Page 67 of Returning Your Love
“What?” he asked, sitting across from me with a cold beer.
Still chewing, I shook my head. “How do you do it? Read my thoughts when I don’t speak a damn word?”
“You’re my son. I can always tell when you’re struggling with something. We’ve talked the losing season to death, so I’m assuming this is about Chaz?”
I nodded and spooned up a pile of sour cream onto my steaming potato. “He’s completely shut down. I don’t know what to do. Fucking hurts that I can’t be there for him. Hurts even more than the fact he isn’t interested in me.”
“I doubt that last bit is true.”
I shrugged. “Sure as hell seems that way,” I muttered. “Makes me want to stop texting to check in with him. Ignore him for a few days. See what happens—or doesn’t.”
“Don’t stoop to manipulation, Jamie.” Rarely did I hear disapproval in Dad’s voice, but that order? Loaded.
I huffed and exhale before digging into my meatloaf again. “Wouldn’t really do that. Just feeling…”
“A little moody? Sulky?”
A grunt was my reply, and Dad chuckled before sipping his beer.
I eyed the man who’d always been my oak. He’d gone through some shit with my mom, and even though she wasn’t in a cold grave, she’d disappeared from our lives as thoroughly as Shelly had Chaz’s.
Had Dad mourned even though Darla had been a piece-of-shit wife and mother?
Not that Shelly had treated Chaz any better in my opinion. She hadn’t deserved my best friend any more than my mom had Chief Sutton Forester, a highly respected man loved by almost everyone in Pippen Creek.
“How did you deal with Mom leaving? I mean, were you heartbroken? Go through those five or seven stages of grief?” I asked, watching Dad closely. I’d been fourteen, too caught up in my own bullshit to consider what he might have experienced in the wake of her abandoning us.
He glanced around the dining room with its lived-in manliness, the lack of her touch. It’d been over ten years since she’d taken off, and in that time, we’d both done a few purges to rid the house of any evidence she had ever existed.
“In some ways, I suppose I did. Her actions had completely blindsided me, but by then our marriage had been over for years.”
“It’s been a decade, Dad,” I said, studying the furrow between his eyebrows. “Think you’ll ever be ready to move on? Trust someone enough with your heart that you’d try again?”
A half-smile curved Dad’s lip for the briefest of seconds before dissolving completely. “Doubt it.” He took a long pull from his beer.
“Aren’t you lonely?”
“Sometimes.”
“Do you ever hook up? I mean, you haven’t been celibate since then have you?”
Dad shifted, his face actually flushing.
“Oh shit.” I chuckled. “Who is she?”
“Would you be grossed out if I said he?”
I huffed. “Come on, Dad. You know better. Wait. Dexter?”
“What?” Dad blinked, his head jerking back as though I’d slapped him.
“Dex,” I repeated. “He’s hot. Ever cross that line?” I waved my fork in front of me as though drawing one in the air.
“No—hell, no. He’s as far from my type as can be.”
“And what’s that?” I stabbed into another bite of meatloaf and chewed while Dad gathered his thoughts. We’d talked about sex aplenty, but I’d never pried into his personal life. But now, it felt good to be open with him about adult shit.
“Someone who needs me,” Dad finally said, twisting his bottle in his hand and taking a sip. “Wantsme as a partner. Let me care for them.”
