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His smile was weak, but a spark of recognition flickered in his eyes, making me hope again.
“Okay, son. Thanks for sticking with me.”
“Always, Dad,” I replied, patting his shoulder. “Now, how about we head home? I could use some company on the way.”
He nodded, letting me help him to his feet. As we leftthe store, Gregory gave me a sympathetic nod, and I returned it with a grateful smile. It wasn’t easy, but I wouldn’t let Dad be alone, no matter how tough it got. We’d face this together. I wondered if, in his more lucid moments, he remembered he had a gay son that he’d rejected as a teenager and whether he had it in him to care now. I was either a small child or a grown man in his world, no longer the teenager who’d left for college with his father’s rejection burning in his chest.
“There you are!” Mom announced with all the drama she could muster, fluttering around Dad, pale and shaky but smiling as if nothing was wrong. She sometimes denied anything was wrong with him and waded through life as if everything were okay, believing that one day he’d wake up and be fixed. Only, he was close to the point where he needed care, and all too soon, Mom would have to sit with me and Bessie and make those final decisions.
That is where my focus should be. Not on Connor.
I didn’t have time to think about anything besides work and family.
Particularly not the taste of Connor and the need burning inside me.
Chapter Seven
CONNOR
This morning,the diner was a mix of blustery cold and warm comfort, thanks to the window guy fixing the glass. Occasionally, a gust of wind would sneak in, but nothing was moving me from my early morning connection to caffeine and one of Noah’s breakfast sandwich surprises. The surprise this morning was that there was more bacon than bread, which made me smile.
I was in my usual spot, my back to the wall but at the front—a habit ingrained from years of training and knowing exactly where everything and everyone was at any given time.
“More coffee?” Merle asked when he was already pouring it.
I smiled and thanked him. A man of few words, he didn’t start talking to me, which I was grateful for, given that I had so much on my mind.
Well, I had Neil on my mind.
My phone rang, and when I saw who was calling—myformer CO, Oberon Walters—I had this bad feeling he wasn’t calling to chat.
“Are you somewhere private?” Oberon asked without the usual banter that marked our infrequent phone conversations.
“Hang on,” I answered, grabbing my coffee and heading up the stairs to my apartment. I nodded to Merle out of habit as I passed him, but my mind was already far away, trying to brace for whatever was coming.
Once inside, I shut the door behind me, taking a deep breath before answering.
“Go on,” I said. The familiar view from my window stretched out over the road, but it didn’t offer comfort. I could feel the tension knotting in my chest.
“You’re on speaker. Trick’s here too.”
Was this a team conference call? The only person missing was Lee ‘Donnie’ Donovan, and I knew.
Iknew.
That knot tightened. “Where’s Donnie? What happened to him?”
Oberon’s voice softened as if that would make it easier. “Car accident.”
Grief and shock floored me as the words hit hard. My breath caught in my throat, and I stared out of the window, trying to process what I’d just heard.
“When’s the funeral?” I asked, thinking ahead.
“His fiancée doesn’t want us there,” Oberon said. “We have to respect that.”
“She didn’t want us at their wedding either,” Trick reminded us, although I hadn’t forgotten.
I’d met Deborah, or Deb as Donnie called her. It was abrief meeting at last year’s reunion. She was a sweet, shy schoolteacher who wasn’t comfortable around us—his old team, the ones who’d fought beside him, who’d seen Donnie at his best and his worst. I guess we were a reminder of the life he’d led before her, a life forged in fire and violence, and no matter how much we tried to clean up, to be presentable, that darkness clung to us like a shadow.
