Page 55 of Dare to Rock
Though it was humid, it was nice to be outdoors. As always, the fresh air and the view of the city reminded him of how lucky he was to live here. And when Avery settled against one of the oversized loungers, looked up at him, and smiled, he knew his luck was holding.
He sat on the edge of her lounge and waited for her to talk, sensing she had a lot on her mind. She glanced up at the sky, her eyes narrowing, her cute nose wrinkled against the glare of the sun. Light freckles dotted the bridge, and he had the sudden desire to taste each one.
“I saw my father today,” she said.
Her words brought him down from the beginning of a light, fun fantasy.
“On purpose?” he asked. Because she hadn’t mentioned seeing the parent she had a difficult relationship with as being part of her day.
She shook her head. “You know Olivia, Sienna, and I had lunch at The Meridian. It wouldn’t have been my first choice, but Sienna was already there at the beach with her friends. Like I told you, we were planning for the hospital prom, and my father walked over.”
She hesitated, and Grey gave her all the time she needed to gather her thoughts.
“I haven’t heard from my dad at all. Not when our picture was in the paper.” She gestured between them. “Not after the paparazzi swarmed my apartment or when some crazy person left a message on my door. And the family is big enough that someone had to have told him.” She raised her shoulder in a nonchalant shrug he wasn’t buying for one second. “He must have heard about it... and dismissed it from his mind.”
Shit, Grey thought, his heart clenching at the hurt she tried so hard to pretend didn’t exist. Her old man had no idea the emotional damage he’d caused all of his kids, but because Avery had been the donor to his other child, her emotions had been hit most directly.
As someone who’d been belittled by a parent, Grey understood thatno commentcould be as painful as a negative one. Both kinds of behavior left a kid feeling unworthy and unimportant, two things he never ever wanted Avery to feel. But he had caused her to experience that feeling of abandonment as well, and he was coming to realize putting it behind her wasn’t as simple as he’d naïvely hoped it would be.
She would never understand how much he regretted suddenly disappearing from her life all those years ago, how much he hated himself for doing it. He could have kept in touch, let her know she’d always been important to him, that out of sight wasn’t out of mind. He hadn’t. But the fact remained, he was here now, and he intended to make up for every last slight and hurt she’d ever felt.
“What did your father say today?” Grey asked, holding his breath for her answer.
Avery twisted her fingers together until the tips turned white. “He told Sienna he was proud of her for getting involved with kids with cancer after all she’d been through.”
“He’s an asshole,” Grey stated. He pushed himself up and straddled the chair until he sat closer to where she was curled into herself.
He grasped her hands, easing her grip and massaging the blood flow back into her fingers, holding onto her now, when she needed him most.
“I try and tell myself I don’t care, that I don’t need him, that it doesn’t matter whether or not he sees or acknowledges me.” Avery met his gaze, and tears leaked from her violet eyes. “But it does.”
“Of course it does,” he agreed. “Just like it matters to me that I never got my father’s approval. It matters that I know that, even if he’d lived, I still wouldn’t get approval or encouragement today. Doesn’t matter how successful I am.”
“Your father was crazy,” she whispered. “You’re an amazing man, Grey. It doesn’t matter if he saw it or not, knew it or not.”
“Exactly.” He grinned because she’d played into his hands, made his point for him. “Same applies to you, sugar. You’re an amazing woman. And you were a brave kid, giving bone marrow to your sister.”
She shook her head. “I didn’t really understand the magnitude of what they asked me to do. I just did what my parents wanted.” She drew a deep breath and looked down at their intertwined hands as she spoke. “And a part of me did it for selfish reasons, so my father would finally see me as something special.”
She spoke so softly he had to strain to hear her.
“I prayed that he would be so happy and grateful that I’d saved his other daughter, he’d come back home.” Avery bowed her head, her long hair falling over her face at the admission.
God, he hurt for her. “You were a kid. All those feelings, they werenormal. You were just wishing and hoping for things every child should have. It doesn’t change the fact that you were brave then and you were strong afterward. Like you told me the other day, your entire life shifted because of what your father did. The press coming after you, the panic attacks, the anxiety. You dealt with it all. Without him there to support you.”
Avery raised her head and met Grey’s understanding gaze. “You really believe that?” she asked.
“I do.” He squeezed her hands in reassurance.
Avery allowed his words and his belief in her to settle inside her. To warm her up where she’d always been cold. Because what she’d just admitted to him now? She’d never told anyone before, not even the therapist that her mother had sent her to.
Yes, she’d given bone marrow. But she’d always believed that her motives made her selfish. And though as an adult, she donated her time to sick kids at the hospital and enjoyed seeing them light up and feel better about themselves, a part of her was trying to atone and make up for those selfish thoughts and needs she’d had as a kid.
But here was Grey, telling her that those old childhood feelings had been valid. For the first time, she pushed aside the juvenile view she’d tortured herself with for years and looked at things as an adult. As Grey did. And the heaviness that was always in her chest when she thought of that time, of her father or Sienna, lifted a little.
“Thank you,” Avery said.
“It’s just the truth, sugar.” He grinned, and she melted inside, the heat of the afternoon sun having nothing on the heat Grey generated inside her.