21. Clover

Dad grumbles to himself as he shoves damp paper plates and crushed beer cans into a trash bag. I'm doing the same thing a few feet away, both of us circling the perimeter of the giant fire pit that is now covered in a wet pile of ash and half-burnt logs.

"Who leaves a shoe behind at a party?" he demands, holding up a muddy Converse sneaker for me to see.

"Dad, no!" I shout as he goes to stuff the shoe into the trash bag. "You can't throw someone's shoe out. I'll put it in the lost and found."

He glares at the shoe in disdain before setting it onto the closest bench.

"If they didn't want to lose it, they shouldn't have left it behind."

Our staff parties do tend to turn into the type of events where it's not uncommon to leave random items of clothing behind, but we usually don't have to spend a whole morning on clean-up duty. The unexpected torrential rainstorm that set in just past one in the morning had people fleeing back to their tents and vehicles in a panic, leaving a lot of their trash dotted around the property instead of deposited in the appropriate receptacles.

I can't blame them. After a few beers myself, I literally screamed when the first clap of thunder hit and then switched gears and tried to orchestrate a cute dancing in the rain moment with Neavh that may or may not have included trying to whip my shirt off to swing it around my head. Thankfully, Trish yelled at me to help her get the remaining food inside before I could get to that part of my routine, and the rest of the night turned into a massive scramble to evacuate the yard.

Dad was, of course, in bed with earplugs on long before midnight.

"You sure you've got time for this?" he asks, gesturing at my garbage bag.

"Of course," I answer. "I'm an assistant manager now, which means I spend all day telling other people what to do. I don't have much to do myself. Don't tell the staff that, though."

He cracks a smile at my joke even though we both know that's not true. I do have a lot to get done today, but when I woke up to find him out here all alone with a scowl on his face and at least a couple bags' worth of garbage to be picked up, I put my to-do list on hold and grabbed a trash bag for myself.

"So, I talked to Scooter last night," he says while dropping a few bottles into a crate that will go out to the recycling bins.

My spine stiffens. I haven't told my family I'm seeing Neavh for anything other than yurt building assistance. As far as I know, that's all she's told David as well.

The last thing I'd want is for my dad to find out about me and Neavh via secondhand information.

"And Lonnie," he adds.

He doesn't say anything else, but my shoulders sag with relief when I hear the measured tone in his voice, the one he uses when he's trying to disguise his thirst for a piece of town gossip.

"Dad," I say, pretending to be scandalized. "Are you gossiping?"

He huffs. "What? No. I'm just saying I talked to them. Both of them. At the same time."

"Uh-huh," I drawl. "And you're telling me this because…?"

He scoffs and turns his back to me as he picks up a couple more bottles. "Just making conversation. I saw his cousin was here too."

My spine goes ramrod straight again, my skin prickling with alarm.

If he noticed Neavh, that means he must have noticed Neavh with me. We weren't kissing by the fireside or anything, but we did spend the whole party together.

"She still helping you with that yurt?"

I force myself to return to scavenging for paper plates and chip bags.

"Uh, yeah," I answer, keeping my eyes glued to the ground. "Yeah, she is."

He grunts in reply, and we spend the next couple minutes working in silence. I've just begun to relax when he says something that has me stopping in my tracks all over again.

"You're okay, right?"

I look up and find him watching me with his hands in his pockets, his trash bag lying abandoned on the ground. His forehead is creased, and he shifts his weight from foot to foot while I squint at him.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, ah…" He pauses and coughs. "You're okay with her? If you don't want her around, I—"

"I do."

The force in my voice takes us both by surprise.

"I do want her around," I add, "and I am okay. She's not going to attack me, Dad. Also, you can say her name. She's not the boogeyman."

I wince when I realize how harsh I sound, but I can't staunch the flare of annoyance I feel at him talking about Neavh like she's some village miscreant he's going to chase off with a shotgun.

He doesn't even have a shotgun.

"Okay, okay. I see how it is."

He lifts a hand in surrender and leans over to grab his bag again, but I plant my hands on my hips.

"How do you see it?"

He gives me a wary look. "Never mind, Clover. Forget I brought it up."

Maybe that would be the wise choice, but something about the way he's talking has me thinking back to last night—before all the beers and the campfire and the dancing in the rain.

I could tell something was up with Neavh when she arrived. I tried to play it cool, but by the time we walked over to Emily's place, I was a live wire of nerves.

I was sure she was going to tell me something awful, something there'd be no coming back from. I was half-convinced she'd pull out a plane ticket and tell me she'd be gone by morning.

The party was an effective distraction, but in the quiet afterwards, with nothing but the rain pelting the roof to dull my thoughts, I couldn't help thinking that in a couple months, she will be buying a plane ticket.

She'll be taking off on an adventure to some far-flung corner of the world, and I'll still be here, doing the same thing.

Just like last time.

I thought it'd be better if I saw it coming in advance. I thought it'd be better if I made it impossible for her to blindside me this time around, if I set the terms and said we'd only have the summer.

Now it's like there's a countdown clock ticking above my head, a clock that wasn't there before last night.

"Well, you sure seem to have an opinion about it," I say, hating how much I sound like a petulant teenager but somehow not able to stop myself. "So you might as well share it."

He sighs and drops the bag again before crossing his arms. He taps one foot against the ground for a moment and then sighs again.

"Honey, I just don't want to see you get hurt again."

A knot begins to tangle up in my stomach, pinching and twisting so hard I wrap an arm around my torso.

Everyone thinks she's going to hurt me.

My dad. My sisters. The whole town is probably taking bets on how this will end, and I doubt any of the options look good for me.

"I'm not a child," I say, the pain in my stomach making it all too easy to snap at him. "I can look after myself."

"I know that," he says, in the kind of tone I'd use to speak to a panicking animal. "I know that better than anybody. You're my little goose girl. Nobody tells you what to do."

Guilt slams into me at the use of the nickname. I glance down at where my goose bracelet sits on my wrist.

"I'd just hate to see you get your heart broken all over again," he continues. "That girl is a fool for taking off on you the first time, and in my experience, fools usually stay foolish."

I bristle at the use of ‘that girl.' It's like he thinks even using her name will set me off, like I'll crumple at the mere mention of her existence.

"She's not going to take off on me," I blurt. "I already know she's leaving."

I suck in a breath, cursing myself for letting that slip.

There's no way that's how I'd speak about someone I'm just building a yurt with.

"She's just here for a summer job," I add, scrambling to gloss over my outburst, "and we're just…"

My voice dies in my throat before I can say we're just friends.

I've never been able to lie to my dad.

"I'm not stupid enough to do the exact same thing all over again, Dad," I say instead.

He shakes his head.

"I know you're not. No one in their right mind could ever call you stupid. I just don't want to see you hurt." He pauses to sigh again. "If you say you're fine, well then, I'll butt out."

My inner teenager still wants to rage and argue, but I manage to get a grip on her and settle for a sullen, "Okay. Good."

We go back to piling up the garbage, working in silence on opposite sides of the fire pit as we cool off on our own. By the time we've cleared what's left in the yard, we've come to an unspoken agreement to leave this morning behind us.

He claps me on the back as we lug the trash bags over to his truck, and we both hum along to a country song on the radio as he drives us out to the garbage and recycling bins.

Despite the ease between us, I can't keep our conversation from rattling around in my head.

I told him I'm not doing the same thing all over again. I told myself that too, but as the countdown above my head keeps ticking, every second a grating click in my ears, I wonder if that even matters.

It might not hurt the same way when Neavh leaves this time, but that doesn't mean it won't hurt just as bad.

That doesn't mean it won't hurt even worse.