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I eye my son’s button-down and prim slacks. “Looks like you just walked off Wall Street.”
Jack rolls his eyes. “Your dad jokes aren’t even jokes.”
“Oh, come on, you love it.” I grin. “Beer?”
Jack sits at the counter with a heavy sigh. “Please.”
Jack works every day at the New York Stock Exchange.
I know it’s eating him from the inside out, how much work it is. I’m just glad he makes time for me, though, even when I haven’t been the best dad I can be.
I open a bottle of beer and slide it down the counter to my son before opening one for myself. “Was thinking pizza tonight.”
Jack sighs. “Fine.”
“Oh, come on, you love pizza.”
“Yeah, but I’m watching my macros. Trying to bulk up.” He holds his arm up to his side, flexing his well-developed biceps. “Pizza and beer? Recipe for disaster.”
I smile at my son.
Another thing he inherited from his mother is her inability to gain weight no matter what she ate. He’s tall andgangly, and I know he’s always felt like he has to measure up to Nate’s physique. “Girls like skinny guys, Jack.”
“I’m not just doing it forgirls, Dad.” He swigs his beer. “I’m doing it for me.”
Sure, kid, keep telling yourself that. “One night of pizza and beer won’t kill you.”
The front door opens, and my heart tries to fly out of my chest. “Unless there’s something you haven’t told me about your cholesterol,” I add as I head out to the front hall to greet Abigail and Nate.
“It’syourcholesterol I should be worried about, old man!”
I laugh.
When I enter the front hall, I have the wind knocked out of me by my daughter rushing into my arms and giving me a bear hug. “Hi, Daddy!”
“Hi, sugar.” I kiss the side of Abigail’s head, her auburn hair tickling my lips.
Abigail is the one I tried to do right by, at least compared to Nate and Jack.
Didn’t make it out of my twenties before I knocked up another woman. But this was my forever girl, Grainne.
Irish girl, hold the Catholic. Didn’t believe in marriage or settling down.
When she came to me with the positive pregnancy test, I was desperate to marry her.
Grainne wouldn’t budge. She was committed to her wildness.
And I loved that about her.
I stayed longer than I had with Clarissa or Mari. Abigail was seven by the time we split up.
I just didn’t feel like we even had anything to give each other.
In hindsight, her denial of marriage hurt more than I knew how to express.
I thought I had everything together. Was running Lyons Club all on my own by the time Abigail was born. Other than the fact we did things out of order, Grainne should have wanted me to marry her.
And she didn’t.
