Chapter 40
Dean
I wasn’t dumb enough to think I hadn’t woken Oli when I got out of bed, but he didn’t say anything. After taking a quick shower, I thought about returning to the room, but I couldn’t yet.
“Oh, hey Dad,” I said when I reached the kitchen.
He was standing in front of the coffee pot, reading the paper while he sipped from the cup. I had to resist scolding him for both things. It wasn’t like he didn’t know. He’d been dealing with this injury since before I was born.
I nodded toward the paper. “Anything interesting?”
“Just the same as usual. Housing costs are up, crime is up, gas is up. Driving the long-termers out little by little.”
“I bet they want the real estate.”
He sighed. “Tale as old as time, son. That’s why we told you to go to college.”
I leaned against the counter across from him. “Blake didn’t. He’s thriving.”
“You’re right. I’ll always want you two to succeed, no matter what path you take. As long as it’s the right one for you.”
“As long as we dance in the moonlight along the way, right?”
He smiled over his mug, the golden tones in his eyes so familiar that I felt a wave of homesickness. We’d talked in the living room until pretty late last night, but I still hadn’t shaken some of that fear that if I turned around, something would come and snatch him away from me.
Stepping toward him, I wrapped my arms around his shoulders. He made a surprised sound that turned into a laugh as he hugged me back.
“It’s alright, D. I’m just fine.”
“I’m going to make sure I call you every day from now on. There’s no excuse not to.”
“Well, I won’t complain.” He leaned back and pushed on my chest playfully with his fist. “I don’t have anything better to do around here.”
“Aren’t there people who play basketball in wheelchairs? You could do that. It’d be good for you.”
“Oh, you’re funny.”
“I’m serious, Dad.”
“I’d rather die on my feet than live on my knees.”
“That’s bullshit. Pride doesn’t come from being on your feet. It’s about how you live.”
“You can’t understand it, Dean.”
I scoffed, then reached around him to pour myself a cup of coffee. “You know what I respect more than you standing in front of me right now? If you’d choose your family over trying to hold on to what you lost.”
“I’m not choosing anything over you.”
His face was pinched, but I couldn’t back down right now. Maybe it was because the person I really wanted to argue with wasn’t around. Or maybe this had been buried deep, building for years. It just needed a reason to come out, and this last scare was exactly that.
“You are,” I said. “Every little risk is you choosing pride over one of us. I hate to say this to you, Dad. I really do, because I know it must be the hardest thing you’ve ever done—to accept that you have limitations. But that fall could’ve been it for you.”
I shook my head and drew in a shuddering breath. He pulled me close, hugging me again, and his hand stroked the back of my head as I struggled to slow my heart.
“I’m sorry,” I rushed out. “I shouldn’t have lectured you. It’s just I got so scared, and I’m all the way across the country. If it had been more serious . . . Dad, I might not have made it here before . . .”
“Hey, D. Listen to me.” He pulled back, keeping his hands on my shoulders. I held onto his arms, both for comfort and to make sure he was steady. “You’re a young man now. Just because I’m your Dad doesn’t mean I’m always right. And it doesn’t mean you aren’t allowed to tell me that.”
I nodded, wiping beneath my eyes before any tears could escape. “Promise me you’ll be more careful.” He opened his mouth, but I spoke again. “Promise.”
“Remember when you headed off to college and I told you to grab life by the balls and not let go until you got what you wanted? Well, I think you’ve learned exactly what I was trying to teach you.”
“You said the stubbornness of Kennedys will drag us out of the gutter one day.”
“And it has. That’s why we’re all here right now, together despite everything. It’s probably how you got someone as kind as Oli on your side.”
“Me and Oli aren’t just friends,” I blurted.
His brows shot up, then he started to laugh. “We know.”
I shrugged. “I figured, but you hadn’t said anything.”
“How long’s it been?”
“Like, a week and a half.”
“Are you pulling my leg?” When I shook my head, he blew out a breath. “What you have there—it’s intense already.”
“I know, but I don’t think there’s any slowing it down at this point.”
“Just be careful, alright? A relationship will always change you, but don’t sink so deep that you can’t find yourself when things get hard. And they will get hard.”
“I’m ready for that.”
He smiled softly. “Nobody’s ever ready for it. As long as you’re both willing to face it and to fight, there are few things that can break you.”
“Should I feel honored to be getting the relationship talk?”
“I was going to give it to you over winter break, but it seems fate had other plans.”
