“About your dad,” he said, his voice quiet. He didn’t say more as I poured the eggs into the hot pan on the stove. The butter made them sizzle and pop.

“Yeah. My dad.”

I picked up a spatula and lifted the corner of the cooking eggs. I focused on the omelet as he sat quietly, just content to watch.

It didn’t take long before the late-night meal was ready. I sliced it and split it between two plates. I carried both to the table and sat beside him. Other than my dad, I’d never had a guy in my house before, and he’d never stayed for a meal.

But now I had Huck, who dwarfed my table, scarfing down my impromptu dinner without a shirt on.

“I’m sorry about what he said to you,” Huck said eventually, after wiping his mouth with a napkin he’d pulled from the holder in the center of the table.

“Which part?”

“The ultimatum.”

I stabbed a piece of pepper, ate it. My dad had made me choose. Him or Huck. Him or no chance of running my own shop in The Bend.

“Yeah, well, it’s not the first one he’s given where I’m concerned.”

My eyes met Huck’s. I waited for him to confirm what my dad had said.

“No, it wasn’t.”

I dropped my fork onto my plate, took a sip of water although my hand shook, and Huck didn’t miss it. He grabbed the glass, set it down.

“Walking away from you was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.” He ran a hand over his head, his eyes bleak.

I wasn’t hungry any longer, and I pushed the plate back.

This was the wound that had cut us both deep and obviously hadn’t healed. There’d been only a scab over it for six years, and my dad had decided to rip that sucker right off.

Now we were both hurting all over again, bleeding with emotions that we’d kept inside.

It was a gross thought, but it was strangely what I imagined.

“I’d have gone,” I said. “Left with you.”

He shook his head, reached out and took my hand, set them on the table between us. “I know. And I’d have paid for your school.”

“Then—”

“He’s your daddy,” he replied, cutting me off. “Your family. You have your sister.”

I gave a little laugh. Lynn was five years older, and because of that age gap, we’d never been all that close. She went off to college when I was in seventh grade, and married Bunky the summer after graduation. It had only been me and my dad for a long time.

“I know what it’s like to lose a parent,” he continued. “To not have them in your life.”

Both of his had died years before we met. I’d been a little kid then. I knew the loss ate at him, that he’d been so lost in his grief. The Mannings were a close family. Tight. Maybe because the tragedy had pulled them together, but from what I’d heard of his parents, they’d been good people and made good boys.