Chapter 25
It doesn’t take long to go from my decision outside Victoria’s door to bumping toward the dock in the green golf cart.
There’s not a lot of crossover between my life in the States and my life on this island, so once I pack up my few toiletries and electronics, I’m out the door.
The helicopter is waiting for me as usual, the pilot coming out of the small, metal paneled aviation office strapping on his helmet as I park.
“Where’s the lady?” he asks, the first dagger in my side coming much sooner than expected.
“Just me today,” I answer, keeping my face and voice emotionless.
It’s a damn good thing I spent years perfecting this poker face. I’m going to need it. I’m a tornado of feelings right now and the last thing I need is for anyone to pick up on that. Not until I get my steel walls back in place.
The walls Victoria shattered.
My first stop on Faraday probably isn’t the best choice considering my uncharacteristically fragile emotional state, but I don’t have a lot of choice. These guys have all shown up for me over the years, in their own ways, and I’ll be damned if I’m not going to return the favor.
Sam’s house is close to The Sands, but down a narrow, coral sand road through the jungle that makes for slow going. He bought this property the first year we owned the resort, wanting to have a place to fix up and make his own.
We tried to talk him out of it, me especially. We had just acquired a ghost resort on an island in the middle of nowhere. It seemed like plenty of project for any man. But Sam wasn’t going to be deterred. He wanted to make a home for himself, and I guess he saw it in this run-down acre of near swamp land, with its three one-room shacks and dilapidated outbuildings.
I was perfectly aware at the time that purchasing anything nicer would have required taking yet another loan from one of us guys. And, while we would have been happy to hand over the money, it’s understandable that Sam didn’t think that was a great option.
We’ve all got something to prove in life, and for Sam, that amounts to showing everyone, us guys especially, that he can stand on his own two feet after being the recipient of handouts from our families for most of his life.
I can’t even imagine how I would have turned out if I was in the same position. My independence and pride weigh heavy on my shoulders. I would’ve ended up in jail or worse. Not Sam. He grew up to be the kind, gracious manager that absentee investors can only dream of. He’s everyone’s favorite person, something that’s painfully obvious when all of us guys are out together.
I turn the final corner onto his property and park next to one of the many carts already there. I know Ainsley isn’t here yet, because I just left him at the house, but I can see Dom and Ave’s vehicles, as well as a dozen others I don’t recognize.
This many people turned up on a random Wednesday afternoon to help Sam dig out his flooded yard and rebuild his outbuilding.
I doubt this many people would come to my funeral.
I shake off the thought, cursing my mind for lowering itself to such base concerns and plaster on a calm but sympathetic face when I come down to the crowd of guys hard at work in Sam’s yard.
He spots me right away and waves, wiping sweat from his face with his dirty tee before walking over. “Hey, man. I didn’t know you were coming by.”
My brow furrows as I nod and glance around once more at the men hard at work. I wish I’d stopped by to help, not just to say goodbye, but I suppose it’s better than nothing. “Yeah. I was headed to the water taxi and thought I’d stop by and see how things are going here.”
“Heading home?”
I nod, bristling slightly as Dom joins us, followed closely by Ave. “I gotta get back for a trial starting next week.” It feels like my own trial is about to begin.
“Where’s the girl?” Ave chimes in. “I thought I was going to see her bags in your cart when you finally dragged yourself off that island.”
“Yeah, well.” I glance down and shake my head. I have no idea what I would even say to explain what just went down on Merit, but I suppose they’ll hear it from Ains soon enough. “I did, too. But that’s not how it worked out.”
“How did it work out?” Sam asks in his characteristic friendly, open manner. Like anything I said in return would be just fine. Little does he know how wrong he is this time.
“It just didn’t.”
Dom clears his throat and I purposely look away instead of toward him. If that guy thinks he can bully information out of me, he’s dead wrong.
“Reina told me she’s been seeing you two around town and that you looked an awful lot like a couple.”
I shrug. “It was just a little island fling. Back to reality.”
“You never brought her over to meet us,” Ave says, his voice full of the teasing I would expect from him. “First girlfriend you’ve had and we missed the entire relationship? Lame.”
“I’ll introduce you to the next one, okay?”
They’re all quiet, watching me. I’ve got to get out of here. “I thought it was something, but it turned out I was wrong. Surely you guys can all understand not wanting to air your dirty laundry all over the island.”
“It’s not all over the island, Ben. It’s us,” Sam says.
“I have it on good authority that you two were shacked up at Katy’s earlier today. Reina said you were smiling so much she almost didn’t recognize you. And now you’re running off to the mainland with your scowl back in place. Something happened,” Dom accuses.
Damn this tiny island. Nowhere to hide.
All the more reason to get back to the city, where literally no one gives a shit what you’re doing.
“Yeah, something happened. But I don’t really want to talk about it. It’s no big deal. We hung out, it’s over, end of story.”
“Would this something have anything to do with Ains coming home?”
I whip my head to Avery so fast the world blurs. “How the fuck do you know that? What did he tell you?”
Ave’s mouth drops open as his eyes narrow. I look away quickly, realizing my mistake, only to find narrowed eyes from the other two as well.
I shake my head. “It’s not what you think.”
“You’re not running away from the first good thing you’ve found since Breanna died the second your adult son shows up? Because that’s what it looks like to me,” Ave calls me out.
Dom crosses his arms and cocks his head to the side. I’m not brave enough to look at Sam and risk the kind, understanding face I’m sure he’s wearing.
