Chapter 30
Cal
The first thing I see when I unlock Cocktails & Chaos late the next morning is a tripod in the sand directed right at the front of the bar.
It’s out of place. Not a beach umbrella, abandoned beach chair, or a tent for a family to set up, reserving their spot.
No, a freaking camera on a tripod with a long black lens pointed directly at the bar.
I stand there for a second with my keys still in the door. A guy in sunglasses hovers near the tripod and nods at me like we’re acquaintances, as if he’s not here to ruin our lives.
“Morning, Cal.” He waves.
I shake my head and don’t answer. I step inside and begin the inventory and paperwork.
I tried to sleep after Silvie left, but I couldn’t. I wish I’d gone with her. I wish she’d just stayed. I wish for a lot of things, but that doesn’t mean any of them will happen.
Five minutes later, I hear it. “Hey, kid.”
I look up, and the paparazzi with the tripod is talking to Noah, my seventeen-year-old busboy, who is walking up to the back of the bar.
Noah stops and looks at the guy, confused about who he is. “I’ll give you two hundred bucks if you tell me some information that I need.”
Noah glances at me and back at the guy.
The guy smiles and asks him a few questions. “What time does Silvie get here and leave?”
Noah shakes his head and backs away.
The guy continues as if this is a normal conversation. “Five if you tell me good information.”
That’s when I move and walk straight across the sand and step between them. “You’re done.”
The guy doesn’t back up. “Relax. Just asking questions. Not a crime.”
“You’re harassing a minor,” I add. “And trespassing.”
He shrugs. “Information’s information.”
“You’re trying to buy pieces of my life.”
He laughs under his breath. “You married into headlines, buddy. Comes with the territory.”
I step closer. “Step over that rope and I’ll call the police. Talk to my staff again, and I’ll make sure you’re ruined.”
He studies me for a second, as if gauging whether I’m serious, then backs up. He doesn’t pack up and leave. He just stays within the boundary he knows he can’t cross.
I shake my head and pull Noah inside and get to work.
“Sorry,” he mutters.
“You didn’t do anything wrong, buddy. It’s okay.”
By noon, there are three more SUVs parked along the beach access road, and locals are staring and talking. Tourists are searching for the person they’re stalking. And every time I look over, there’s a lens pointed at me.
One of the regulars claps me on the shoulder. “Must be nice, huh? Marrying into millions. Don’t understand why you’re still working at the bar.”
I shake my head because I know he’s joking. But it still lands wrong.
My shift is almost over when an older guy, maybe fifty, takes a seat at the bar. I note the expensive watch on his wrist and his clothes that look perfect. He’s going bald and I note the thick gold wedding band on his finger. He glances around the bar and his eyes land on me.
Fucking great.
I don’t look up and Marina helps him. He nods in my direction and she braces herself. I ignore him and continue my closing tasks.
He waits, still refusing when Marina offers him a menu. He’s not here to eat and drink. He wants to talk to me.
He scoots down a few stools and says, “Are you Cal?”
I sigh and grit my teeth. Here we go.
He holds up his hands in surrender. “I’m not a reporter. I see you have a lot of those around here.”
I glance over at him. “What do you want?”
He leans in and lowers his voice. “I’m your father.”
I stare at him.
Then I go back to wiping down the bar. “Right.”
I’ve had so many lies spewed at me. This, by far, is the one taken the farthest. The audacity.
“Marina,” I call without acknowledging this asshole. “I’m out. Travis here?”
“Just got here,” she calls. “Have a good night.”
Travis steps up, and I nod at him and turn to leave. Footsteps follow me. Of course they do. These people are relentless.
“How is Carly?” the man asks behind me.
I spin so fast, I almost see red and step into his space. “I don’t know who you think you are,” I grit out. “But leave me alone.”
“I’m your father,” he says calmly. “It’s true.”
The words hit me in the gut like a punch.
“Prove it,” I grit out, glaring at him. But he is my height and has dark hair like mine. But that means nothing to me because my cousin Remy and I look alike, so I always thought I took after my mother’s side.
“I met your mother while my family vacationed here for the summer. We were young and dumb. I went off to college. That’s it.”
He says it like he didn’t just abandon my mother. Cast her aside like she was garbage. Like he left his sweater behind at his vacation villa.
Like she had a choice in the matter and wasn’t just left pregnant and alone at eighteen.
The fucking audacity of this man. But I let him continue because if he is who he says he is, I want to know why. I have always wanted to know why.
“I always wondered what happened to her,” he continues.
“What happened to her?” I echo. “Are you fucking kidding me right now?”
He shrugs. “When she said she was pregnant, it was too much for me. I was headed off to college. I told her to get rid of it but I see that she didn’t.”
Get rid of it. Get rid of me. Wow.
“What’s your name?”
“Neil Harrington.”
Harrington. “Like the Harringtons of Harrington Holdings?”
He looks taken aback. “Yeah. How did you know that? I mean...I guess you’re married to a Montclair, but I didn’t realize you knew about my family.”
My family. That’s laughable. As if we don’t share the same DNA.
