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“You don’t have to go to the trouble…”
“It would be my pleasure. I’ve avoided the past for so long and I feel like it’s time I finally take a stroll back and remember the good times.” Mr. Green walked to the living room, and Shane went to follow, but noticed Olivia turning away.
“Liv,” he said, and she spun toward him. “Will you…?” He didn’t know how to ask her to be there with him, to give him the strength he needed to get through this conversation. But it was as if she understood him just fine.
She joined his side, and they walked into the living room together. “Please sit,” he said to Shane. Shane took a spot on the loveseat, and Olivia sat beside him.
Her thigh pressed against his, and he relished in the comfort of her presence.
A little hairball ran into the room, planting his paws apart in a menacing stance. The dog couldn’t weigh more than six pounds. He barked with the viciousness of a teddy bear, and Olivia scooped him up. “This is John Andre.” John Andre licked her cheek then focused his dark brown gaze on Shane. “He doesn’t bite.”
Shane reached out to pet the little guy, and John Andre dodged his hand, staring at him with reservations.
“Don’t be a brat,” Olivia said to the pup, placing a kiss on the top of his head.
Shane tried again, and once his hand made contact, John Andre leapt from Olivia’s arms right into Shane’s. John Andre jumped up over and over, tongue flapping, trying to get in as many licks as he could.
A giggle came from Olivia. “He likes you.”
“He’s a good judge of character,” Mr. Green said.
A noise outside caught John Andres’s attention, and he jumped from the couch and ran full speed for the door, a string of barks following.
Olivia got up and opened the door. “Go get em!” she said as John Andre took off into the gated yard. Olivia returned to the loveseat, her thigh going right back against his. He resisted the urge to rest his hand on her knee and brought his focus to Mr. Green.
“Can you tell me what my dad was like?” Shane asked.
Mr. Green ran a palm over his mustache, and when his hand fell away, a smile spread wide on his face. Relief spread through Shane at the pure joy that radiated off of Mr. Green.
“Your dad was a real charmer. Could talk his way out of any situation, and though he was raised with unlimited wealth, he was the most down to earth person I’d ever met.”
“Where’d you meet? School?”
“Oh no. Shane’s parents would never put him in public school with the rest of us town folk. We met when we were thirteen. I was walking home from school, and these kids were picking on me. Shane rode up on his bike and got the kids to leave. He rode alongside me as I walked home, and we discovered our mutual love of Dungeons and Dragons.”
“My dad was a fantasy nerd?” Shane laughed.
“We weren’t nerds.”
“Dad,” Olivia said. “Yes, you were.”
“Maybe a little. Anyway, we started meeting up after school to play, and those kids never messed with me again. As we got older, our love for the game was overtaken by responsibilities and girls, but our friendship remained.”
“Olivia said you didn’t know why my dad finally left.”
Mr. Green shifted in his seat, eyes lowering beneath his wired frames. “I may have stretched the truth a bit.”
He didn’t look like the kind of man who lied; there was a soft innocence about him, and when Shane glanced at Olivia and saw the confused look cross her eyes, he knew that his original assessment was right.
“Can you tell me?” Shane asked. Mr. Green was his only hope at this point. He came to Morgan’s Bay wanting answers, and now that he was so close, he didn’t want to leave until he had them.
Mr. Green ran his hands over his knees “I don’t think it’s my place.”
“Please, you are the only person who is willing to speak with me about my dad without brushing my questions off. I just want to know why he left.”
For a moment, he thought Mr. Green would get up and walk out, but to Shane’s relief, the man stayed put. “Shane was in his father’s office when he stumbled across adoption papers.Hisadoption papers.”
A million scenarios had swirled through Shane’s mind about why his dad had left his family and an entire life behind. Never once did that scenario cross his mind.
