“Jude here is a heart surgeon. He can cut your heart right out,” her dad volunteered suddenly.
Eden was tempted to kick her dad, though she kinda understood where he was coming from.
“Well, usually we’re trying for a little more accuracy in the operating room, but I suppose in a pinch I could certainly do that,” Jude agreed.
Jude, the smart-ass, was enjoying himself a little too much. Eden longed to kick him, too. She was only within kicking distance of Avalon, who hadn’t done anything yet to warrant it.
“Is your real name Jasper?” Avalon wanted to know. She sounded very polite and even a little awestruck, uncharacteristically abstracted. Which was funny, given that this was Avalon. Probably she was storing up all kinds of teasing fodder to unleash on Eden later.
Then Jasper grinned at her, and Avalon went a little misty-eyed. “Yep. But you can all call me Jazz if you want. That was my childhood nickname.”
“Yeah, I’m not gonna do that,” said her dad.
This statement launched a tense wordless interval that was almost long enough to convince Eden this dinner was a terrible idea.
But in some fashion, just like Annelise had asked whether her grandma and grandpa knew about Jasper, Eden had wanted this to happen in order to sort of officialize Jasper’s role. She wanted her parents to experience him, to have opinions, to know him for Annelise’s sake, to be able to field questions.
She wanted to live from a place of open honesty from now on.
Because not doing that may have cost her Gabe.
Annelise finally broke the silence.
“Why does your hair look like that?” Annelise wanted to know.
Eden had a hunch this was the question that Annelise had on low simmer for the past couple of days.
He chewed and swallowed. “Freedom,” he said finally.
Avalon’s and Jude’s heads popped up like prairie dogs, and their eyes were suspiciously bright. As if this answer was too good to be true.
Her dad muttered, “Oh, for the love of—”
A grunt signaled the fact that her mom had kicked her dad under the table.
“A grown man can wear his hair any way he likes in a free country, Annelise. And so I like to express my freedom in ways that sometimes surprise people, because it’s fun to see what people do or think. Like your pink streak. It’s pretty and surprising.”
Annelise mulled this somberly while Eden clamped her teeth together at the tone with which he delivered the wisdom. And maybe this was what he thought dads did. Imparted wisdom. He’d never had an example of his own, after all.
And yet it wasn’t aterriblywrong thing to say.
“I could loan you my brush,” Annelise offered shyly.
Oh, her precious girl. Annelise was born with a built-in bullshit detector and a heart like a satellite dish. Color was one thing; unruliness was quite another.
She was both her mother’s and her father’s daughter.
Everyone waited, breath bated, in the short fraught silence that followed.
“That would be great,” Jasper said kindly. “Thanks.”
Annelise smiled at him, and he grinned back.
“So Jasper, how long are you in town?” Jude wanted to know.
“I’m off tomorrow. Gotta bunch of tour dates up and down the West Coast. Interview, live spots on radio, stuff like that.”
No one at the table had any idea what would comprise “stuff like that.”