Page 71 of Pitcher Perfect

I grabbed the remote off the coffee table, stretched out with my head in his lap, then navigated toThe Great British Bake-Off. Words sat on the tip of my tongue, questions about his day, how his unofficial meeting had gone, how things were going at the brewery, but I didn’t ask them. I let myself be taken care of for once. It was nice. Really, really nice.

After a couple of episodes where all we said were remarks about soggy bottoms and Paul Hollywood’s handshakes, I let my eyes close while Austin rhythmically ran his fingers through my hair.

“My dad’s house is in foreclosure.” I hadn’t expected to say the words, but I wanted to get them out to someone before my heart forged into a toxic stone, hardened and jagged, shredding me from inside at any wrong move.

Austin’s hand stilled briefly. “I’m sorry that’s happening. Is there anything he can do?”

I let out a sound that was a cross between a frustrated groan and a resigned sigh. “I don’t know. He admitted he’s been laid off from his job, and my dad never made enough to really build up a savings account. I think he’s always lived fairly paycheck to paycheck, and they’d been slowly reducing his hours over the past year.”

“Is it the house you grew up in?”

I nodded, the movement causing the stubble on my cheek to catch fibers in the pillow.

“Where your mom…?” Austin asked quietly.

“Yeah.”

“Shit. I get why you’re upset. There’s got to be something he can do.”

“I offered to dip into my restaurant savings to help him catch up on the mortgage, but my dad wouldn’t take it.”

Austin chuckled. “Are you going to do it anyway?”

“No. Maybe.” I buried my face in the pillow. “I don’t know.” The words mumbled against the scratchy fabric. I gave up hiding and flipped onto my back, but I stared over at my kitchen instead of up at Austin. “It wouldn’t clean out my savings or anything. I would still have a decent chunk in my savings for the restaurant, but it would set back the timeline. If Ambrose deigned to consider leasing to me, I would probably have to turn it down for now.”

“For now? You know as well as I do that outfitted restaurant spaces are few and far between in not only Dahlia Springs but in the area. Unless you have enough saved to convert a space to a restaurant, I don’t know when another spot would come available. Here, anyway. Maybe in Portland or something.”

Something about Austin’s tone at those last words made me look up at him. He stared at the television, and his expression was unnaturally neutral.

“I don’t want to open a restaurant anywhere else. This is where my mom grew up, and I want to live in a place she loved. I love it here too.”

“Do you think your dad would want you giving up on your dream to help him?”

“No.” I sounded like a petulant child even to my ears. “But I don’t want him living in some shitty apartment that he can barely afford, wasting away because he no longer has a job.”

We were both quiet for a minute.

“Can I play devil’s advocate for a minute, or is that not my place? I don’t want to make this harder.”

It would probably piss me off, but that meant I most likely needed to hear it. “Hit me with it.”

He looked down at me, still stroking my hair. The repetition of his fingers soothed me. “Obviously, I don’t know your dad and didn’t hear the conversation, so this might be irrelevant, but I’m going to say it anyway. What if the house holds hard memories for him? If he was on the road all the time for work, he might not have had to deal with some of his grief after all these years. But without his job? He’s probably there all the time and confronted by those memories. Moving might release a burden.”

I let out a sharp breath like Austin’s words had punched me in the gut. That had never crossed my mind.

“He might want a change. Hell, maybe he wants to move somewhere else. Or maybe he wants to do anything he can to save the home he shared with his family. It’s impossible to know what’s going on in his head, but I’d bet money that the last thing he wants is for his issues to get in the way of his son achieving his dreams. Your dad sounds like a great man, from everything you’ve told me, and I think it would make him feel ten times worse if his problems affected you too.”

“Fuck you for being so smart.”

Austin’s laugh was full of warmth. “Mind letting me record you saying that so I can remind the guys? They forget sometimes.”

“Absolutely not. You’ll use it against me in moments of weakness.”

He gasped. “I would never do something so underhanded.”

I reached up and tickled his sides. “Bullshit.”

He squirmed under me, laughing.

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