Page 48 of The Charm of You

“So? What did you build?” I press, more curious now than before. He’s leading me on and leaving me on the edge of my seat like this is a cliffhanger in my favorite show.

“A rocking chair.”

“Do you have it here?”

Something like sadness darkens his blue eyes. “It’s on the back porch next to the other one.”

“You built two?”

His next sigh is mixed with a grunt. “My dad built one before he died. He wanted to make two, one for himself and one for Ma. He never got to the second, so I did it for him.”

My breath hitches. “That’s very sweet, Austin.”

“What can I say? I’m a real sweet guy,” he says sarcastically.

“I think your father would be proud of you,” I offer.

He rubs a hand over his jaw and shifts his weight from one foot to the other. It’s clear he’s uncomfortable. It tugs at my heart to watch this normally intimidating man in his teenage bedroom crack, if only a little.

Austin clears his throat. “We used to fish a lot.”

“Oh?” I sit up taller.

“I hated it.” He blows out an exhale, which turns into what I can only describe as a chuckle. It’s hard to tell with him, though. “He’d wake me up at three or four in the morning on the weekends, and we’d sometimes drive two or three hours to different lakes. It was often windy, so the boat would rattle. I’d feel seasick. It was torture.”

As excited as I am to be on the receiving end of these details without needing to prompt him again, I sink into my seat with unease as I recall the last time I asked him to talk about his dad. “You, um… you don’t have to tell me about this if you don’t want to,” I whisper.

Understanding flashes across his tight expression. He clearly remembers the same thing I do, but instead of making me feel like I’m two inches tall as he did then, he surprises me.

The tic in his cheek lights a wildfire in my stomach, which spreads far and wide when he says, “I never do anything I don’t want to, remember?”

Instinctively, I rub my chest as he paces one line, then a second in front of me.

“Did you tell him?” I manage around the lump in my throat as I experience this momentous breakthrough. “Did you tell your father the boat made you sick?”

“Never.” He stops pacing and dips his head. “He didn’t seem bothered or fazed in the slightest by the early mornings or the boat swaying like we were in a damn hurricane—that’s what it felt like as a kid. I don’t know. I guess I wanted to be that tough, and telling him the truth wouldn’t be the way to go. Looking back now, I think he knew the truth.”

I smile. “But you love to fish now.”

He lifts his curious gaze to mine.

“Your mom said something about you going to the river a lot.”

“My mom’s talking about me to you too now? What is with those two?” He grumbles something else, but it’s incoherent. With another sigh—how many times has he freaking sighed tonight?—he says, “I do like to fish now. Right after my dad passed, I’d go out and fish from the banks just to feel close to him. After a while, I started to see why he loved it so much, and I’ve never stopped.”

The lump in my throat grows larger, rendering me speechless.

“What about you and your father?” The question is hesitant, like he still might be a little uncomfortable, but he’s trying.

And it does weird, twirly things to me.

“People around here always say they knew my father as the town’s sheriff. He was firm but fair, they’d say.” I run my hands over the skirt of my sweaterdress as Austin halfway sits on the edge of the desk in front of me. “I only ever knew him as the guy who’d cheer for me at football games. The one who tied a tire swing to the tree in the back yard and pushed me on it until I was tired, even if it meant we were out there long after dark. He was always just Daddy when he walked through the door at home.”

Austin nods, and a haunted mask darkens his features. “Do you ever feel as if you never really knew him?” he whispers.

“We never got the chance to, did we?” Solemnly, I shift in my seat. “We knew them as kids. If we knew them now, we’d see different sides of them. I mean, most parents shield a lot from their children that surfaces with time.”

He twists his lips.

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