Page 26 of Wild Card (The Trident Trilogy 3)

“Dad,” I say, trying to turn around and go back into the bar.

“He’ll be fine, sweetie. It’s a guy thing. Let them work it out.” He puts his arm firmly around me and pulls me to the car. “Now, do you want to tell me what JJ said to you?”

“Nope,” I say quickly, “not even a little bit.”

He shakes his head and smiles. “You’re still doing it.”

“Doing what?”

“Holding back information from people because you think you know better than they do what’s best for them.”

“I don’t do that,” I say, looking down.

“You’ve been doing that since you were a little kid. You don’t want to be responsible for someone getting hurt, so you hold back anything that you think might get them too involved.”

I shake my head—my eyebrows raising. “I wonder who taught me how to do that?”

He laughs and kisses my forehead. “Yeah, I guess I wasn’t a very good role model, huh?”

“No, you weren’t very good,” I say as I hug him. “You were the best.”

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