“Speaking of plans, where’s Mom?” I glanced around as if she would appear out of nowhere.
“She went into work for a couple of hours.”
“Already?”
“Don’t worry, Dr. Matteo will send her back soon. She has twenty years of ER experience. That habit of going, going, going has to be trained out of her.”
“He seems like a good boss to have.”
“Oh, he’s the best. Believe me, I wasn’t sure at first when she told me about it. Like when you said you were moving in with Oli, I thought it had to be a scam.”
“Did this job really just land in her lap?”
“She calls it her good karma. I say it’s a little bit of luck. Things usually turn out best when we work together, so let’s call it both. She deserves it.”
“And more.”
A door closed, but before I could get my hopes up, I heard heavy footsteps. I didn’t know when I’d started to recognize Oli’s. Maybe it was from hearing them in my sleep while he paced around the apartment, or I’d started to listen for them when I was alone.
“Where’s everyone?” Blake asked, coming into the kitchen to take the rest of the coffee. His eyes were only half open and his hair was a mess from sleep.
“Mom’s at work,” I answered.
He stopped pouring the coffee for a second, then continued with a frown. “That didn’t take long.”
Even though I’d said something similar, his words were laced with bitterness. I gripped the handle of my mug tightly and met Dad’s eyes. He offered me a smile, but I knew he’d noticed too.
“I have all of you here to keep an eye on this old man,” Dad joked. “Hey, we could go get some lunch together.”
Blake nodded, and the tension began to ease from around his mouth. “Maybe. Just me, you, and D.” He looked at me, and I read the full meaning in his dark eyes.
“Do you think we could go on a walk?” I asked. “Me and you.”
He studied me for a second, then nodded. “Let me change.”
When he was gone, Dad gave me a meaningful look. “You two aren’t going to fight, are you?”
“Not physically.”
“Do you need to talk about it first?”
I considered it for a minute, then shook my head. “Afterward, if things don’t go well. Maybe we can figure it out together.”
He grasped my shoulder, squeezing it hard. “I’m proud of you.”
My stomach somersaulted, just like it did any time he said that. With a dip of my head, I headed out of the kitchen, but his voice stopped me at the edge.
“And D?” Turning around, I saw him carefully sit in his wheelchair, bringing his coffee with him. “I promise, alright?”
My nostrils flared, but I just nodded.
Blake was already at the door when I got there.
He was silent, just as I was. Together, we walked outside, taking the same path down the sidewalk that we used to.
We cut through a park, then navigated through overgrown brush until we came out next to the creek.
It wasn’t all that nice in the daylight, what with the trash that always littered it, but it was the tiniest slice of nature in our old, concrete-lined city.
“I talked to Oli,” I said when we’d been walking beside the water for a few minutes.
“Ah, so he’s a narc.”
“Don’t joke right now.”
His toe hit one of the pebbles, sending it skittering across the rocks. “You’re too damn serious sometimes, you know that?”
“I’m serious when I need to be,” I countered. “Like when my brother insults my boyfriend.”
Coming to a stop, I turned to face him. He did the same, and in that moment, we weren’t two kids with five years separating us. We were grown men, full of our own dreams and fears and values and people who we loved separately from each other.
One of us had enlisted at eighteen, desperate to get away from home despite the way it made our mom cry when he told her.
She hadn’t done it in front of him. No, she was too proud for that.
Too strong. It was after he left for his last shift at the movie theater that she’d broken down in her room, and even my dad couldn’t console her.
She’d lost part of her husband to the army.
It was a wound that would never heal, and now I feared that the rift between her and Blake was another one.
And yet, when he left for basic, she told him she was proud of him and kissed him on the cheek.
He’d called every week, but she wasn’t home even once when that phone rang.
I’d never let myself wonder why that was, too afraid of the answer, or of what it would do to what remained of our relationship.
As I looked at him, my fingers curled into fists. “You’re selfish.”
His brows rose. “I’m selfish? D, I’m trying to protect you. That’s my job.”
“No, it’s not. If it was, you wouldn’t have been so quick to leave when I was thirteen. You’d call me more than once a month, if that. You’d talk to Mom more than just holidays.”
He scoffed, looking away from me. “My relationship with Mom has nothing to do with you.”
“Of course it does! We’re family. That doesn’t end with one of us.”
“Is this about her or Oli, because I’m fucking confused.”
“Both, but right now, him.” I glanced at the slow-flowing current. “You called him a stray? That’s not okay.”