Page 118 of Ink & Ambition

He looks at me, his inquisitive brow perked. “What do you want to do, then?”

Looking back at the lake, a ray of sunshine glinting off the water catches my eye. “I want to work in fitness. I want to be a trainer or own a gym or something like that.”

It is the first time I said it out loud to anyone other than Margot. And I am saying it now to the last person I ever thought would want to hear it. Oliver is quiet. For a while the only sounds we hear are the birds chirping in tree tops above. Suddenly, after a sharp breath in, my dad breaks a decade long silence.

“You’re a man now, Alex. You have every right to make your own decisions about your future.”

“Are you saying…”

“Your mom would’ve wanted you to be happy doing whatever it is you’re happy doing. I want you to be happy, too. So, go. Do what makes you happy. For both of us.”

A tear threatens to escape my eye and I let it. “Thank you, dad. You know I’ve missed Mom all this time, but not half as much as I’ve missed you.” Dad reaches across the empty space between us, gripping my neck and pulling my head over for him to kiss roughly before releasing me.

“I’ve missed you, too, kid.”

“Not that I’m not happy about this breakthrough but, where is this all coming from?”

My dad gives me a coy look. “Margot called me.”

“She–”

“She called me and boy did she give me a piece of her mind,” he laughs.

I’m in shock. Not only that she would call him but that he would even speak to her. And he’s laughing about it? Have I stepped in an alternate dimension?

Shaking off the weirdness, I picture Margot calling him after that brief conversation we had at the end of speech class. Did she tell him that we weren’t together anymore? She must not. I need him to tell me every single detail of the conversation but I can’t seem too eager or he’ll catch on that something is off.

“What did she say?”

“She’s a stubborn one, your girlfriend.”Keep it together.“She told me that I’ve been holding you back from being the man you were meant to be. Or something to that effect. She said you had your own passions and none of them included working at a ‘car factory’.”

Oliver Prescott is a very proud man. He does not take kindly to disrespect. But when I look in his eyes, there’s a playfulness there that I don’t think I’ve seen since I was a child.

“She didn’t really give me much of a chance to respond. She told me to watch some of that podcast if I really wanted to ‘get to know the real Alex.’ Direct quote.”

There was never a doubt that I am still very much in love with her but the feeling is intensifying tenfold.

“So, I watched a random episode. And then another one. And then I went back and watched them all from the beginning. I just…it was nice to see you like that. Happy. I haven’t seen you like that in, well, seems like years.”

I can only nod in response. I was my happiest doing that podcast with Margot. But that’s gone now. She’s gone.Don’t dwell. Take this moment for what it is.

We sit in companionable silence for a few more minutes before the honk of a passing car breaks us from our reverie.

We head toward the car, both of us feeling much lighter than we were before. Dad opens the driver side door as I slide into the passenger seat.

“I guess I gotta put out an ad for an intern to fill your spot for this summer,” he mutters.

“Actually, I had an idea about that.”

When my dad looks at me, I’m smiling from ear to ear.

Chapter Forty-Six

Margot

“Areyousureyouhave to go to New York?”

“I’m sure I have to go to New York.” I smile as I take Memaw’s plate into the kitchen. She follows me, her steps slower than they used to be.

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