Page 405 of The Winslow Brothers

“I’m sorry, Lyd! But I have to go!” I announce as I stride toward the exit door.

“I had a feeling you’d say that!” Lydia answers, and when I steal one final glance at her over my shoulder, all I see is a bright smile. “I’m proud of you! It’s about darn time Rachel starts doing things for Rachel!”

Yeah, sis. It really is.

It takes me twenty minutes to get to NYU’s campus and another ten to make it to the second floor of the English building, but once my destination is in sight, I don’t stop until I get there.

The plaque outside the closed door reads loud and clear:Professor Nathaniel Rose. The man at the root of all the noise inside me that I’ve never been able to mute.

I force myself to lift my hand and rap my knuckles against the wood.

“Come in!” he calls out.

I falter, for just a moment, the panic of a lifetime of resentment temporarily seizing my body, but then I wrap my fingers around the doorknob and push into his office. He sits behind his desk, his reading glasses resting on the tip of his nose, and it takes him a whole ten seconds before he lifts his gaze to me.

“Rachel,” he greets, surprise to see me evident in both his eyes and the timbre of his voice.

“Uh, hi,” I say, more out of awkwardness than anything else. Everything inside me feels like a ten-year-old girl getting ready to ask her father something important. Something she knows he’s going to say no to.

But you’re not a child anymore.

I steel myself and straighten my backbone. I may be his daughter, but I’m an adult.

“We need to talk,” I tell him, and I will my feet to move my body toward one of the leather chairs across from his desk to stand in front of it. What I need to say to him, what he needs to hear, should come from a place of confidence, not self-doubt. Keeping my feet will remind me.

“Rachel.” He slides his glasses off his face. “I want to—”

“No.” I hold up a hand. “You’re going to hear what I want to say first, and you’re going to listen to every word without interrupting me.”

He pauses, then nods. A first for my dad in the entire twenty-six years I’ve known him.

I take a deep, cavernous breath and then let it fly. “You have to stop trying to dictate my life and my career. You are ruining our relationship by placing expectations on me that I don’t want. They’re draining me dry, Dad, and taking the love I know I have for you away with them. If you don’t stop, it’s going to create a wound between us that runs so deep, I’m not sure we’ll ever come back from it.”

I’m surprised again when he nods, but I keep going. I have a million practiced things to say, and if I stop to think before I get them all out, I’ll never get it all off my chest.

“I can understand that my relationship with Ty came as a shock to you, but I want you to understand that it came as a shock to me too,” I continue and begin to pace the space in front of his desk. “We didn’t plan it. It just happened. Truthfully, we were both helpless to stop it. And while I understand your position as head of the department, I want you to consider how you felt when you were in love.”

His eyes widen slightly, and I look away, back to the surface of his desk. “I’ve never asked you to bail me out of anything ever, and I’m not starting now. If you have to exert some disciplinary action, I understand, and I’m willing to face the consequences. Sometimes you have to break the rules a little bit to end up where you’re supposed to be. I know that now for a fact.” I turn to face him again and place both of my hands on his desk so that there is no refuting my words. “But you have to let me live my life, even when it goes a little off the path you’d like. That’s the journey. That’s the experience. That’s the point. I deserve that from you. My father.”

“I know, Rachel.” He pauses briefly, his eyes closing and his voice breaking just slightly, and then he repeats, “I know.” Theeasy admission and unheard-of display of emotion are such a shock to my system that I have to take a step back. Never have Ieverseen Nathaniel Rose back down this easily.

“W-what?”

“Rachel, I’m sorry.” He says words I never thought would ever come from his mouth. “I have been pushing you to do the things that I want for you, but I’ve lost sight of what you want. And I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.” A sheen of emotion envelops his normally matte brown eyes. “I hope you can forgive me.”

“Y-you mean that?” I ask, and my breath hitches in my throat, every fiber of tension I’ve ever held in my being snapping in an instant.

“Yes,” he answers. He stands up from his big chair, and then hesitantly, he walks around his desk until he’s standing in front of me. The urge to look at my shoes is so fucking strong it might as well be the Hulk, but I fight it. I might not get the chance to see this version of my father ever again, and I need to soak it all in.

“I love you, Rachel. I’m proud of you. And I’ll always be here for you. I hope you’ll find it within yourself to forgive your old man for being…what does Lydia say…an asshat?”

A quiet laugh jumps from my throat, and then I wrap my arms around my father’s waist and hug him for the first time in what feels like decades. “I forgive you, Dad. I can be a real asshat too.”

He embraces me tightly, a chuckle rumbling in his chest, like only a father who loves his daughter would, and I savor the smell of his familiar aftershave that reminds me of my childhood.

When our hug ends, he smiles down at me, his eyes only soft and pure. “You know, I’ve always been in awe of how strong you are. Your mother was proud of that, too.” I smile a real smile, and he smooths a hand over my hair. “It just took me a little longer to understand than it did for her.”

I swallow hard. “What’s going to happen with Ty and me?” It’s a hard question to ask, but one that isn’t doing any good in the dark. I have to know where to go from here. What the next move is and how to make things right.

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