Chapter 36 Lucas
lucas
The plastic catheter in my arm pales in comparison to the level of discomfort I feel staring at the man standing at the end of my bed. The man I’ve known as Miller since I was nine is really my dad. The man I watched being lowered into the ground when I was seven.
My brain can’t reconcile the two: the man I watched lowered into the ground, and the man whose shadow fills this room now. I stare at the white sheet over my legs like it’s the only thing tethering me to reality. Looking at him feels like a risk I can’t take yet.
“If this is some sort of sick joke…” My voice shakes. I hate that it shakes.
He doesn’t move. Doesn’t offer me any placating words. “It’s not.”
My head snaps up. How did I not realize it sooner?
His voice may be deeper, rougher, but it’s still his.
The same cadence that used to tell me bedtime stories when I refused to go to sleep.
The warmth that used to wrap around me like a shield.
My heart struggles to believe what my eyes are seeing. “This whole time, you’ve been here?”
He nods, his Adam's apple bobbing as he swallows. “I had to keep you safe, kiddo.”
Kiddo, the word acts like a nuclear bomb. “Don’t,” I choke out, “Please don’t call me that.”
His expression doesn’t fluctuate, but I see the flare of pain there. The kind that's lived in him longer than I’ve been an adult. “I didn’t have a choice. I knew they’d come after your mom, and when they threatened her, I could only work in the shadows.”
I bark out a breathless laugh, one that burns on the way out. “You didn’t work in the shadows, though.” Anger laced my words, aimed at the man who left me behind. “You coached me. Had dinner with me. You watched me fall apart on the anniversary of your death every freaking year.”
My voice cracks, and I drag in a long breath before looking back at him. “You let me think I wasn’t good enough, year after year, visit after visit with mom. And you said nothing.”
His hands flex at his side, like he’s fighting the urge to reach for me, jaw clenched tight. “If I had told you, they would have come after you, Lucas. They needed to believe I was gone. You needed to believe it, too.”
“Bullshit.” The word scrapes from my throat. “You had twenty years to come clean. And you waited until I almost died?”
He steps closer, his steps calculated. “You weren’t ready. Neither was Scarlett.”
A broken sound escapes me, half laugh, half sob. “You watched me grieve you,” I whisper. You watched me break over and over, begging the world to bring you back to me.”
His breath shudders. “You were the only reason I stayed alive, Lucas.” I watch as his blue eyes fill with tears. The words land like a punch, and the ridiculous noise of the machines starts to beep more rapidly.
“Did mom know?”
He shakes his head. “No.”
“Now what?” I ask, voice void of emotion. “We just pick up where we left off? Pretend I didn’t die a little bit when they lowered your casket into the ground? Act as if Miller was just some guy you were pretending to be?”
He sits on the edge of my bed, it’s the closest he’s dared to come since the truth came out.
“No. No pretending,” he says. “At the end of the day, I am Miller, but I’m also your dad, that hasn’t changed.
But you have, and I’m so proud of the man you’ve become, Lucas.
I’ll respect however you want to handle this.
I won’t pretend to know what you’re feeling, but I can promise to be here if you want me to be. ”
My hands clench the blanket. I want to hit him, shake him, and pull him into a hug all at the same time. But hell, those words, those eight words, I would have given up everything in life to hear them when things were too dark to see through to the other side.
I blink back the tears, looking up at the ceiling when I say, “You should have trusted me.”
“You’re right,” he agrees. “You were seven when I ‘died’, but you’re a man now.
I should have told you the second Scarlett came back.
We could have saved ourselves a lot of heartache if we had dealt with this together from the start.
But she wasn’t ready. She was mad at the world. I could have pushed harder, though.”
Damn it. I almost forgot about everything outside these walls. “The man who hurt her, Damien. Where is he?” I crack an eye, looking back at him.
A smirk crosses my father's face, “Jail.”
“And her dad?”
He looks down at the floor, “He’s been a little harder to track down. But both Scarlett and I have told the agents working his case that we’d testify against him.”
My eyes widen.
“It may not be enough to make up for the years of hell you’ve been through, but I’ll do everything I can to make the next part of your life the best. So will she.”
I’ve played scenario after scenario of seeing my dad again for twenty years. There was always screaming, crying, then silence because he was gone. But I never thought it’d feel like this. Like realizing home isn’t a place, but split between the two people who loved me through my childhood.
The wind burns against my cheeks as I skate another lap, pushing myself faster and harder than the previous one. I’m almost to the red line when my skate clips the ice wrong, causing me to stumble, sliding on my knees toward the boards.
My head hangs in defeat, unable to outrun the monsters in my head.
The ones telling me to go home and grab the bottle.
The ones that tell me to push harder, because if I leave it all here, there won’t be any energy left to pick it up once I get home.
The ones that tell me I have nothing left to lean on.
Not my mother’s silence. Not my childhood.
Not the lie my grief was built on. No, now it’s on me.
How I move forward from here is my decision.
There’s still a hole in my chest, one that seems to have carved itself out overnight.
One day, I think my dad’s dead, the next he pulls me from a car, and I learn he’s the man I’ve seen as a father for the last decade.
