“Yeah, well, I had Crosby ask his friend for the hookup.He was pretty happy to do it.He’s a good guy.”
“But notthegood guy.”
Gideon’s cheeks heated.“Well, notmygood guy.”
“Why not?”
They were nearing the house now, and Gideon realized he only had a small pocket of this seemingly magical honest time to give a real answer.
“Crosby’s a nice guy,” he said after a moment.“And I am… not always.Carlyle isn’t always a nice guy either.I don’t have to worry about hurting him with my lack of niceness.”
His father made a distressed sound.“You seem nice to me and your stepmother,” he said.
Gideon gave a weary sigh, the kind that reminded him why he’d come home after his last deployment and slept for a month before going off to school.
“You and Trisha haven’t done horrible things to other people,” he said softly.“If I’m grateful for nothing else, Dad, I’m grateful that you’re both unequivocally on the side of the angels.”
His fatherhmmed slightly as he made the left turn up the long driveway to the solid, sweeping brick house.“I don’t know about angels, son, but you look tired.How about you nap in your room before dinner.”
Gideon nodded.“But first I hug Trish.”
“Who says you’re not a good boy?”
GIDEON’S “OLDroom,” which Trish had set up for him during high school and college when they’d visited the house in the summer, had been converted into a guest room about six months after he’d deployed.It sported a queen-sized bed with warm flannel sheets and a snuggly comforter with a linen duvet in the summer and a flannel covering in the winter.It had been done in warm, masculine colors with a soft carpet and pad under his feet, and he almost wished he’d let Trisha do his room as a kid, because the comfort here could not be denied.
Hedidsettle himself down for a warm winter’s nap before dinner, thank you, and he’d awakened trying hard to figure out if the darkness meant he’d awakened in the crotch of dawn or in the dark of the long winter afternoon, when his phone buzzed in its charger on the end table.
He picked it up and squinted at the text.
Made it.Fought.Left.Sleeping here instead.
The picture showed an almost idyllic snowscape, with a shallow divot carving its way into the side of a hill.
A cave.
I’m napping in flannel sheets with a floor heater under the bed, he typed back.Join me instead.
Sadist, Joey replied.But he didn’t say he wouldn’t, which meant he reallyhadspent his day fighting with his father.
I’m just trying to present you with viable options, Gideon texted.Don’t shoot the messenger.
Your life might not be so peaceful if I showed up at two in the morning.
Gideon’s chest seized.He didn’t even want to know how Joey would get from the wilds of Boston to Lake Erie, but he wanted him there badly.
My folks wouldn’t care, and I’d consider it my Christmas present.
Your Christmas present was my T-shirt so you didn’t forget who you belonged to.
I’m not forgetting.Come here and belong to me back.
His phone buzzed, and he hit the Call button.
“He wants me to quit and join the family business,” Joey said softly.
“You knew that might happen,” Gideon said, but inside he’d gone cold.He and Clint had kept their research of Joey’s father superficial because they needed some serious encryption to not trip every alarm the man had, but theyhaddone research and had both given Joey input on how to shut his father down.
Still, they’d known it would be dangerous.Gideon wouldn’t be okay until Joey was home.
