Chapter 53 A Rock

• Ronan Orell’s expression was hard. It seemed to me like he wanted to comment on what was happening right in front of him, but between his daughter’s head resting against my shoulder and Hailey’s presence in the room, his only reaction was a resigned sigh from his lips. He chose silence, although a somewhat baffled expression remained on his face.
• It wasn’t hard to take a couple guesses as to what was going through the man’s mind. He had probably already noticed the unusual closeness between Daphne and I. And there weren’t a lot of ways to interpret that.
• Despite that, Ronan ended up sighing, something that felt a lot like surrender, before plopping on the seat next to Hailey, his shoulders droopy as he scrubbed his face. It was hard to tell whether his reaction was because of his father-in-law being in the hospital or because of Daphne and me. My guess was it was a mixture of the two events.