8. lucas
EIGHT
lucas
I didn’t recognize the number, but a call at two-thirty in the morning warranted a pickup. For years I’d slept with one eye open, so the second my phone buzzed I was sitting up, phone in hand.
“Hello?”
“Is this Lucas Warner?”
This wasn’t just a spam call. “It is.”
“So sorry to bother you at this hour. This is Sam from—”
“I know where you’re from,” I said, not needing to hear it. “What’s he doing?”
“That’s the problem. Nothing. He won’t move. Claims it’s two in the afternoon, and that I’m just trying to bust his chops.”
How long had I been home for? The biggest surprise wasn’t that I was being called to the corner bar to fetch my dad but that it had taken this long.
“I’ll be right there.”
Hanging up, I got dressed quickly and grabbed my keys. Downstairs, I walked through the studio to the front door, pausing just long enough to stare at the spot where I’d foolishly held Charlee’s wrist. What the hell had I been thinking?
Just like that, a million scenes flashed through my mind.
The one where I didn’t stop at grabbing her wrist. Another with Charlee straddling my lap as we sat on my bike. Another with her bent over in front of me. . .
Stop.
By the time I got to Sam’s, the lights were out. The bar had clearly been closed for some time.
The owner, standing behind the bar cleaning a glass, looked at me gratefully. The last time I’d seen Sam, I was under twenty-one and sitting at the corner table opening pistachios like it was my part-time job. He looked like he’d aged a hell of a lot more than just ten years, but the bar business would do that to a person. Especially this kind of bar, with patrons like the one shaking his head at me.
“Oh no you don’t, boy.”
“Time to go, Dad.”
“It’s not time to go,” he slurred. “I just got here. Sam, tell ’im.”
Since this was the same Sam that had called me to fetch my father’s drunk ass, I was pretty sure Sam wasn’t going to be telling me anything of the sort.
“Let’s go.”
I reached out, but my father wasn’t going to make things easy.
“Nope. Not gonna do it. Sam, tell ’im.”
Ahh, fuck. “How often does he do this?” I asked Sam as if my father wasn’t in the room.
“Few times a year.” Sam’s weathered, crinkly gaze held mine. “Usually when there’s something in the news that makes him think you’re in danger.”
I laughed at that. “Okay, sure.”
My father didn’t give a flying fuck if I was in danger. How could he when he was rarely sober enough to know whether I was his only son or the goddamn Easter bunny?
Sam didn’t argue with me.
“So what’s the trigger today?” I was a step away from mocking Sam.
“Damned if I know.”
I could physically put the man in my truck but wasn’t in the mood. “Dad, you gotta come with me. The kitchen sink has a leak, and I can’t find it.”
Now I was speaking his language. He’d worked as a plumber once. A painter. A coach. Even a father for a time. The man had held a lot of roles, but one thing he could never resist? Fixing something.
“Can’t find it? What d’you mean, can’t find it?”
There weren’t many people on this planet who could understand him in this condition. But I spoke drunk Dad, and apparently, Sam did too.
“Go help ’im out, Frank.”
“Come on, Dad. Let’s jump.”
“Ahhhh.” He wasn’t happy about it, but at least the man attempted to get off the stool. Attempted. Key word.
I caught him, slung his arm over my shoulder, and asked Sam what he owed.
“Nothin’. Just get him home safe. Thanks, kid.”
I hadn’t been a kid in a long, long time. It was better than “boy,” I supposed.
Dragging my father to the car, I’d have assumed he would pass out the minute I started driving, but no such luck.
“Everyone’s talkin’ about your tattoo place,” he said. “Friggin’ tossers.”
How a man who was born and raised in upstate New York and never so much as traveled to the Jersey shore, never mind across the pond, picked up that term, I’d never know. It was one of many mysteries I’d long since stopped trying to figure out about my only parent.
“Not so kindly, I take it?”
“Eh,” he said. “Screw ’em.”
Seemed it was true Grunt Ink was causing a bit of a dustup in town. But on this one, I reluctantly agreed with my father. Screw ’em, inasmuch as I also didn’t need to alienate potential customers. But Owen was helping me out on that front.
“When you openin’?” Dad began to hiccup.
“Hopefully next week. I was in there tonight,” I said and then stopped. Dad was piss drunk. Why exactly was I attempting to carry on a conversation with him?
“In there tonight,” he prompted. “And?”
Forgetting what I had planned to say, I instead thought of my surprise visitor. Charlee had taken me so off-guard, I never even had time to mentally prepare myself for the attack. Because that’s exactly what it had felt like. An all-out attack on my senses, and I’d almost lost the battle.
Charlee hadn’t hidden the fact she wanted to talk. Did she want more? It seemed like a strong possibility. But I didn’t, and would do well to remember that.
“And nothing.”
“Come on,” he said, with the loudest hiccup yet. “And what?”
Christ, you’d think I’d be used to this. How had he not killed himself while I was away?
“Charlee came in tonight,” I said, not meaning to, but Charlee had been on the brain. “Said the place looks good.”
When my dad said nothing, I assumed he’d passed out.
“That girl’s in love with you, son.”
As I pulled up to the house—a small two-story in need of a good painting, though presently it matched the other houses on the block—I gave my father my full attention. “Excuse me?”
“In love.” He said it more slowly and almost articulately. “With you.”
That was rich. “Yep,” I said. “Exactly why she broke up with me.”
When he didn’t respond, I looked over at my dad. Passed out. His snoring replaced the hiccups.
What the hell had he been talking about? In love with me? How could he possibly have any sort of judgment about that?
Shoving the question aside, I got out of the truck, hoping my father was coherent enough to walk into the house. I relished carrying him about as much as I did the town meeting Owen thought I should attend.
Go home , Nate had said.
My spotter and best friend had no idea what “home” entailed. I’d told him, but no one could truly know a place like Kitchi Falls unless they lived here.
Dad. Charlee. Citizens against fucking tattoos.
Great idea, Nate, you bastard. Stay safe, man.
He was still in a combat zone, but in some ways, so was I. But this one I had run toward instead of away from.
What the hell had I been thinking?