Page 105 of Hound Dog
A sob escaped her, and she sank onto the bed, the water bottle falling at her feet.
I rushed to her, trying to hold her, to comfort her, but she locked her arms straight in front of her, holding me away.
“Don’t,” she warned. “Just go, Finn. Go call your dad. Give him the chance to explain before it’s too late.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Finn
I staredat my dad’s number glowing back at me on my phone’s screen. All I had to do was hit the green button.
Call.
Call him.
Haylee was right. She’d kicked me out of her bedroom shortly after that.
Or rather, she hadn’t kicked me out, just ignored me, crawling under her covers and rolling over so that her back was turned to me until, eventually, I’d given up and left.
I texted Addy and Enzo and asked them to go check on her in a bit.
But in the meantime, it was just me and Tyson staring at my phone.
I could hear my mom’s voice echo in my head,There’s a time to be safe. And a time be brave.What time is it now, Finn? Are you going to be safe? Or brave?
I gulped. That actually wasn’t my mom’s saying. Well, sure, Mom had carried the lesson on and reiterated it over and over to us kids, but it wasmy dad’sidiom. One of the few fatherly pieces of advice he ever gave to us kids.
I remembered him teaching me to play baseball when I was four, and I was scared at how fast the pitches were coming at me.There’s a time to be safe. And a time to be brave, Finn.
It was now or never.
My throat was bunched in a knot as I hit the call button.
After several rings, there was a click.
“Hello?” A woman’s voice answered.
I froze. In all the years I’d been calling and hanging up, a woman had never answered his phone. What if I was too late? What if he was gone?
It took everything I had to respond. “I-I um, I’m looking for Rick? Rick Evans.”
“Is this about the cake?” she asked.
“Cake?”
“Yeah, for my dad’s wedding.”
Wedding.
Did I have the wrong number?
No, that couldn’t be it. When I’d said Dad’s name, she hadn’t hung up or told me it was the wrong number.
The woman on the phone cleared her throat. Her impatience reminded me a hell of a lot of Addy. “This is Beefcakes, right? I assumed it was because of the New Hampshire area code. I’m Hope Evans. Rick’s daughter.”
My face went hot.
This was a hell of a lot to process.
