Page 50 of A Love Song for Dreamers

As a consolation prize, I give myself the best solo orgasm I’ve had inyears.

The release seems to shake loose a few ideas, and when I get out of the shower, I jot down half a page of notes in the notebook on mydesk.

Then I dress and go downstairs to grab coffee with Haley, who’s sitting on a chair with her feet onanother.

“You okay?” Iask.

“Fine. Your dad was hoping to talk to you. He’s staining the gazebo. I swear he went out and made millions of dollars so he could live like he had his own home renoshow.”

“You loveit.”

She grins. “Yeah, Ido.”

I turn that over as I go to findhim.

I weave through the manicured lawns on the other side of the house, around a grove oftrees.

Sophie’s playing with her trucks in the grass a dozen feet away from the gazebo my dad built for Haley with his band’shelp.

“Annie! Play trucks with me. This one’s Boom. And that’sMice.”

“Mouse?” Iask.

“Mice.”

“She named it after Mace,” Dad weighs in from where he’s painting one of the beams, sweat dripping down hisface.

“Annie, you’d be a redtruck.”

“Perfect.” My gaze drifts back to my dad. “Haley could use some love.” My dad cocks a brow, and I shudder. “Not like that. Just… whatever, you doyou.”

I take in the gazebo, its graceful beams and arches. “Didn’t you just build that five yearsago?”

“People think building things takes effort. But maintaining them is harder.” He takes a seat on the top step, balancing the brush on the edge. “When something’s in my care, I keep it a certain way. Maybe it’s the right way, and maybe it’s not. But I can’t apologize for doing things the best I knowhow.”

“Can you apologize for hurting the people youlove?”

He doesn’t answer, but I see the strain in the tight lines of hisface.

“There’s something I need to say to you,” he goes on at last, and I hold mybreath.

This is it. Anapology.

“The scholarship you got at Vanier that covered the rest of your tuition and living expenses through graduation. That wasme.”

I stiffen. “What are you talking about? I told you I didn’t need yourhelp.”

“And I didn’t acceptthat.”

My mouth works. “All you had to do was say you were wrong. Instead you had to control the situation again and manipulate me into taking yourmoney.”

He leans forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. “That’s not what itwas.”

“No?”

His groan has Sophie looking up over her trucks, her curious gaze cutting betweenus.

“I don’t want your money. I mean, it helped,” I concede, shoving a hand through my hair. “I can’t pretend it didn’t. But all I ever wanted was for you to respect me. To see me as anequal.”

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