“Sometimes I wish things had worked out differently,” he says, almost thoughtfully. “You could have had more opportunities as a Harrington than being a bartender in Coconut Beach.”
My vision narrows. And he continues. I’m seething.
“Although I do think it’s funny you ended up married to one of my family friends. I do business with the Montclairs. We’re competitors, I suppose. But I’ve known them a very long time.”
“You are such a piece of shit,” I bite out.
He sighs. “I did what I thought was best. I was a kid too, you know.”
“Joke’s on you, asshole,” I say. “I went to NYU and studied finance.”
His eyebrows lift slightly in surprise.
“And I got a master’s in business. Top of my class.”
He stands up straighter, studying me now. He judged me, and he doesn’t even know me.
“I worked in finance in New York,” I continue.
“Why are you working here as a bartender then?” he asks, looking confused.
I don’t miss the way he says it as if I’m a felon or doing something wrong.
There’s nothing wrong with working as a bartender.
And the fact that he’s judging me on this tells me everything I need to know about this man.
He doesn’t need to know anything about me, and definitely doesn’t get to know anything about my mother.
“You have no right to come here and judge me. You don’t even know me,” I practically spit out.
He frowns.
“You are absolute trash,” I say evenly. “And I’m grateful I didn’t have to know you.”
He doesn’t react the way I expect. He ignores my insults. “How’s your mother? What was it, six years ago, I last saw her? We talked, and she was upset, but is she still here on Coconut Beach?”
His casual words pierce me like a knife. Six years ago. My stomach drops and the pieces that I’ve been missing are now clicking into place.
Six years ago, I was in New York, starting my new job.
Six years ago, my mother stopped leaving the house.
She’d been bartending with Jonah at Chaos. Then suddenly she wasn’t. She stopped leaving the house. Canceled all plans. She had panic attacks. Severe anxiety. She started shrinking. Becoming a shell of who she was.
I stare at him, and the anger I feel toward him makes me see red. I feel dizzy as I stare at him.
“What did you say to her that day?” I ask.
He shrugs as if it isn’t important. “I don’t remember. I was here with my wife and kids.”
Kids. He has kids. I have siblings.
The words hit me even harder than I thought they would. I always figured that my biological father probably married and had a family. Sometimes I wondered if I had siblings.
I shake my head back to reality and stay focused.
He was here with his wife and kids on vacation. While my mother was here alone. Raising a kid while she was practically a kid herself.
“Look.” He spreads his hands like this is unfortunate, but inevitable. “We were young,” he says. “Things happen.”
Things happen.
I step closer again and shake my head in disgust at him. “You are really something.”
My hands are shaking so badly.
He looks annoyed now and defensive. “It wasn’t personal. I had a path. I couldn’t just derail my whole life.”
“So, you derailed hers instead.”
He scoffs and sighs.
“You have no idea what you did,” I continue.
He stiffens slightly. “I didn’t force her to have it.”
It. Meaning me.
He looks past me, over at the beach as if he’s remembering something. “I did wonder about her. About you.”
Bullshit.
“If you wondered,” I say, “You would’ve checked in. Made right by her. Instead, you just pretended we didn’t exist and went on about your life.”
He’s silent.
“I wasn’t sure I should,” he says finally.
“You didn’t want to know. You didn’t care,” I correct him.
That hits where I wanted it to.
“I’m here now,” he finally says.
I laugh and shake my head. “And why are you here? What could you possibly want?”
His jaw tightens.
“You’re here because my wife and I are on every headline right now, and you saw an opportunity. What is this? A power play for your company since you’re competitors?”
“That’s not fair.”
“Oh, you want to talk about fair?” I ask.
My chest feels like it’s cracking open. I remember my mom being a shell of a person when I came back to take care of her. She never would say what happened. Nobody really knew. I remember her saying how much anxiety and panic she felt when she would leave the house.
I remember one time she was crying and said she wasn’t enough. And now this man is standing in front of me and can’t even recall what he said to destroy her that day. Because I can’t think of anything else that could have done that destruction.
“Don’t come near me again,” I tell him. “And you don’t come near my mother or my wife.”
He opens his mouth to argue, and I step into him again.
“You are useless trash,” I say clearly. “And if you set foot on Coconut Beach again, I will make sure it’s the last time.”
He studies me and nods. And for a quick second, I see a flash of something cross his face that looks like regret. It’s not there long.
“As I said,” he mutters. “Things could have been different.”
“Yeah,” I clip. “You could have been a decent person.”
He walks away toward the parking lot and doesn’t look back.
My hands curl into fists, and I wish this meeting had never happened. Mostly, I want to go to my mom’s and find out what he said to her that day. What he could have said to her to make her feel discarded all over again and close in on herself.
And I think about how I built myself into the man I am without him.
My mother was always a hard worker and encouraged me to become the man I am today.
I chose her, this town, this bar, and Silvie.
He doesn’t get to choose when he becomes a part of my life.
He doesn’t get to act like I could have been more.
I am enough. And I didn’t need him to become it.