“No,” I admitted on a sigh, stretching my back. “Wanna go again?”

“Maybe in a minute. Need to give my trigger fingers a chance to regroup.” He held them up, wiggling them for effect. “How’d it go at the shop today?”

“It was…” A sigh slipped out of me. “Dad, I didn’t tell you the whole truth.”

He smiled sadly. “I figured. What happened?”

“Before the installation broke, Wendy showed up at the shop. She … she’s pregnant, and she says the baby is Luke’s.”

“You … you’re kidding.”

I shook my head. “We were exhausted—it was chaos. And we got into a fight. No … not a fight. I just couldn’t deal with the shock, so I bolted, came home. And yesterday, he came in to talk to me about it. But I can’t tell him what he wants to hear, Daddy. I can’t tell him everything’s fine because it doesn’t feel fine. It doesn’t feel anywhere close to fine.”

“How does it feel?”

“Inside out. Unreal. Scary. I’m afraid,” I said softly. “Afraid that everything will change. That he’ll leave me. That I’ll come second to Wendy, always. That she will manipulate him until the end of time. And I don’t know how to manage that fear. I don’t know how to take a risk, not when the circumstance is sticky with unknowns.”

“Life is full of unknowns. It’s scary, and you can’t avoid that. You can’t plan for it. The happiest and most successful people in the world are flexible, Tess.”

“But what if I make a mistake? What if I get hurt? What if I lose?”

“When was the last time you beat me on Rainbow Road?” he asked, the corner of his lips rising.

“Thanksgiving 2012. You had the flu.”

“Has that ever stopped you from playing me?”

I rolled my eyes. “It’s a video game, Daddy.”

He shrugged. “Maybe the stakes are lower, but the feeling is the same. You can’t tell me that just now, when you thought you were gonna beat me, your heart wasn’t banging and full of hope. What if you’d beaten me? If you hadn’t played, you wouldn’t have won.”

“You beat me,” I said on a laugh.

“But what if I hadn’t? If you want to play the what-if game, I’m gonna make you consider the good, not just the bad.”

“No risk, no reward, right?”

“That’s the idea. Listen to me, Pigeon. Don’t sacrifice your future just because you’re afraid. Sacrifice your fear for hope.”

My gaze fell to my hands, emotion tightening my throat.

“Luke makes you happy, and that’s not gonna stop just because of Wendy. Deep down, you know that. Don’t ignore it just because you’re scared. If you need time to come around to the idea, take it. Luke will wait. I think that boy loves you, and I think you love him too. Don’t throw that away, Tess.”

I nodded, unable to speak. But he didn’t require a response, just reached for my hand. And I found my way into his arms, hoping he was right.