Chapter 30
Chapter
Thirty
Trav
It seemed to take a lifetime for Dirk to sort things out with his brother, especially when all I could do was wear a hole through the deck with my pacing. Stacey and Dash did their best to calm me down, and then Dash spied something under my ripped shirt.
“New ink, Dad?”
Right, in all the kerfuffle, I’d almost forgotten. I hadn’t shown it to him; I’d been waiting, unsure if I deserved to have it. I pulled off my leather jacket and removed my shorn, blood-stained t-shirt.
Dash ran his fingers over it. “Is that a lion and his cub?” His cheeks pinkened.
Instant regret flooded me. I’d embarrassed him. Not my intent, but I was in it now. I should have asked him if it was all right.
“That’s me and you, bud. Do you hate it?”
“Hate it? Dad, what the fuck? I love it. This is … come here.” He didn’t wait, circling his arms around my torso.
To think there was a time when I wasn’t sure if Dash liked to be hugged, when I wasn’t sure if he even wanted to be touched after what happened.
Turns out, he’s a little love bug with teeth.
“Did you draw this one?”
“Of course. I love you, kid.”
“Love you, too, Dad. I … I’m so glad you’re here. Every day. I felt like an ass after our conversation the other day. I know you just care, and I’m so fucking lucky to have you.”
“I’m the lucky one.”
He shook his head, stepping back so he could get another look at the tattoo. He ran his fingers over it. “I said it to Stacey after we left that day—remember when I couldn’t let you out of my sight?”
I did remember. The way he’d look at me, lost and afraid. Like I was his anchor in the dark.
“The second you were gone, it was like the monsters could creep in. Like I was unguarded.”
“You have Stacey for that now,” I’d said. It wasn’t out of malice or jealousy. It was a fact.
“Dad, be for real. Yeah, I have Stacey now, but that’s not how eras work.
They have to begin somewhere. You were the beginning of my safety era.
You’re the foundation of it. Your presence introduced me to what it felt like to be safe, gave me what I needed to build any semblance of safety.
I’m always gonna need you in some capacity to feel safe. I like the extra care you give.”
“I—”
“No, you don’t. I know you don’t feel worthy of being my dad, just like I don’t feel like I’m worthy of being your son. But we’re gonna stop that. I need you just as much as I need Stacey. I need you with me, too.”
The words hit someplace deep. A tightness I’ve carried for over a decade eased some.
“You’re gonna have me,” I promised him, fucking grateful I didn’t give in to revenge. I’d get him into his full-fledged safety era some other way.
“And in case it’s not clear, I’m so fucking happy for you and Dirk.”
“Yeah?” I knew he’d be cool about it, but hearing him say it clears the air.
“Yep. I’m taking credit—I found him, and he’s perfect for you.”
“I didn’t like keeping it from you, but—”
“But Dirk’s never forgiven me for that time I totally busted us—accidentally—and got him grounded for a week? Yeah, I know.”
Then we ate cinnamon buns with Hunter, who didn’t say much, swallowing down a few acid comments I know were burning his tongue.
He pulled Dirk aside before we left, but Dirk came back to me smiling, so I let go of my overprotective urges.
The dust was going to have to settle for Hunter, and we’d have to let time do its thing.
I’m thunder dressed as a person today. Dirk wouldn’t stay over.
Something, something, something about needing to spend time at the house for “old time’s sake”.
It’s bullshit, is what it is. I’m in such a mood about it, Penny shuffles me out the door to get coffee from the fancy place down the street.
“Don’t come back until Dirk’s on his way to work.”
“I thought I was the boss around here,” I’d grumbled, but I went, hoping the fresh air would change my disposition. I went on an extra-long walk around the neighborhood, hitting up the fancy coffee place on the way back.
Taking a sip of my overpriced coffee, I stride into the restaurant.
Someone’s sitting at the bar, and he’s eating.
What the fuck? We’re not even open yet. But—a-fucking-stonishingly—Maxwell Elkington has a full plate of barbeque ribs in front of him and he’s obliterating them, using his hands like an uncouth barbarian.
It’s so uncharacteristic of the aristocrat that if Jack were here, he’d claim we had another Mandela Effect situation on our hands.
It’s Maxwell, but the version from a universe parallel to this one.
I don’t think that’s what’s going on. What I think is that Maxwell becomes more Maxwell every day. The mask he’s worn loosens a little more and a little more, and what I thought was a scheme of some kind wasn’t at all. It was his unravelling, and I’ve been one of the few in a private audience.
