But I rarely used it, since I almost never had people to my home; last Sunday’s luncheon was the first time in more than a year.

I racked the balls and then grabbed the pool cues and handed one to Christian.

He reached, looking annoyed as he took the stick.

“This is stupid,” he grumbled.

“It’s what I know,” I told him. “My father always talked to me over a pool table.”

Men and women were different creatures. My mother, before she passed away when I was fifteen, tried sitting with me and talking to me about her being sick. About the fact that she wasn’t getting better and she wouldn’t be around for very much longer.

She kept wanting me to react, to say something or tell her what I was feeling and how she could help, and all I remembered was feeling uncomfortable, like the walls were closing in.

So my father took me into his den, and we played pool. After a while, we started to talk, and by the end of the night, I’d let it all out. My anger and my sadness… how she couldn’t die and how much I loved her.

In that respect, I knew my son. Forcing him to sit down and bare whatever was in his head would be just as uncomfortable for him as it would be for me.

We needed to be moving and doing something. We needed to have an activity together without the pressure of conversation. The communication would eventually come.

I started off, taking the first shot, the fourteen in the corner pocket and then the twelve, but missing.

Christian pocketed the one and then the six. I was pleasantly surprised and relieved. He wouldn’t want me trying to teach him how to play right now, so I was glad he could hold his own.

Moving around the table, he shot the four but missed the two.

We took turns, and he won the first game. When I asked him if he wanted to play another, he simply nodded and stood silently by as I racked the balls again.

“I know why you’re mad at me,” I started after he took the first shot.

“You don’t know anything,” he threw back, taking the next shot and missing. And then standing back upright, he scowled at me. “Why do you even care all of a sudden?”

I bowed down to the table, aiming for the nine. “I always cared.”

“You have a crap way of showing it,” he shot out.

I pocketed the shot and moved around the table to take aim at the eleven. “You’re right.”

I’d helped support him, and I’d wanted to do good by him, but he was ultimately right. I couldn’t argue that, and I didn’t want to.

It was his turn to shoot, but he didn’t budge. “It was kinda fun tonight, you know? We could’ve had that all the time. Why were you never around?”

I forced myself to meet his eyes. “I was a dumb kid, Christian. I didn’t want to care about anyone but myself. And then later, I didn’t want to fail, so I didn’t even try.”

“You still failed.”

“No. I just haven’t done it right yet,” I replied, a small smile playing on my lips.

He rolled his eyes, but he wasn’t leaving.

I wanted to be a man Christian could look up to. I wanted to show him that mistakes can be made but so can amends. I would never not look him in the eye again, and I would never let him think he wasn’t wanted.

“I’m not asking you to forgive me or act like the past fourteen years didn’t happen,” I told him.

He pinned me with stern eyes. “Then what do you want?”

For a moment I blinked long and hard, hating that question. I knew exactly what I wanted, but I feared there would come a day when I had to admit I couldn’t have all of it.

But he was first. He always had to be first. Before anything or anyone.

He may not want me as a father, and he may never forgive me, but what I had right here, right now, I had to keep.

I looked at him and spoke gently. “I want to play pool.”

NINETEEN

EASTON

Patrick held the door to the Range Rover open for me, and I climbed inside, adjusting the short dress Tyler had sent to me this morning.

But then I shot out my hand, pressing against the door to keep it from closing. “Wait, please.”

Stepping back down out of the car, I jetted up the stairs to my apartment and twisted the doorknob, pushing at the door to check its security. Inserting each of my keys into the three separate dead bolts, I double-checked to make sure they were all locked.

I’d come home from school yesterday to find an upstairs window open, and I’d been running through the house all day, doing my Saturday cleaning and checking the rooms two or three times to make sure everything was in its place. Pillows sitting two to a corner on the couch, cabinet contents in alphabetical order, shoestrings tucked neatly inside my tennis shoes.

Maybe I’d left the window open. We’d had a nice evening after I got home from Sucré with Tyler and Christian. Maybe I’d opened it.

But no, I wouldn’t have left it open while I slept.

I climbed back in the car, Patrick shutting the door behind me and walking around the back to the driver’s door.

I rubbed my hand over my heart and took some deep breaths. The fact was, I’d gotten careless. My head was either on school and my work or it was consumed with Tyler. The flirty text he’d sent me or the glimpse I’d caught of him picking up Christian at school… I was constantly distracted, and I may very well have left the window and cabinets open.

But it still didn’t make sense. Returning things to their place, taking a last glance around a room before I left to make sure nothing was out of order – these habits were second nature to me. I did them without having to think about it.