My dad is alive. He’s been alive this entire time, quietly inserting himself in my life, in ways a father would. Yet he’s kept his distance, kept up the facade that he’s just some ranch manager. Rage bubbles in my gut, flowing through my veins until my hands find my hair and I tug, hard.
I tip my head back and yell, the sound bouncing off the walls of the practice arena, hitting me from every angle. It’s not fair that I’ve done all this work to put myself back together, just to unravel again.
I meant it when I told Scarlett that I’ve been grieving my parents for a long time, but I don’t know how to act now that one of them is still here.
One of them watched me suffer for years.
Granted, he was always there to help me.
Always there when I needed someone, showed up to games when I played in town.
But never as my dad. Always as Miller.
Tears fall down my face, my breath coming out in harsh bursts as my fist hits the ice once.
Twice. Three times. I’d begged for one more day with my dad, and now that I have it, I don’t know what to do with it.
I don’t want to waste it, but I also don’t know that I can just say, ‘Okay’ and move on with our lives.
My legs push out behind me so that I’m starfished flat against the ice. Time passes in a blur, and I stay in that position long after my cheek goes numb.
I am a pretty tough guy. I’ve been dealt a lot, and yet I’m still standing. Still trying, and whether that’s for me, or the people around me, I don’t know. But I know I show up, I know I put in the work, and I know I’m enough for the people who matter.
I roll over to my back, staring up at the buzzing lights that hang overhead.
My ribs expanding as I try to regulate my breathing.
I haven’t actually been cleared to be here.
The doctor would probably tell you the trauma to my head should keep me from driving and off the ice for a week or so, but I felt like this was the healthiest way for me to work through my jumbled thoughts.
I mean, I could have one hundred percent asked Lettie to call me a good boy, maybe tie me up this time, but she’s got enough going on with her own father, and truth be told, I wanted to deal with this myself. If for no other reason than to prove that I could.
That I’m capable of standing on my own, even if I don’t want to.
My phone vibrates in my back pocket. I smile before I even take it out because I know I’m about to get my ass handed to me.
“Hey, pretty girl.” My voice echoes through the empty rink.
She huffs. “No, don’t you butter me up. Why does it say you’re at the rink?
My smile grows at her annoyance, “‘Cause I’m at the rink.”
“LUCAS THEODORE MONROE!” She screeches, “You get your ass back here right now.”
I start to respond, but she cuts me off. “No, you’re not even supposed to be driving. I’ll come get you.”
I look up to see Sammy standing on the other side of the glass. He nods in acknowledgement before walking toward the tunnels. Seems like I’m not the only one trying to outrun demons today. “Lettie, I’m okay. Sammy’s here, I’ll have him drop me off.”
She’s silent for a second, and I can picture the way she’s biting down on her lip, debating on whether or not she’s going to let that slide. “I needed to blow off some steam. I didn’t want to wake you up. This was the healthiest way I know how to deal with things.”
She blows out a raspberry before giving in. “Okay. I was just worried when I woke up, and you were gone.”
Damn it, I should have left her a note or something. A text, even, what the hell was I thinking? You weren’t. Obviously. “Sorry, pretty girl. I didn’t mean to. That’s on me, I should have let you know.”
“I love you,” she whispers. “Are you okay?”
I chuckle. It’s been such a journey getting this version of her back. But damn, I love that she’s more and more herself every day. “I’m good. Thank you for checking on me. I love you, too.”
“You coming back anytime soon?”
I push up, steadying myself, before I’m skating off the ice. “Let me find Sammy. I’ll figure it out. But I’m really fine to drive.”
“Lucas…” She warns.
Pushing through the door to the locker room, the music coming from the gym is deafening.
“Holy shit. Um…” I say into the phone as I stare through the window of the gym door.
Sammy is bench pressing a ridiculous amount of weight with no spot.
“Lettie, I gotta go. I’ll keep you updated, but I have to get my skates off before someone drops a loaded barbell on his chest.”
I can practically hear her eyes roll, “You two and your ridiculous coping mechanisms. Tell him I said hi.”
I love that she loves my friends, but more so, I love the friendship they have. They feed off each other in a way that rivals how the team does. I quickly unlace my skates, tossing them to the side before I tear the door open. Pantera assaults my ears the second I’m through the doors.
His grunts are barely audible over the heavy drum beat. “The hell are you doing?” I ask, as I look at him over the bar. He sighs, pushing up and forcefully re-racking the weight.
He sits, turning until he’s facing me. “I can’t stand that guy.”
My brows furrow. There’s no one else here. At least not that I saw, he throws his hands in the air before standing up. “Not the time or place. Come on.”
He swipes the towel from the bench, heading toward the locker room. “Can you take me home? Lettie’s already pissed I drove here.”
I call behind him. Turning to look at me over his shoulder, he smiles. “Mi hermana tiene razón en estar enfadada.”*
“I hate it when you two do that.” And they do it all the time, speak in Spanish when they know the rest of us can’t understand. They do it on purpose, the conspiring pair they are.
His deep chuckle rumbles low in his throat. “Come on, little buddy, let’s get you to your keeper.”
This asshole.
* My sister is right to be angry