His New Stepsister. His Biggest Threat. novel · Chapter 14 of 32

Chapter 14: The Tug

He came down the gangway and held out his hand for the phone.

Not for me. For the phone.

I gave it to him.

He sat down on the bollard at the end of the dock and pressed play.

I watched him watch it.

The card room noise came out of the little speaker, chips and voices, tinny in the quiet marina.

I knew the exact second Hal walked past the poker table, because Gannon's shoulders went up.

I knew the second the envelope came out, because they stayed there, and then he made a sound I'd never heard a grown man make.

Somebody had stepped on his chest.

He played it again.

Then a third time, slower, with his thumb dragging the bar back to the bank envelope.

"That's his windbreaker," he said. "I gave him that windbreaker. Christmas, four years ago."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't." He didn't look up. "Don't be sorry. I said get off my barstool."

"I said that."

"I made you say it."

He handed me back the phone.

His hand was cold, colder than the night.

"I sat in his office and I thought, she's wrong about him," he said. "And I felt sorry for you."

"I know."

"I sent you to Gardena alone at ten at night. To a card room. To a man who takes bets for a living."

"You didn't send me. I went."

"I told you to prove it." He finally looked at me. His eyes were wet and furious. "And you did. In one night. With a flip phone in your pocket, probably."

"Marva's."

He laughed, and it broke in the middle.

"I'm sorry, Tilda," he said. "I was wrong. I took his side because he's my father, and I didn't even ask myself what I'd do if he wasn't. I'm sorry I made you do it alone."

I stood there on the dock with the water slapping the pilings.

An apology is easy at midnight. I'd tended bar long enough to know that.

"Call him," I said.

"What?"

"Call your father. Right now. On speaker. In front of me."

He looked at his phone for a long time.

Then he dialed and put it on speaker and set it on top of the bollard between us.

It rang four times.

"Son." Hal's voice was thick. There was road noise behind it. "It's late."

"I watched you pay him," Gannon said.

Silence.

"In Gardena. Tonight. Tilda filmed it. I watched you hand a bookie a bank envelope and put your face in your hands."

"Gannon, listen to me."

"You bet against me. Three hundred thousand dollars. And when she wouldn't take your help you called the show to get her pulled."

"That's not what happened."

"Then you cried at me in front of your patients."

"I'm in trouble, son. I'm in real trouble. You don't know these people."

"I know you," Gannon said. "That's the problem. I finally do."

Hal's breathing filled the speaker.

"Is she there?" he asked. "With you? At midnight?"

Gannon looked at me.

He didn't lower his voice.

"She's here."

"Then you're both finished," Hal said. "You understand that? One call."

"Make it," Gannon said. "Don't come to my boat. Don't call me at Christmas. Don't call me on Mom's birthday. Don't come to the Rematch."

"Gannon."

"You're not my father on the twentieth. You're just a man with a bet."

He hung up.

He put the phone face down on the bollard.

His hands were shaking.

I'd never seen them do anything but hold steady.

I stepped in between his knees and took his face in both my hands, the way he'd taken mine on the deck that first day.

His beard was rough under my palms.

"Okay," I said. "Okay."

He leaned forward until his forehead was against my stomach.

He breathed there.

I held his head and looked out at the dark water and the cranes in the port, lit up red.

After a while he said, against my shirt, "Section nine."

"I know."

"If my father makes that call, it doesn't matter what we did. It only matters what he says."

"I know that too."

He looked up at me.

"Then I'd like it to be true," he said. "If you would."

My heart was going so hard I could hear it over the water.

"Say it properly," I said. "I'm a quiz host. I need the whole question."

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