Page 23 of Holding On

“It burned two years ago. I didn’t know he rebuilt it.”

“So?”

“It was set. It was all about retribution.”

“Oh my God. Did they catch the person?”

Travis scratches his chin and then squares off with me. “Yeah.”

I have to pretend this was all news to me. I hate this.

I shrug. “Jack Carlson said I could stay there for free, which is great, but I’ve never lived on a houseboat.”

“It’s just for the summer, right?”

“Yes,” I say. “Just for the summer.”

“Just take it. If you really can’t stay here, then go for it.”

My stomach turns, convinced he knows I’m not telling the truth.

Gripping his mug, he says evenly, “So. You’ve got a place to stay. Great.” He looks out the front windows to the sea, and I can’t read his face in profile. “Are you sure this has nothing to do with what happened last night?”

“I’m not moving because of last night. Why do you keep asking that?”

“I don’t know. I’m just . . . I don’t know what to think.” Travis makes a series of quarter-turns with his mug. Then he sighs. “I guess I feel bad about last night. How tense it got. I—I’m not used to people speaking directly about my parents. You had every right to ask that question. You were just trying to get information to understand us all better. And I blew it. I’m sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry,” I say. At least that part isn’t a lie. I wasn’t trying to understand them—I was trying to understand what happened. That’s what I’ve been tasked to do, and this sucks. “I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

Except I have to.

He flashes that smile again, and his gaze meets mine. Something has thawed. “We probably should have all been in therapy, but Geo had his hands full. The last thing he needed back then was five kids in counseling.” His voice is steady, calm.

His hands are gripped tight around the mug. It’s like he’s two people: one in control, the other, holding on fast. I reach out to touch him and place my hand over one of his wrists. His grip doesn’t relax.

“There’s no perfect way to handle what you all went through.”

In a move meant to gracefully shake me off, he takes another sip. “Thanks. I know you’re right.” He pauses. “Claire used to call us the ‘small but powerful family,’ which is really funny because we’re more like a small but powerful campaign. There’s a lot of us.”

He stands, steps out from the table, and starts to zip up his jacket.

“Where are you off to?”

“I have to put a dog down at seven thirty.”

“Oh, no!”

“I’m heading out in a boat. I get to take the Water Falcon, which will be much faster. It’s one of Colton Security’s speedboats.”

“Why so early?”

He shakes his head. “Not early, late. The dog had a stroke three days ago, and now they’ve decided to put it down.”

I tried putting a hand on his arm again. “Do you have to do this a lot?”

He pulls the hood up, and I glance out the windows. The summer fog is thick over the water.

“Apparently, this will be the summer of euthanasia. Claire told me there’s a lot of people who come up from the south—old white people and their yachts—and they have these little dogs. Sometimes there’s actually a big dog, which makes it hard. I have to load and unload—never mind.”