Eight
T he first night home, Luke got introduced to how dinner went with no phones at the table and all of us talking.
“Daddy, if you have to go work in your office, it’s okay,” Tatum assured him, smiling.
“No,” he said softly, and I really liked the smoky, low sound of his voice. I was also a big fan of the deep gold color of his skin, the thick blond lashes that framed his beautiful eyes, and the different colors in his brows, stubble, and hair. “I’d rather be here with all of you.”
“Nash likes jazz, so we usually listen to that,” Darwin explained. “But you can change it if you want. He said everyone gets a pick.”
His warm gaze met mine. “I like it. Let’s not change anything.”
I smiled at him. “Do you want water or something else?”
Leaning back in his chair, he crossed his arms and regarded me. “This actually brings up an excellent question.”
“And what is that?”
“Well, I seem to be out of beer, and the rest of my bar is not in the hutch where I left it. In fact, the entire hutch is gone.”
“You always said the hutch was ugly, so we sold it at the yard sale,” Tatum informed him.
“I see. Did you sell my booze too?”
“No. Nash kept the expensive things, and there’s a new cabinet right there,” she said, pointing. “It used to belong to Mrs. Singleton’s husband, but he died last year, remember?”
“I do.”
She nodded sagely. “So young.”
I put my head down so I wouldn’t laugh.
“He was, like, eighty-something,” Darwin reminded her. “Do you know how old eighty is?”
“Obviously, I meant young in spirit.”
“Nash,” Luke began, and I could hear him trying not to laugh. “What’s in the locked cabinet?”
Lifting my head, I said, “A lot of bourbon. I called my buddy Rais, who knows about all of it, and he told me what I better not touch on fear of my life, and what should join the rest of it in the sink and down the drain.”
“And why did any of it have to go?”
Griff cleared his throat. “I was drinking some of your beer. Not every day, but more than I should’ve.”
Luke nodded. “And so now I have a locked cabinet and there’s no other alcohol in the house. Is that right?”
“Yeah.”
“And do you plan to continue drinking?”
“No. I haven’t had anything since that Saturday night at the party, and I know that’s not a long time, but it’s the longest I’ve gone in a while.”
“What made you stop? Was it Nash being here?”
“Partly. Mostly, though, it’s because I left Tatum alone in the house from Friday night until Sunday morning when Nash showed up.”
Luke listened instead of yelling, which was good for Griff, who felt bad enough already.
“And though it wasn’t my fault that I couldn’t get home to her on Saturday night, it was my fault that I was gone Friday night and all day Saturday before Chief Wilson beat me up.”
“Yes, it was,” Luke told his son. “But it’s my fault that I left all that responsibility on you, that I lost my phone and didn’t immediately replace it… I’m sick that I left all of you alone because I was more worried about providing for you than protecting you.”
Silence at the dinner table.
“It all worked out okay,” Tatum said cheerfully. “We got Nash, and I didn’t burn down the kitchen. Dar came home, and we got Griff out of the big house.”
Luke’s brows furrowed as he looked at his daughter.
“We did,” she said authoritatively. “And you won’t ever do that again, will you?”
“Leave you?”
“Yeah.”
“No,” Luke said gruffly, and I could hear the promise in his voice. “I swear to you. All of you are the most important things in my life, and I’m going to work hard to make you believe that and?—”
“It’s okay, Dad,” Darwin soothed him. “Mom leaving was hard on all of us.”
“Yes, it was, and continues to be so,” he said with a sigh. “The thing is, I let you all down because I’m the parent but I lost it.”
They were all three staring at him.
“And I know I don’t deserve it, but if you all give me another chance, I?—”
“It’s like Nash said,” Griff began, “we have to put ourselves in your spot. And I swear I’m gonna keep going to see my therapist, and I’m not gonna drink, and I always liked cooking but now I love it, and I’m gonna work on it more and more.”
Luke nodded. Speaking, apparently, was off the table.
“I’ll try, and you’ll try,” Griff said. “Is that good?”
More nodding from his father.
“I will not cook anymore,” Tatum declared. “And I will tell you when I’m sad or scared or even when I’m happy, because Nash said you need to know everything all the time.”
His eyes flicked to mine and then back to his daughter. “Nash is very smart.”
“Except about buying a cat carrier,” she said miserably, her focus on me. “You’re absolutely positive they didn’t have a blue one? Did you ask them to look in the back?”
“Yes. I’ve told you nine times. No blue anywhere in that building.”
She grunted like that was the worst thing ever.
“And I will try and explain to you about things I’m doing,” Darwin informed his father. “But sometimes, you need to realize, it’s probably going to go over your head.”
