Page 37 of So Bad It Must Be Good

Liam gave his father a doleful look as he fastened the box to the truck bed. “Neither are you, and yet you won’t retire.”

Dad grunted and let the subject drop as Liam had known he would. Dad didn’t want to discuss retirement, and Liam wasn’t sure he wanted to discuss Kayla quite yet, so that worked out all in all.

They both climbed into the company truck and Liam watched out the window as Dad drove them back home. Liam glanced at Dad, then shifted as casually as he could to pull his phone out of his pocket.

“I don’t suppose you’re calling your mother to let her know we’re on the way?” Dad asked, so innocently Liam snorted.

“No.” He warred with himself for a second, then went ahead and typed a text to Kayla, Dad’s smugness be damned.

Dad pulled the truck up the driveway of Mom and Dad’s house and they both got out. Dad gestured toward the door.

“Don’t suppose you’d want to come in and have dinner with me and your mom?”

“I, uh, have plans.”

“Of course you do,” Dad replied with a genuine smile, but it faded almost as quickly as it had bloomed. “Don’t suppose you know anything about where your brother’s disappeared to?”

Liam sighed and shook his head. “No.”

Dad sighed too and Liam noted how similarly it sounded to his. Was he already turning into his father? Did that bother him? Liam wasn’t sure. He loved and respected his father more than any other man in his life, and he . . . Well, he had certain flimsy ideas of what a future might look like some day, and it looked a heck of a lot like what Dad had built.

“Your mother’s worried,” Dad said, taking his hat off his head and mashing it between his hands. Mom never let him wear it in the house.

“Should we be?” Liam asked, feeling a little prick of guilt over the fact he hadn’t concerned himself with Aiden’s disappearance.

Dad shook his head as he stared at the house, as though he could see Mom worried inside of it. “Doubt it. He told your mother he’d be gone a few weeks ‘tying up some loose ends,’ but she thought he was acting squirrelly.”

“Isn’t he always?” Liam muttered before he could stop himself.

“That’s what I said.” Dad smiled, but the serious look in his eye gave Liam pause.

“Everything okay?” Liam asked, as casually as he could. Though he knew his dad could be serious when it came to business and what not, his usual outward demeanor was one of jovial good fun. But in the years since his heart attack, serious moments seemed to creep up, and they never failed to make Liam uncomfortable.

“I hope you know how much your mother and I appreciate you.”

Liam could only stare, wide eyed and frozen at his father’s uncharacteristic show of gratitude.

“I . . . Sure. Sure, I do,” Liam said, though considering the shock the statement had produced in him, maybe he hadn’t quite. Or maybe it was nice to hear.

“You’re the glue, Liam. Always have been. Glue can get overlooked sometimes, because it’s not as flashy as the things it’s holding together, but it’s the most important thing. I know even as adults Aiden gets most of the attention, but that doesn’t mean we don’t appreciate the fact that you’ve stuck it out and worked hard for this family.”

“You sure everything’s okay?” Liam asked, because he couldn’t help but think this little speech spoke to a larger problem. It might be genuine, but it wasn’t ordinary.

Dad quirked a smile as he sighed. “Dinah Gallagher mentioned you have a table at that farmers’ market they’ve started over there.”

Liam had no words for that. He’d never planned on telling his parents about the farmers’ market, and never considered they might find out.

“If you aren’t happy . . . I don’t want to be the reason—”

“It’s a hobby, Dad. Honestly.” He stepped toward his father, not knowing how to put into words the complexity of what he felt. Patrick’s was something like his soul, the woodworking something like his heart, and that was shit he could not say to his father. “Patrick & Son means the world to me. The farmers’ market . . . It’s just a thing to do.”

Dad stared at him, something like pain etched on his face. Pain and age, and Liam hated seeing it there. Hated that insidious knowledge that his parents were aging, that he was aging, that no matter what he fixed or built, he’d never be able to make all this stay the same.

“Dad, I need you to believe that, because it is the God’s honest truth. Whether you want me to be part of Patrick’s or not, it’s mine.”

Dad gave a sharp nod and something of a forced smile. “Good. Good. Go see that woman of yours, then, and know we’d like to meet her whenever that’s something you want to do.”

“Uh. Sure.” It filled him with some feeling he couldn’t identify, the idea of bringing Kayla to dinner with his family. Not even because there could be weirdness with Aiden, but because he had no doubt she’d charm his parents within seconds, and she’d be charmed in return.

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