Page 55 of Against The Tide

“That’s mean,” Kennedy spins, marking him with the cutest glare. Her hands are on her hips, and she looks ready to go at him.

“Jeez, relax, it was a joke.”

“Not if no one else is laughing.”

“Your daddy laughed.”

“I don’t think he did,” I tell her. “Did you hear him?”

“Nope.”

“Don’t incite her, A-H.” Rowan abbreviates the cuss so she doesn’t repeat it—something that’s a guarantee with her. She’s all sass and smart-ass.

“What’s incite, Daddy?”

Spencer makes quick work of appeasing all her sudden curiosities, managing to avoid the cuss. He’s getting better at untwisting himself from all the circles she runs around him.

“You want to go hold Callie’s hand in the shark tunnel?” Spencer nudges her toward the others.

Caleb and Scarlett are trying to pull her onto the autowalk, while Olivia and Avery are treading the thing in fits of laughter.

“We’re going to be here for hours. Last time we came here, I had to throw her over my shoulder and take her through the damn thing.”

“I used to think she was the most rational of the two of you. Now…” Spencer crosses his arms over his chest, watching the comedy sketch in front of us much like his older daughter, Erin. “Anyway, I think what Rowan’s trying to say is that Avery’s not your usual type.”

“You put her and Callie beside one another and… What happened to the peroxide blonde, silicone tits, and Botox addiction you normally go for?” He rests his hand on my shoulder, squeezing as he keeps a distance.

Spencer looks between us, clearly trying to decipher what the fuck Rowan’s doing with the holding me at bay thing.

“We’ve got to be careful with him now—he’s throwing punches.” He snickers.

When I spoke to him on the phone the afternoon the shit with Carl went down, he wasn’t so jovial about it. But I guess he worries that Carl would use my actions against Avery have subsided. Regardless, he was right. I am smarter than that.

Rowan didn’t see the extent of what he did to Avery. Soft, gentle Avery with her kind smile and sunshine-filled soul. The fucker had it coming to him, and he was lucky that Iris was there; otherwise, I wouldn’t have stopped until the only way he could’ve left was by being towed away in his dick mobile.

“I know you look up to me, Doc, but you don’t have to copy my excellent taste for us to be friends.”

There are moments where I’m really unsure how we came from the same gene pool, because he has a way of twisting shit in really fucked-up ways.

“I don’t know why I expected you to be serious about something for once.” I bat his hand away and take a step forward, but his belittling remark pulls me back. Turning to look at him, I add, “What if I just like Avery for being Avery? Because she’s smart and sweet? What if I don’t care about the color of her hair or her eyes or whether she can reach the top shelf for herself or not? Ever thought of that? Ever thought that maybe you don’t know jack shit about anything?”

“Fair enough.” He nods after a silent beat, taking a step back as I turn and walk away.

“He’s trying to watch your back,” Spencer murmurs, falling into step beside me. “And if there’s anything he doesn’t know, it’s because you haven’t told him. That’s on you, not Rowan. He’s working on the intel he’s got.”

“Not everything is a joke.”

“No, it’s not, and I don’t think he finds it funny that if things go to shit with Avery, if you step out of line, Callie will crucify him.” Stepping in front of me, he stops me in my tracks. “He’s still got your back.”

“And I know I don’t deserve that, but…” I don’t know how to tell him how I feel about them without blurting it all out. And I want Avery to be the first person to know that I’ve never felt like this about anyone or anything. They’re all I want. Everything I’ve ever searched or longed for. When I’m with them, I’m whole, and my need for more is all about them. I want more of them. More time and memories and laughs.

“She’s got a kid,” Spencer repeats, holding my gaze as though he’s trying to see into me and all my intentions.

“You can’t be all in one day and screw her over the next,” Rowan adds in a quieter tone from behind. “It doesn’t work like that.”

“I know that, and I’ll tell you the same thing I told her.” I take a deep breath, turning so that they’re both in my line of sight. “I want everything.”

“You told her that?” Rowan looks at me with surprise.