Page 237 of The Liar's Reckoning

I take the phone from Graham and put it up to my ear. “Hey, Dad.”

Paul starts right in on me. “If you leave in an hour, I can fly you here. You can even bring the dog.”

“I think we’re gonna be good,” I try to assure him.

“If you get an evacuation order, can you get to the airport?”

“If we get the order, we’ve got a route all mapped out,” I tell him.

Graham’s dad lasted less than forty-eight hours before reaching out to his son and apologizing profusely for ever making him think he wasn’t welcome in his own home. Little did Graham know, he’d done the same with Theresa, which she told us that night after we left the Eastmoor, but her rebel streak was a mile wide, and she’d told him to fuck off, never looking back.

Graham, however, daddy’s boy that he is, dissolved into a puddle of relieved tears, which told me he’d been bluffing abouthow well he was holding up. In my defense, I suspected it, but once I knew for sure, I did everything I could to make sure the co-dependent father-son pair were reconciled. They talk every day. Usually more than once. It’s as adorable as it is annoying.

Now that I know what they mean to each other, I realize what Graham was risking when he told Paul he wanted to be with me.

His mother is a different story. I’ve met her, but she’s a cool customer and is happy to pretend I don’t exist. The feeling is mutual.

Paul is suffering some separation anxiety as well as hurricane stress. “Can you text me the route?” he asks.

“Sure,” I say, filling Fish’s water bowl at the sink. Graham is next to me, squeezing a can of concentrated lime juice into a large plastic pitcher. “You want me to send you our margarita recipe? It might help you get through the night.”

He laughs. “Okay, okay. I’ll let you go finish yourprep.”

“I’ll keep him safe. Promise. We’ll update you.”

“Thanks, son. Be safe.”

“We will.”

I hand the phone back to Graham who says his goodbye and hangs up. “You two are ridiculous,” I tell him. “I hope we never have a son.”

“Ouch.”

“Just saying. I need attention, too.”

“In two minutes, you’ll have my full attention,” Graham promises. “Do what you will with that.”

“I say we build a fort and have a sword fight.”

He laughs, but a thunderclap sounds, and he stops abruptly. The power flickers but stays on. I rub his back as he stirs a bottle of beer into the pitcher. “Or I could give you a massage.”

“Your massages hurt.”

“They’re meant to be therapeutic.”

“They leave bruises.”

“They do not,” I argue.

“Feels like it,” he mumbles.

“I’m not studying to be a masseuse. I’m studying to be a physical therapist.” And I only have two years left to go. College takes forever even when you don’t have to work full-time. Or at all.

Gibson Hayes’s final paycheck to me was larger, all right. Two point five million dollars more than I expected. I’d cried when it hit my bank account, and then, of course, I immediately wanted him to take all of it back.

Christian talked me out of it, explaining it wasn’t charity—or an insult to my pride—it was what I deserved for what Gibson and his ex-wife put me through. Damages.

Graham had balked at the amount, too, but ultimately supported my accepting the money. It’s given us the fresh start we wanted, and infinite opportunities to build a future that makes sense forus.

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