Page 29 of Keep You Close

“Good thing your chair is all charged up,” I said as we parked in the main lot in the center of town. We’d decided a little Italian place was calling to us, and I was suddenly having dreams of some really good penne vodka. And bread. All of the bread.

About twenty minutes later, we were seated at a table with a basket of bread and a little dish of herbed olive oil for dipping.

“So, you’re not from Navesink Bank, right?” Atlas asked as we both picked at the bread. “When you talk about it, it sounds… new to you.”

“It is. Just since a few weeks before I started renting your house, actually,” I told him. I went ahead and left out all the other details.

“What made you settle here?”

“I actually don’t know really,” I said, aside from nearly running completely out of money, that is. The thing was, a quick online search told me that Navesink Bank wasn’t exactly the most reasonable place, financially, to call home. “It just… felt right,” I added. “I can’t explain it. I was walking Samson down the road and I just got this feeling of home. You know?”

“No, I mean… I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head. “I guess nowhere has really ever felt like home.”

“Ever?”

“We moved around a lot. As little kids with my mom. There wasn’t a lot of money. Especially after she got sick and her medical bills started piling up. Then after she passed, we were with King, and there was even more moving around. A fuckton of moving around. Never stayed anywhere longer than a few months.”

“Is that why you travel so much?” I asked. “Because it’s what you’re used to?”

“I think that’s part of it, yeah. I got to see almost all of the States growing up. But there was so much else to explore. But then there’s the love of the thrill of doing new or crazy shit.”

If he didn’t even know what home felt like, I could honestly see why he didn’t think twice about not being in his own home much.

“Don’t you miss your family?” I asked. “Since you moved around so much with them,” I clarified.

“We all crashed here for a while when Scotti got with Mark. And everyone else was eager to start putting down roots. I just… wasn’t ready for that. Back then, I was in the area more than I was gone, though. I needed the money, so I worked for King. Then as soon as I had enough, I was off again. I was lucky to have a brother who would put up with that bullshit.”

“Kingston seems like an all-around great guy,” I said.

“He is. The man doesn’t have a flaw,” Atlas agreed. “Was really fucking happy when he got with Savea. He deserved that kinda happy.”

“All your brothers have wives, right?” I asked. Even though I knew the answer, thanks to my handy dandy list of phone numbers.

“Hard to believe someone actually wanted to put up with Nixon for life, right?” he asked, shooting me that smirk I liked so much.

I’d met Nixon briefly. And, yeah, he was kind of a grump. But a lovable sort of grump. Always picking at Atlas, but just as willing to take a ribbing too.

“He’s the one who is with the, like, whiskey heiress or something like that, right?”

“Right,” he agreed, nodding. “You know all about my family. I know nothing of yours.”

“Because I don’t have any,” I said, shrugging off the pang of hurt, of need. “We were a very small family. And then my parents each passed. Now it’s just… me.”

“Oh, sweetheart,” Atlas said, those gooey eyes of his looking so sad for me. As if I needed more reasons to like him.

“I really envy your family,” I admitted. “You have such a big circle around you. That must be so nice.”

“You must think I’m a real dick, huh?” he asked, making me stiffen, my belly twisting hard. An old, familiar feeling. That worry I’d screwed up. That I said the wrong thing.

“What? No!”

“It’s okay,” he said, watching me with those eyes I swore saw just a little too much sometimes. “I meant because I have this big circle and I don’t spend any time with them. When you, clearly, would like to. They’d totally fucking adopt you, by the way. That’s how they are.”

“I don’t think that about you, though,” I said, shaking my head. “I just… don’t understand it, is all.”

“Guess I don’t really either,” he admitted, then looked really far away, like he was trying to wrap his head around why he did things the way he did.

Luckily, the server showed up to save us from the awkward turn of the conversation.

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