Page 41 of Redemption Ridge Vol II

“Is the book helping?” Owen asked.

“Guess we’ll find out after our visit to Texas.” A hard set to Tyler’s voice caught Owen’s attention.

A glance over at the passenger seat revealed Tyler rubbing his sternum. “Are you trying to get a jump start on dealing with the aftermath of coming out by assuming the worst?”

“Nice try, but we’re dealing with your trauma this weekend.” Tyler squeezed his hand. “And I meant what I said. I love all the versions of you.”

“And I love you too, which is why I won’t let you doomsday prep your emotions over the next month.”

Tyler snorted, and Owen knew without looking that he rolled his eyes.

“They’re going to get stuck like that.” Owen hadn’t believed Howie’s warning when he was little, and Tyler’s snort said he wasn’t buying it either.

“And neither of us have gone blind from jacking off,” Tyler replied.

Owen laughed and shook his head. “Please tell me your parents didn’t tell you that.”

“Nope,” Tyler said. “But one of my friends heard it frequently.”

“Did it stop him from trying?”

“Nope,” Tyler repeated.

Silence washed over the truck again, but it was the comfortable kind Owen loved—more like a comforting weighted blanket than a suffocating boulder pressed against his chest. He didn’t speak again until they reached the county line. “We’re going to arrive in town about an hour before my mom gets off work. Want to visit some of my old haunts and see if the ghosts of Trinidad past show up?”

Squeezing his hand, Tyler said, “There’s nothing to fear because I am your present and future.”

“Yes, you are.”

Just outside of Trinidad, Owen turned off the main road and headed to their first destination. If he wanted to paint a complete picture for Tyler, then it needed to start with the Evergreen Estates. He slowed as he approached the mobile home park but didn’t signal to turn in. There was no need to drive through the lots to give Tyler an impression of his humble beginnings.

The wooden sign in front of the property looked like no one had attempted to protect it from the elements since its installation decades earlier. Rot and warp had erased all but three letters, welcoming visitors to “gas” if you mushed them all together. He couldn’t think of a more appropriate name for what the park had become. The tract of homes facing the road looked like a row of neglected teeth—crooked, yellowed from neglect, and gapped where some were missing.

“This was the first home I can remember,” Owen said. “My dad died a few weeks before I was born, leaving my mom with no money to pay the rent. She moved in here with his best friend and eventually married him.” Owen sped up once they reached the edge of the property and turned right on the next road to take them back to the main county highway. His first instinct was to gloss over how his dad had died, but he wanted to be open and honest with Tyler. Owen might not have met Keith Doyle, but the man still had a profound influence on his formative years. “My dad got shot during a home robbery and died.”

“Baby, I’m so sorry.” Tyler’s rare use of the endearment made Owen smile despite the somber topic.

“To be clear, my dad was the one breaking the law. He was looking to make a big score and thought the wealthy homeowners were on vacation. Howie, my uncle, claimed my dad was unarmed, but people who get startled awake in the middle of the night shoot first and ask questions later. I never blamed them.” But Howie had resented the family until his dying breath.

“It was still a devastating loss to everyone who loved your dad, even if he was in the wrong,” Tyler said.

In Owen’s attempt to distance himself from his uncle’s influence, he’d forced himself to take the opposite opinions to Howie’s, who’d tried to make his dad out to be a modern-day Robin Hood. Maybe the truth was somewhere in between—that gray area people liked to believe didn’t exist. A reminder that two things could be true at the same time. Keith might have wanted to support his family, but he’d gone about it the wrong way and paid the ultimate price.

“I blamed my dad for everything that went wrong in my life, but I had to keep it to myself,” Owen said. “Howie had turned Keith Doyle into a tragic hero, and my mom never wanted to talk about him.”

“Do you think your uncle really believed that, or was that how he processed grief?”

“His favorite coping mechanism was to blame everyone and everything else for his troubles. He thought the Doyles were cursed because the universe was out to get us. Happiness and success were for other people. The only luck Doyles have is bad luck. The world and everyone in it was out to screw us over.” Owen sighed after repeating Howie’s biggest hits. “But I loved that crotchety bastard. He was the only consistent influence in my life, and I think he really tried to be a better man for our sake. Howie’s looming presence ensured none of the losers my mom dated or married laid a hand on us, and Howie took us in whenever those relationships inevitably failed.”

“He sounds like a complicated man,” Tyler said.

“Very.”

Tyler squeezed his hand. “But he must’ve loved you and your mom a lot.”

“He’d never said so, but he did. And we loved him too.” Owen’s chest ached, and he would have rubbed it like Tyler if he had a free hand.

Owen turned retrospective again until Trinidad came into view. The town council had attempted to revitalize the downtown area with vibrant awnings over business entrances, new sidewalks, and flower planters on every lamppost. The improvements on Main Street only lasted for a few blocks before the worn and weary took over. Perhaps it was just the start of something wonderful, or maybe it was further representation of the haves and have-nots Howie harped about until he was blue in the face.