’t make a mistake.”
