Page 34 of Exile

He furrowed his brows. “I always had drivers.”

“Even when you went grocery shopping?”

“I had people doing that for me.”

Of course.

“Right, should’ve thought of that. So then…why do you have a driver’s license?” I asked, grabbing his wallet from the middle console and unfolding it to find his license.

“Who doesn’t?”

Fair point.

I shrugged and pulled out the card. “Some people never learn to drive because they—” I stopped as I read the name on his license and frowned as I was hit with a wave of…surprise? Pride? It was something because my heart skipped a beat. “Your middle name is Darwin?”

I turned my head toward him, watching him side-eye me and the card I held. “Why are you looking at that? Put it away.”

I ignored his request and let out a breathy laugh. “My mother named me after you, and you didn’t even tell me. Why? This is so…” I tried to find the right word as I dropped my gaze back to the driver’s license. “Cool.”

“My middle name was never relevant to me.”

Of course, it wasn’t.

I rolled my eyes. “But you knew, and you didn’t tell me. I’m named after you! We do have a connection after all,” I said with a bright smile, but it faded once a realization hit. “Why would she do that?”

He knew what I meant. His laugh was dry. “Because it was probably her way of trying to apologize. But when I sent her a letter congratulating her on having a baby, she shut me out again.”

I studied him for a while, trying to determine whether the twenty minutes we had before arriving in Bruce Mines were enough to hear the full story of what truly happened between my mother and him.

“Will you ever tell me what really happened? Mom would never talk about it; I just want closure on that topic. I want to understand why we were never part of each other’s lives, and don’t say it was because you were too busy being a Hollywood actor.”

Caspian’s knuckles whitened as he gripped the steering wheel tightly. His forearms flexed, and his jaw tensed. “If I tell, you’ll dislike your mother even more than you already do.”

He wasn’t wrong about me disliking my mother. But I only disliked her in certain moments. She was still my mom, though a very narcissistic one at times.

“I still want to know,” I told him, taking one last look at the license before putting it back. “You don’t have to tell me now if you think it will upset me. But…please promise me you will tell me soon.”

He glanced at me and sighed. “Fine.”

Good enough for me.

I reached over and patted my hand on his thigh lightly. “Thank you, Caz.”

His hand covered mine and lifted it to his lips, kissing the back of my fingers. I watched closely, and it looked like he wanted to say more, but he didn’t.

We sat in silence again. I didn’t allow myself to think about what could’ve possibly been what broke their dad-daughter relationship. I would find out soon enough.

Chapter 10

DARWYNN

The beer and cider festival was perfect—just as I imagined it. Even Caspian enjoyed going from stand to stand to try different kinds of beer. He kept his baseball hat on but wasn’t wearing sunglasses. It didn’t help him see very well in the dim fairy lights hanging all over the stands, and luckily, no one did a double-take or asked if he was really the Caspian King.

He was enjoying himself, but he would never admit it. So I let him take it all in without constantly reminding him that he was currently being a normal guy doing everyday things.

We got the greasiest burgers from one of the stands and ate them as we walked back to the parking lot. After washing it all down with some water, we stood against the side of his car, looking over the water. It was a full moon that shone down over the water in the prettiest way, making the surface shimmer.

I took it all in. The calm. The contentment. Him.

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