He’s out of place in other ways, too. His usually perfect hair is unkempt, shielding his eyes, making him look wild.
His shirt’s unbuttoned, exposing his toned, tanned body underneath.
There’s … is that blood on his shirt, on his hands too, or rib sauce?
Know what, maybe I don’t wanna know. Maybe I tell myself it’s rib sauce.
“Hey, hey, bestie,” Maxwell says in a smooth, booming voice, waving a sticky, messy hand.
“Maxwell.” I walk behind the bar so I can get a good look at him and because I want a barrier between us at all times. His knuckles are bruised. “Have you been in a fight?”
He shrugs. “It’s best not to ask questions.”
A sinking feeling buries itself in my gut. “I thought you would be pissed at me for cancelling on you.”
Maxwell makes a “forget it” type gesture with his hand.
“Water under the bridge. I get it. Your man took issue with it. I’ve done the same when my man’s displeased with me.
Anyway, I always knew that was a potential outcome, and I’d always intended to clean up the mess for you if that was the case.
You won’t have to worry about it anymore. ”
He winks.
That’s a problem.
I study the “sauce that could be blood” on his collar. It’s on the tip of my tongue to ask what he did.
It’s best not to ask questions.
Yeah, okay.
But even if he did do what I’m starting to suspect he did, he wouldn’t do his own dirty work, would he? Maxwell delegates; he’s not an “in the trenches” kind of guy.
I think.
And did he just instill the fear of God into Robin? Or is Robin dead? I’ve done my fair share of the former. Sometimes all someone needs to stay away is a good dose of brass knuckles. But Maxwell’s the kind of man who likes a job well done.
The kitchen door swings open. Maverick leans out of it. “Need anything else, Pops?”
“I’m good, son. Tell whoever made these ribs they’re divine.”
“Mhm,” he hums and disappears again.
I thought they were at odds. But even more troubling, why are there so many Elkingtons in my restaurant, acting like they run the place? This is my restaurant, dammit.
Using the wet nap someone provided him with, he cleans up as best he can. But without the sauce covering his fingers, the damage to his knuckles is more pronounced. Dark bruises blooming beneath scraped skin.
“What do you want from me, Elkington? And don’t fucking say my friendship. I’ll never trust us enough to be friends.”
He shrugs. “I’ve never trusted anyone a day in my life. Trust wasn’t a requisite for my friendship.”
“I’m supposed to believe that all you wanted was my advice?”
“You can believe whatever you want to.”
Unless my advice wasn’t what he was after. I’ve never been able to get a good read on Maxwell, which was unsettling enough; trying to parse out what he really wanted from me sent me down dark conspiracy theories I don’t want to think about.
“Did my advice help you?” I try. Maybe if he has to tell me what he learned, I’ll catch him in a lie.
“It did,” Maxwell says, eyes scanning the rib bones for more meat. There isn’t any, they’re picked clean. For once, there’s no ulterior motive gleaming in his eyes. He’s somewhere else. “Rhett had a stutter when he was little—he doesn’t know that. His mother and I didn’t tell anyone.”
He leans back, still off in that faraway place.
“I wouldn’t have cared if he stuttered forever—it was endearing and he was perfect just the way he was.
But the things I’d already seen by that time …
I know what the world does to people with vulnerabilities.
It destroys them. I worked with him myself, made sure nothing would ever hurt him.
We were best friends. But then along came an ice dancer, and Rhett was gone. ”
I’m still waiting for the part where he learned something. It’ll come, right?
“Logan was right, I was hurting Rhett. But I was only doing things that you would do, so I didn’t understand what I was doing wrong.”
“Whoa. I’ve never tried to make my son get married on national television.”
“That may have been a tad extreme.”
“And how would you know what I would do with my son?”
Maxwell sighs long and suffering. “This is where we differ, you have more heart than I do, but I’ll lay it out for you, bestie.”
He really needs to stop calling me that.
“When I infiltrated Rhett’s new friend group—”
“Infiltrated?” Only Maxwell would say infiltrated instead of “I fucking spied on you”.
He waves a hand as if it’s nothing. “Anyway, you intrigued me as soon as I’d read your file from my private investigators, and I had them dig up everything on you they could find. One thing in particular got my heart going—Dash was under a conservatorship for a little while. Under you.”
No. No fucking way will he say he got the idea from me. That’s bullshit.
“Maybe your little files lacked some fucking context. I was afraid he was gonna kill himself, asshole,” I hiss. It takes all my restraint not to fucking strangle him.
“The whole time?” He raises a brow.