Wait—that was it? He paused, waiting for those promises of telling Sophie off, of taking a stand against encroaching tablecloths, but his dad wouldn’t even meet his eyes.

The coward. All that talk at the bar had been nothing but braggadocio. His father could no more stand up to Sophie Vasquez than Harrison could.

Not that he could blame his father. She’d shown up this morning with her shoulders fully covered by a long-sleeved athletic shirt—a thing he’d noted with profound relief. Unfortunately, she’d paired it with a pair of running pants with inexplicable bands of sheer material wrapped around her thighs. How was that even a thing? Her legs were technically covered against the biting spring wind, but those fabric windows offered glimpses of skin and muscle that no one should have to face this early in the morning.

At least, not without a cold shower first. An arctic one, in fact. A painful, plunging descent into numbness.

“Are we sure this is such a good idea?” Harrison asked, casting a careful look at first Bubbles and then his father. Bubbles was still too intrigued by the rubber chicken to notice she was about to be abandoned, but the realization would come soon enough—and so would the howls of betrayal. “He was only halfway kidding about that box thing. She’s going to cry.”

Sophie tilted her head and stared at them. “Of course she is. You just have to think of it like dropping a kid off at daycare.”

“Daycare?” his dad echoed.

“Yeah—you know. While the parents are watching, the kid acts like the world is going to end. Then, the second Mom and Dad finally tear themselves away in their guilt and despair, the kid shrugs it off and has a perfectly good time. Didn’t you ever have to leave Harrison with someone?”

Harrison could count the number of times his dad had willingly spoken of his childhood on one and a half hands. There weren’t many rules in their household, but two of them stood out loud and clear: Parks men didn’t discuss the past, and Parks men didn’t discuss the future. Theirs were lives lived in the moment. The past contained too many memories, and the future too many dreams—neither of which had any place in their terse, stoic existence.

In their experience, memories only caused pain. So did dreams.

“My sister used to help out a lot,” his dad said after only a brief struggle with himself. “When Harrison was little and I had to go work, I mean.”

Sophie had no idea the ground she’d just shattered, so she was perfectly serene as she asked, “And did he cry when you left?”

“Well, no.” His dad laughed. “He saved that for when I came back.”

“I did no such thing,” Harrison said through his teeth. If his dad was going to finally take a trip down memory lane, he could at least turn on the right road.