“Coincidence,” I offer, convincing no one.
“Ains wants you to be happy, you know. If you found someone you want to be with,” he holds up a hand when I start to interrupt. “Even if that woman is a bit younger than you, he would be supportive.”
“You don’t understand.” Not that I’m about to help them with that problem.
“We understand perfectly, man,” Dom says. “We were there when Breanna passed. We know you took the responsibility of making sure Ainsley turned out all right seriously. We know that’s kept you alone all these years.”
“We’ve always given you your space with all that. I mean, you seemed to find some comfort at the club in New York. And we were all supportive when you started bringing some of that stuff over to the Merit house,” Ave adds. “But it never felt like something you wanted to talk about, so we gave you space.”
Boiling hot shame rises from my gut and overtakes my mind, turning the whole world gray. “You guys talk about this? You talk about me?”
How could I not have known this?
“We care about you, Ben. You closed off when Breanna died, and we’ve all had to accept that there were parts of you that you didn’t want to share anymore. But that doesn”t mean we don’t wonder what’s going on in your life. That we don’t want you to find happiness,” Sam offers calmly.
“I’m happy,” I retort, hearing the anger in my voice. I shake my head. Fuck.
“That’s what you’ve always told us, and we believed you.”
“Until a few weeks ago,” Dom adds.
“What do you mean?”
He shrugs. “We got used to cautious, overprotective, play by the rules Ben since Ains was a kid. We thought that was the new normal for you. That was single dad Ben. But either you outgrew that stage suddenly, or that girl shook something loose in you because the last few weeks you’ve been a lot like your old self again.”
“Well, I hope you enjoyed it. It’s back to business as usual. Boring, mean Ben who you lot have apparently just been tolerating all these years.”
“That’s not what he meant at all,” Ave says, laying hand on my shoulder. It’s all I can do not to step back and shake him off. These guys are doing what they do best—honing in on the truth.
But today, I don’t want them to find it.
“We love you and want you around just the way you are, buddy. But we’ve all seen how losing your wife and raising your son alone weighed on you. We wondered as he got older if you would relax a bit when he graduated high school, but you only doubled down on making your life all about him by chasing him around the world. We’re going to support you no matter what, but maybe this little vacation fling, or whatever it was, can be a first step for you to consider some ways you could start living for yourself. Making a life for yourself. Your son is an adult. You may be able to keep him under your influence through college, although that doesn’t seem like it’s working out. Either way, you’re going to have to let him live his own life soon enough.”
I do take that step back now, letting Ave’s hand fall away. My eyes are on my flip-flops and I shake my head. I was so prepared to defend my little secret with these guys, but it turns out they rooted right to the heart of the problem. And it has nothing to do with Victoria or her exes.
For the second time in the last few weeks, I’m forced to consider the possibility that the only real problem in my life is my unwillingness to let go. Let go of my late wife and the life we were going to build together. Let go of needing my son to follow in my footsteps, the only path I can lead him down where I’ll know all the secrets and pitfalls ahead of time and can guide him.
Let go of the center of my entire universe.
How does a person even go about doing that?
“I don’t know who I am if not Ainsley’s father.”
Ave laughs. “We do.”
“Yeah. We do,” Dom adds. “You’re the guy who jumped into the quarry to fish out my kid sister after Sam dared her to go in there with only a pair of water wings.” He elbows Sam, who looks sheepish.
“You’re the guy who paid to rebuild the school in Saubry when the hurricane took it out our second year here. And added a second level and three new outbuildings,” Sam says.
“You’re the guy who took it upon himself to build a sex dungeon in the Merit house instead of partying with all the hot chicks I brought over. And you’ve only used it once,” Ave offers with a sly grin.
I cock my head. “Twice.”
All three sets of eyebrows shoot up in unison, an act so comical that I almost crack a smile. I shake my head and turn my gaze down, finding it difficult all of a sudden to take a full breath in the face of the love and understanding written across my friend’s faces.
“We know you, all right? And we know you’re a beast when it comes to change of any kind. So, we’ll let you take your time with this one. But now that we know old Ben is still in there somewhere, we’re not going to put up with your stone-faced bullshit much longer. We get that you’re the caretaker. You always have been. But you’ve been leaving yourself out of that love and that shit ends now.” Ave steps forward and grips my shoulder hard enough that I can’t shake him off. “Head on back to the city. Do what you gotta do. But just know that we’re watching.”
I huff out a laugh. “Is that supposed to be a threat?”
“If it needs to be,” Dom answers, dead serious. “And I think we need to bump our quarterly meetings up to monthly. Now that we know you’re capable of having a good time down here, we’re going to need you to fly down more often.”
I can’t help the smile that breaks through as I finally meet the eyes of my lifelong friends. “I think I can probably work that into my schedule. If the resort demands it, of course.”
“Well, we should get back to work,” Dom says, glancing back at the crew that’s been on a break since the leaders all wandered off.
I nod. “Sorry I’m not sticking around to help out.”
“No worries, man. I’ll save you some sanding and staining work for when you’re back next month,” Sam says with a smile before pulling me into a tight embrace.
I take a deep breath before relaxing into it. When I step back, Dom and Ave are waiting with side hugs and back claps.
“Have a safe flight,” Sam calls out as I walk back to my cart. I turn and wave, catching one last glimpse of the trio before they start chiding each other back to work.