Saturday, June 24th
Ronan
I didn’t get much sleep last night. Hardly any, to be honest.
Murphy’s was fucking insane, and I’m not even exaggerating.
We were slammed most of the day, but the evening?
Total chaos. We had several birthday parties and two separate bachelor parties—one of which turned into a full-on disaster.
It took Jack, two of our waiters, and me to kick out five drunk assholes who decided a bar brawl was the perfect way to liven things up.
I didn’t get home until almost four in the morning.
It took forever to clean up the mess, document the broken chairs and busted table, and make sure Tyler—one of the waiters who helped me throw those guys out—was okay.
He got nailed in the head with a beer bottle and ended up needing stitches.
One of the other guys drove him to the ER.
I called Shane around midnight to give him a heads-up.
He’ll have the absolute joy of dealing with the insurance today—both liability and workers’ comp.
I hate when this shit happens on my shift.
Shane and his dad trust me to handle things, and I always feel like I’ve let them down when people act like idiots and ruin the night for everyone.
It was an exhausting night after an already long day. But still, I couldn’t sleep.
Even after I dragged myself into bed, I just… couldn’t shut my brain off. I kept thinking about the trip. About my uncle. About what I might find in Camden.
Cat wasn’t at the apartment when I got home—she stayed at her place last night. It made sense. I got in late, and I was heading out early, but still… I would’ve loved to crawl into bed next to her. Just to feel her warmth. To hear her soft breathing.
There’s no one and nothing that calms my nerves quite like Cat. She’s always been medicine for my soul.
As promised, my dad was outside the apartment by seven. We hit the road a few minutes later. I crashed pretty hard in the passenger seat and slept most of the way.
I only wake up when my dad gently nudges me.
“Bud, let’s eat something. What do you think?” my dad says as I blink awake and squint at the morning light.
“Okay, sure,” I mumble, my voice rough with sleep. I rub my eyes. “How far out are we?”
“A couple hours, maybe.” He eases the Tahoe off the freeway. “You slept quite a bit. How was your night?”
So, I tell him. About the packed bar. The back-to-back parties. The idiots who thought a full-on brawl was a solid way to end the night. I talk about Tyler and the beer bottle. About staying until almost four to deal with the aftermath.
My dad lets out a low chuckle as he pulls into a dusty parking lot in front of a small roadside diner. He throws the Tahoe in park and turns to me. “I was one of those idiots once.”
I stare at him. “Are you serious?”
He laughs, already opening his door. “Dead serious. I was maybe twenty-one, stationed in Germany. Got absolutely shit-faced with a few officer buddies one night. Tried to make a move on this gorgeous German girl—blonde, blue eyes, perfect ass.”
“Jesus, Dad. Too much info,” I groan, laughing despite myself.
He grins as we both get out. “Hey, I’m just sharing my worldly wealth of knowledge with you. I’m not in intelligence for nothing.”
“Oh, sure. So documenting women’s bodies around the globe is part of your official duties for the U.S. military?”
“Well, it’s not technically in the job description, but I like to think it’s implied,” he says, walking toward the entrance.
I shake my head, still chuckling. “Right. Got it.”
“Anyway,” he says as he holds the door open for me, “turns out this girl had a boyfriend—Hans or Otto, probably—and he really wasn’t cool with me hitting on her. Me, being a dumb twenty-one-year-old with more testosterone than sense, thought a fight was a brilliant idea. Didn’t end well.”
“You got hurt?”
“Black eye. Bad concussion. Two of my buddies needed stitches. It was a whole ordeal—and then came the discipline,” he says, chuckling again. A waitress gives us a nod, and my dad points toward a small booth by the window.
We slide into the worn leather bench seats across from each other. I grab a menu from behind the salt and pepper shakers.
“I have to say, Dad… I’m kind of enjoying hearing about this stuff,” I say as I flip it open.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. I mean… this might sound weird, but I feel like I don’t really know you,” I say, brow creasing.
My dad presses his lips together and nods slowly. “I feel the same way about you, Ran. I guess… that’s what I get for not being around while you were growing up.” His voice is low, full of regret.
“I guess so,” I murmur, and we both fall quiet, our eyes scanning the menus but clearly not really reading them.
The waitress comes by to take our orders, and once she leaves my dad excuses himself to use the restroom. I watch him walk away, then pull out my phone and send Cat a quick update.
He returns a few minutes later, sliding back into the booth just as his phone starts to ring. He answers it immediately.
