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Everything's okay. Your dad hates me slightly more than he did this morning, but I'm still alive.

I breathe a small sigh of relief. That doesn’t sound too bad, right? Maybe I was worried for nothing.

Wyatt:

I'll tell you everything later. Can I see you tonight?

I quickly type back.

Me:

Sounds good.

And I send a kissy face emoji after that, which Wyatt replies to with the blushing face emoji.

I laugh, when a second later another text comes in. It’s the eggplant emoji with a questions mark behind it.

My heart does a little fluttering kick in my chest, a sudden heat blooming in the pit of my stomach. I stare at the screen, biting my lower lip to keep from grinning like an idiot in the middle of my day. Leave it to Wyatt to be so shamelessly direct.

I bite back a laugh, my thumbs flying across the keyboard before I can talk myself out of it.

Me:

Depends. Are you bringing that over, or just making promises you can't keep?

The typing bubbles appear almost instantly, pulsing with his immediate response. My breath hitches slightly, waiting to see how far he's willing to push this before he even steps foot through my door.

Wyatt:

I don't make promises I can't keep, Quinn.

A shudder of anticipation runs down my spine. I lean back against my chair, typing out my answer with a slow, deliberate smile.

Me:

I'm holding you to that promise.

The phone rings in my hand, and for one second, I think Wyatt’s already calling. But the screen says Dad, and my stomach drops straight through the floor.

"Dad, if this is about—"

"Come to the house." No hello. No easing into it. "Not the rink. The house."

"Dad, please, just tell me what—"

"I'll see you in twenty minutes."

He doesn't raise his voice because he doesn't need to. Twenty-three years of knowing that voice tells me everything the flat calm hides.

The line goes dead.

I sit there with the phone still against my ear, the silence heavier than his voice, my keys digging into my palm from how hard my fingers have closed around them.

Twenty minutes.

Fine.

Twenty minutes is more than enough time to tell my father something I should've told him weeks ago.