“Why don’t you go ahead and get some rest?” My mother rubbed my cheek, forcing a smile on her sweet face. “Dad and I will take Luna back to our place for a sleepover. She’s been dying to help Dar build that spaceship for weeks.”

The spaceship.

My dad was a dreamer. An inventor. He built shit that never worked. He wasn’t really building a spacecraft, obviously. What he was building was a healthy relationship with my daughter, using empty batteries, carton boxes, superglue, and old matches that had gotten soaked in the rain and were no longer usable. He was building what I couldn’t even set the fucking ground for. A healthy, fun relationship with my daughter.

Or the awkward looks she was getting.

Or shouldering the burden that came with being different.

It bothered me because those differences were the things that people would blame me for if her mother ever came back into her life. Luna’s differences were what Val would exploit. So yeah, it made me resent them.

“You don’t have to do it,” I said, not really arguing with her. I could use the night off. I wasn’t even going to call Sonya or Amanda. Straight to fucking bed for me. Maybe watch a stupid action movie and order greasy food I’d never allow myself to eat on a weekday. My six times a week strength training didn’t go well with junk food, but sometimes even grown ass men allow themselves a little pity party.

“Please.” Mom jerked me into a hug. She was so much smaller than my six foot four body, it was funny to think I’d come out of her. It was also funny because Trish Rexroth was one of the most gracious people I knew and I was a Shithead with a capital S. “We love Luna and want to spend every chance we have making her happy. And anyway, I was planning on baking that apple pie, and your dad’s sugar level is sky-high. She’ll be doing him a favor eating the majority of it. Right, Dar?” She turned to my dad, who was arguing—legit quarreling—with a four-year-old boy over what the face paint they’d been using on the kids was made of.

I smirked. “Okay.”

I said my goodbyes to Luna, my parents, and Sonya and climbed into my black Tesla. I called a Korean Barbecue place on my way home, ordering every other dish on the menu, and drove in circles for a while, enjoying a different type of silence. Not loaded with words or tension, but loneliness and selfishness, two things you learn to crave as a parent. If someone would ask me quietly, on their last breath, if I wanted to be a father, and I knew my admission would never leave their mouth, I’d say the truth. I’d say, no. Because it was too hard, too heartbreaking, and too fucking all-consuming to be Luna Rexroth’s dad.

And still.

And still. I loved my daughter hopelessly, desperately, urgently. Which only made my inability to help her all the more soul-crushing. The idea that she’d given up on people, or maybe even worse—on her life, before it even started infuriated me. I wanted to show her that the world was a beautiful, frightening place worth experiencing. That peasants could be crowned kings if they worked hard enough, and how her daddy was living proof of that.

There was a wooded reservoir squashed between Orange County limits and Todos Santos which I’d especially loved as a teenager. It was a little on the wild side. Large, remote, and a total money pit to local councils. No district wanted to deal with it, especially as it used to be the city hall of Todos Santos before it got all fancy and relocated to a downtown zip code with enough fountains and swans to be mistaken for Monaco. Since it was technically not a part of any city, it got neglected and forgotten. But only by the adults.

A lot of kids came to the reservoir to have sex, get drunk, and generally be assholes, which was most teenagers’ favorite pastimes. Back when we were in high school and Vicious’ parents were at home—which was rare—we’d meet there for our weekly fights, in which we’d defied each other.

I decided to drive there on a whim, knowing the Korean place took a lifetime to get their takeout orders made—especially one as large as mine. A trip down memory lane would remind me I hadn’t always been this old, this bitter, this fucked-up.

I drove by the old benches, the lighthouse standing in the lake, sandwiched between the hiking trails. I rolled my window down, inhaling the perfume of nature. Freedom. Youth. Pure air. A small smirk curved on my face, and I almost relished the feel of it.

Almost.

The person to wipe the smile off was the last I was expecting to see, even though it made perfect sense for her to be there.