“Hi, baby,” he says with a smile. Penny, I assume. “Yeah, we’re about two hours out. Ran and I just stopped to grab something to eat… How are the boys?”
He chats with her for a few more minutes, his voice warm as he talks about my twin half brothers, and I try not to listen too closely.
When he finally hangs up, he pockets his phone and looks at me. “Penny says hi.”
“Okay,” I say. “How is she doing?”
“She’s good,” he chuckles. “Wasn’t thrilled about me being gone tonight. She still gets overwhelmed being alone with both boys. It’s a lot, especially now that they’re both rolling around like little maniacs. One of them is always trying to off himself.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah. Dean’s the main culprit. Kellan’s more relaxed, but Dean? Total second-born energy.”
He shakes his head, smiling. “The other day he somehow army-crawled under the armchair and couldn’t get back out. Penny was freaking out because she couldn’t find him—called me in a full panic. Eventually Dean started whining and she found him wedged under there like a grumpy little burrito.”
I can’t help but laugh.
“Honestly, Dean reminds me so much of you. You think you’ve got it figured out with your first kid—nice, mellow, follows the rules. And then the second one comes along and he’s just… absolutely feral.”
“I was feral?” I ask, raising an eyebrow.
“Hell yes. You were a menace. Constant energy. You climbed before you could walk, and, shit, you were on top of everything. Chairs, ladders, the banister. You tried to ride a bull calf when you were, like, eighteen months old. Morai said Athair had to rescue you more than once from near-death situations.”
“I have zero memory of that,” I say, shaking my head.
“You were tiny, man. And you never slept. Up till all hours, then awake again at five or six.”
“Huh. I guess not much has changed,” I say, half to myself. Cat literally mentioned that just yesterday—how I seem to function on less sleep than humanly possible.
“Apparently not. I know Morai always brought you downstairs with her once they got up at three-thirty. You’d just hang out with her,” he chuckles.
“But yeah, I see a lot of you in Dean. And I see a lot of Stevie in Kellan. I just wish I had shown up for you and your brother like I get the chance to show up for Kellan and Dean now.”
“Yeah,” I say flatly.
“Ran, I—” he starts, but the waitress shows up with our food, placing steaming plates in front of us.
I take the out and push back from the booth. “Gonna hit the bathroom real quick,” I mutter before walking off. I’m not ready to go there with him. Not now.
When I return, my dad gives me a cautious glance as I slide back into the booth.
“So… how’ve you been doing, kiddo?” he asks. “You’re really busy these days.”
“Yeah,” I say. “I’m trying to knock out some classes now so I’ll have more flexibility in the spring. I want to be around to help Cat as much as I can.”
“And you’re working a ton, too.” He watches me closely, his face serious. “Don’t forget to rest, Ran.”
“I don’t really have a choice, Dad,” I say. “I’m just doing what I need to do to make sure Cat and the baby are taken care of.”
He smiles at me, something soft in his expression. “I’m proud of you.”
That catches me off guard.
“For what?” I ask, my brows drawing together. “Following in your footsteps and procreating before I hit twenty?” I ask, sarcasm sharpening my words.
He laughs. “For the kind of man you’re becoming, Ran.
I know you don’t see it, but… you had all the odds stacked against you.
And still, at barely nineteen, you’re more mature, more responsible, more considerate than I was even in my thirties.
” He chuckles a little, though there's something heavy behind it. “I should’ve been more like you when you and Stevie were born. I shouldn’t have left. ”
My shoulders tighten. I can tell he’s hoping this trip will open some kind of door between us, give us a chance to really talk. To connect. The truth is, my dad and I have never spent this much time alone together. Ever.
And despite everything I’ve worked on with Dr. Seivert…
despite how much I want to let go of all the resentment…
I still can’t seem to let him in. I feel myself resisting every time he tries to reach for me.
And it’s not even about what he’s saying now.
It’s not about what he’s doing. It’s about everything he didn’t do before.
“Dad, can we not do this right now?” I say, voice quiet but tense. My brow furrows. And as soon as the words leave my mouth, I feel guilty. “I’m sorry. I just… I don’t—”
I don’t know how to talk to you. I don’t know how to not feel this way. I don’t know how to let this go. I don’t know how to move on from my feelings of being abandoned by you.
“I just don’t want to talk about it.”
“No, it’s okay, Ran. I’m sorry for bringing it up.” He sounds sincere. “I don’t want to upset you.”