But in my panic—and my guilt—I had decided that action was better, and raced out of the house like my ass was on fire.
The fact that Hawk was able to find her—find herandtalk to her—was something I was still coming to terms with.
It wasn’t that I was upset. Far from it. I was exceedingly glad that Hawk and Cooper had had a bit of a breakthrough in their relationship. It was honestly more than I could have ever hoped for, the two of them finding some common ground.
When I’d asked Cooper about it, all she’d said was that Hawk seemed ‘pretty cool’ before she disappeared back into her bedroom with a promise that she’d never leave like that again.
That was it. No insight into what they’d discussed. Nothing about how she felt about finding out that he was her father.
Just that he seemed cool.
But I supposed that was enough for her, so I’d let it be enough for me, too.
Lifting my hand, I toyed with the necklace I was wearing, the unfamiliar weight a welcome distraction.
Tonight, after Cooper was once again tucked safely into her bed, I’d gone to the small box on my dresser and pulled out the velvet bag, ready to face my past head on.
The necklace wasn’t much, just a length of soft black leather with a simple lobster claw clasp. It hadn’t even taken me twenty minutes to make and it weighed hardly nothing.
But what was hanging from the leather carried a heavy weight indeed.
Looking down, I spun the guitar pick in my fingers, the stylized script on the back displaying the name of a man who I was quickly learning was deeper and more multifaceted than anyone truly knew.
And tonight, I needed to show him exactly how much he meant to me.
Blowing out a breath, I tucked the necklace back inside by shirt before I climbed out of my car and headed up to the front door, raising my fist to knock before I could talk myself out of it. The lights were on, even this late, and I could hear movement inside, the low rumbling of voices in conversation filtering through the wood. But when the door opened, it wasn’t Hawk who stood there, but Charlie. He looked like he wasn’t at all surprised to see me, his soft, understanding smile bolstering my courage just a little.
“Hi, Wren,” he said, opening the door wide. “He’s in the kitchen.” Charlie jerked his head behind him, then reached for the keys that were sitting on the small entry table by the door. “I was just heading out anyway.”
He wasn’t, but I appreciated him so much in that moment that I let him think I believed him.
“Thanks, Charlie,” I said, offering a smile of my own. “For everything.”
For a moment, Charlie froze, his gaze meeting mine, and I knew he was remembering the first time I had spoken those words to him, standing in the snow outside the tour bus. Charlie seemed to be exactly the kind of person Hawk needed in his life, and I had been just as grateful for him then as I was now.
“You’re doing it again,” Charlie said softly, looking back into the house, his face concerned.
“Doing what?”
“Letting him be the man I know he can be. The man I know hewantsto be. Whatever it is about you, Wren Blackburn, that makes Hawk Jameson believe in himself, I want you to keep doing it. The world deserves to see him as the man he is, not the manCastor Recordscrafted him to be.”
With that, Charlie stepped off the porch and disappeared into the darkness like a ghost, his words leaving a chill in the air in his wake.
I didn’t think I was doing anything in particular, really, but the idea that Hawk’s closest friends noticed he was different with me had my pulse racing under my skin.
The need to see him was like a living thing inside me, and as I went into the house, I knew that after tonight there would be no exorcising Hawk from my life like I had the last time. No burying thoughts of him in a small corner of my mind, to be pulled out in my loneliest moments, offering only bittersweet company.
No, this time, Hawk had tattooed himself on my heart, and no matter how things between us ended, there would be no hiding the wreckage he’d leave behind.
Swallowing past the lump of fear in my throat, I headed inside, closing the door softly behind me.
The house wasn’t big—none of the houses in this area were—so it only took me a few steps to find him, seated in the kitchen, a glass in front of him as he leaned both elbows on the table, his head in his hands.
Staring at him, this man who had haunted my thoughts in one way or another for more than twenty years, it occurred to me again just how lonely he must be in his life. How isolated. I’d always seen him asapart, somehow, a man above the rest due to his talent and his status, but when it came down to it, he was still a man. Someone who needed support and understanding and compassion as much as the rest of us.
As I watched, Hawk sat back a little, shaking out his hair and reaching for the glass, downing the amber contents in one swallow before he let out a heavy sigh.
“Not a vodka man anymore?” I asked, forcing lightness into my tone that I didn’t feel.
