Blinking awake at the sound of an eerily familiar voice, I sprang up on the mattress and came face to face with another ghost from my past.

Nick Peterson stood in the doorway of his daughter's bedroom. In the place of the formidable man I remembered, was a weathered one. Like he had aged thirty years instead of eight.

Instead of looking wholly enraged like I half-expected him to be – totally fucking expected considering I was bare-ass naked in his teenage daughter's bed – Molly's father had a look of resignation about him.

I didn’t bother with the 'it's not how it looks' spiel, choosing instead to grab my boxer shorts off his daughter's bedroom floor and quickly pull them on.

I reached for my sweatpants and yanked them on next, glancing around the room and taking note of the empty bed.

My heart sank. "Where is she?"

"School, apparently," Mr. Peterson said, waving a small, handwritten note around in front of him. "I found this on the refrigerator." His brown eyes watched me. "Addressed to D."

"I care about her," I said, deciding to go with the truth and not some bullshit excuse. "A lot."

"I know you do, Daryl," he replied in an eerily calm voice, all things considered. "You always have."

His response threw me.

Completely fucking threw me off kilter.

"This isn’t a flash in the pan for me," I added, inclining my head towards Molly's unmade bed that he'd watched me climb out of. "I'm not that guy. Not with her."

"Get dressed and come downstairs, Daryl," Mr. Peterson said with a sigh, ignoring my words. "We need to talk."

35 Daryl

Disgraced, I stood in the middle of the Peterson's kitchen. Half-naked, I faced her father and fumbled through my reckless actions, through the haze of weed and whiskey and her.

Reeling was the only way I could describe my current state of mind.

The fuck had I been thinking?

She was a virgin, dammit, and I took it from her.

I took it all.

I didn’t want to be alone with Molly's father. I didn’t want to hear what he had to say to me. Still, I forced myself to stand here and face him like a man.

"Have a seat, Daryl."

I folded my arms across my chest. "I'd rather not."

Sighing wearily, Mr. Peterson pulled up a stool and sat at the island. "Suit yourself."

A tense silence enveloped us then, and I fucking hated it.

"You wanted to talk to me," I said when the silence got the better of me. "So, talk."

"I never got a chance to thank you properly for saving my daughter's life," he finally said.

"No, because you were too busy forcing me out of your daughter's life, and trying to make her forget I ever existed," I shot back, entirely uninterested in his gratitude. "Next."

"It won't fix anything, Daryl," he said with another heavy sigh. "I take it that's why you're behaving so hostile?"