Page 2 of Late Nights & Love Lines
Catching my wife fucking around with my ex-best friend slash soon-to-be ex-VP of sales at Walker Meridian during Seren’s middle school recital has turned our lives upside down.
My generally mild-mannered kids have been…acting out. Well, Seren has. We went through six nannies before I gave up and called in my grandfather.
Seren shrugs, then opens her door. “Thanks, Dad, but I told you.” She points to her forehead. “The music died.”
“It’s not dead, Ser. It’s sleeping,” Miles says, following her from the car. “Music can’t really die, it bends. Like a fishing pole. Right, Dad?”
I swear I must have swallowed razor blades—they slice my throat with each of my wife’s indiscretions.
If only I could agree with Miles. But I know the heartache of having the music stop, and when it does, the silence screams with the worst kind of pain.
“Music never dies,” my grandfather replies for me. “The chorus just changes is all. You’ll see, Seren. It lives in you, it’s a piece of you.”
She nods then slams her door. Her hair flies on the breeze as she heads toward the door marked ‘Office’ with a green hand-painted sign.
Closing my eyes and lowering my chin to my chest, I inhale deeply, listening to the noisy silence that happens in the forest—branches rustling, birds chirping, and if I strain, I swear the ocean waves whisper to me.
I hope I’ve made the right decision by bringing them here for the summer. Boston was slowly killing my little girl’s spirit, and in turn, killing me too. My ex-wife vanished immediately after the scandal, so she’s no help. Not that she was ever overly involved in their lives, but a girl needs her mom.
“Go get things settled in there. I’ve got the little fisherman,” my grandfather says softly, while I suck in air as though I’ve forgotten how to breathe. There’s an ache in my chest that’s been slowly gathering speed as a runaway ball of emotion threatens to decimate me. “And give her time. She’s got a lot to work through. I know you’re feeling all the guilt and fear of what’s to come, but she’s got something you never had growin’ up.”
Pinching the bridge of my nose, I keep my face lowered. I’m afraid to ask, but I do it anyway. “What’s that?”
When he doesn’t immediately respond, I lift my gaze.
“A father who will burn the world to the ground to give her a fresh start.”
I’ll do more than burn the world down, but I think he understands that.
“I thoughtI had another week to get everything ready,” Leo says from my left as we sit on the tired front porch of the office building.
I purchased the house from him and got the kids down here as quickly as possible. As the co-owner of Shoreline Adventures, he’s been working to get the camp ready for the season, and our arrival has probably thrown off his schedule. Somehow in all of this, I bought a house that shares Shoreline’s beach and became a silent partner in a kiddie camp.
That’s not something I ever thought I’d say, but Beck Hayes and Elijah Sinclair, the new partners in my actual business, are very convincing.
Beck said it behooved him to have me close. Who the hell saysbehoovedanymore? But I get what he’s saying. When Covid shut down the world, our luxury businesses—mine in corporate leasing, and his a luxury brand—suffered. The best way for us to recover is by joining our ventures. Once we do, we’ll be an unstoppable team, one that will skyrocket us back to the top of the market.
But Beck seems to have trust issues, even worse than I do, so he wants us all to be in person to prevent any chance of our merger going public to our competitors before we’re ready.
I take a look around the property while Leo taps something into his phone. Everything about this place has seen better days, especially the stairs that creak with age every time I shift my weight. I’ve already explained that, as far as I’m concerned, this was a land deal and he can do whatever the hell he wants with the camp.
It helps that Leo’s a good guy. I met him at his baby shower, of all things, when I came to meet with Beck and Elijah during my divorce.
“Sorry about this,” I say for the fourth time, silently cursing the Sinclairs for not giving him the heads-up that I’d be arriving before the nanny event in a few weeks.
His laughter is easy and loud. “No worries. I’ve known Beck since we were kids, and he’s out of his damn mind with a new baby in his house. Don’t get me wrong, fatherhood suits him, but he’s a bit of a tyrant when it comes to their care, so if having you here early gets him to calm the fuck down, I’m all for it.”
The benefits of coming to North Carolina are twofold for me. It gets my kids out of Boston, away from the fallout over their mother’s behavior. It also gets me closer to Beck Hayes and Elijah Sinclair, two people who had the ability to demolish my entire professional career if they had chosen to. Something else I have to thank my ex-friend for. Nick tied up every single one of my properties in this deal. If it goes south, or if Beck pulls out, they’ll lose some money, yeah, but I’ll lose everything. I never should have trusted Nick so blindly.
The only good thing he did do was introduce me to Beck and Elijah. They could have so easily turned and walked away after the scandal with my ex-wife hit the press, but instead, they chose to stand by me and my family. I’m still coming to terms with that.
I open my mouth to respond to his comment about Beck when the men in question walk around the corner. But I’ve never seen them like this.
Beck is holding a paint can and is covered in yellow paint. Elijah has his hands full of what appears to be cleaning supplies.
Elijah approaches me first. “I met your boys down at the beach. Kade is rolling around in the tide pools pretending to be a shark.”
My chest expands with warmth. At least one of them is happy. “Sounds about right. He’s got a lot of energy, but he’s a good kid.”