“Well, I appreciate that, but if you could try, that would be nice.”
“If that’s what you want,” Darwin said with a shrug.
“From now on, it’s us, together, as a family,” Luke said, putting his hand in the middle of the table, over the salad.
Griff was next, his hand over his father’s, then Tatum, then Darwin.
“I’m very proud of all of you,” I stated with a grin.
Tatum did a slow pan to me.
“What?”
“Your hand.”
“Love, you know I’m not gonna?—”
“Put your hand in,” Griff demanded, “before Dad gets tired. He’s not young, you know. He can’t hold his hand up like that for long.”
Luke’s turn to do the slow pan to Griff. “I’m forty-three. Do you know how old that is? I mean, seriously?”
But no one at the table looked convinced, and I made sure to press my lips together really tight so there would be absolutely no laughing.
“I will remember you offered no backup at all,” he warned me.
“What am I supposed to do? To them, I’m a fossil.”
“Hand in,” Tatum insisted.
“Love…”
“Now,” Luke badgered me. “Get your hand in there, Miller.”
So I did, and all their smiles were a concern.
“Fossil is actually accurate, considering you’re over half a century,” Darwin chimed in.
When I shook my head at him, everyone lost their minds.
Wednesday morning, the first school drop-off after we were all home for Veterans Day, had been fine. There had been a lot of frantic back and forth for forgotten items, which included Luke’s phone, his tablet, and lunch pail. A week later, it was seamless.
We always went in separate cars, as Luke’s brick-and-mortar Wildwood Landscaping office was closer to Darwin and Tatum’s school, and it was easier for me to take Griff.
Luke had spoken to Darwin’s teacher, and it turned out she was excited to talk to him because she wanted to move Darwin into calculus.
She knew he was ready, and her annoyance with him being a know-it-all told her so.
He said that after she explained, she laughed so hard, she snorted.
“I liked her.”
“Because it sounds like she totally gets your kid.”
“Yes.” He had been so pleased.
Therapy was going well. Luke was taking the kids two days a week, and on those days, when they got home, they walked in to the aroma of home-cooking.
Everyone was very enthusiastic about whatever I’d made.
My culinary skills were nowhere near Griff’s already growing repertoire, but there was nothing left, no leftovers ever, so I counted that as a win.
When we were all leaving Friday morning, Luke grabbed hold of my bicep when I was on the way out the door. My eyes met his in question, and the smile I got was nice.
“I forgot,” he said, staring at me, “how much better it is not being the only one.”
I nodded. “Then it sounds like we gotta put up a dating profile for you pronto.”
He groaned and shoved by me. “Would it kill you to take a compliment,” he groused on the way to his truck.
Later that morning, when I got back from dropping off Griff and stopping by the Village Idiot for my large espresso-shot-loaded coffee, I did what I always did and checked the cameras I’d put up a week ago Tuesday.
It had been a weird day, as the cameras arrived by courier because Shaw was not taking a chance on my safety or the security of the family.
Cameras needed to be there ASAP. I’d had to call Rais, because nothing would boot up and he was the camera guru after Owen, and when I used the ladder and nearly fell off the roof—which was not on my bucket list—I almost gave one of my oldest friends a heart attack.
“You bastard,” he rasped, and I could tell I’d scared him. “You fuckin’ bastard.”
“Even if I fell, it’s only a two-story roof, man.”
“There’s an attic. I know there is.”
“True.”
“I hate you,” he said, and I could hear him taking deep breaths.
“Who knew you liked me this much?”
“Ohmygod.”
“Calm yourself.”
“Fuck you.”
“Are you lying down?”
“Now I am!”
The indignation was particularly good.
So now I was watching the camera feed, when suddenly my phone rang and it was Luke.
“You texted?”
What? “No,” I assured him.
“Oh, you need me to come home?” he said, sounding strange, like he wasn’t even hearing me. “Of course. I’m on my way right now.”
I was frightened for a moment, thinking he was being kidnapped or something else equally horrible, but then my brain kicked in.
“Why’re you using me as an excuse to get away from whatever you’re doing?”
“I swear to God, this never happens to me,” he whispered fiercely.
I laughed. “You’re supposed to be giving those nice people a quote for a mini winter ice rink and a summer pond, and you’re out there doing what, shakin’ your moneymaker?”
“You remember what I’m doing?” He sounded surprised.
I huffed. “Stop believing your horrible daughter. I have a great memory, just not for the names of all the different Pokémon she has on that game on her phone.”
Apparently I was quite amusing, if his chuckling was any indication.
“So what happened? Did the wife hit on you or the husband?”