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“How’s it going?” His pallor was obvious as we walked side by side through the foyer into the living room. He gestured to a deep plush couch that had been in the house since I first met the Bryant family. Worn and loved looking, as kids we would hangout watching movies on rainy weekends or move into the kitchen with Mrs. Bryant who typically kept cookies in stock for us growing boys. I used to fantasize about making a move immediately backing down. It didn’t matter now.
Paint chips littered the coffee table along with fabric swatches. She might have once been my Helen of Troy, but Taylor Jane was a bit of a leper with her art supplies. Surprisingly the disorganization lent to some of her best ideas, like that damn crown molding in the living room for one.
He smiled and grimaced simultaneously. Alan knew I wasn’t going to bullshit with him. He was keeping his health a secret from his daughter and while I respected the man his secrets, she was also the woman I cared for deeply, even if we weren’t together.
“Thank you for–you know.” His nod toward the kitchen must have meant he was back on the heart medications he should have never stopped taking in the first place.
“You’re going to have to tell her.”
“Or I might go peacefully in my sleep a few years from now. What would be the point?”
I hated to see him give up. “Preparing her for one–instead of springing this on her. She’ll be devastated either way.”
“Exactly and why would I want her spend the next few years worried about something we have no control over.” That grated because I knew if Alan took care of himself properly he could have a number of healthy years ahead of him and Taylor Jane wouldn’t be hurt in the process.
“Is that why you’ve left the house a virtual shrine and spent every penny making sure Taylor Jane had it all because someday it might get torn away from her?”
He changed the subject ignoring my question and I bit my tongue to keep from lashing out at him. I could be angry enough for both of us.
“I was here the day your dad and Damien brought you home. I don’t think you uttered two words the entire time. Sulking little shit back then, but you had promise. A spark I hadn’t seen in a good many years.”
I wasn’t sure what point he was trying to make.
“Your aunt Ginny told my wife over coffee and cookies what had happened to your parents. Shame really, but that tragedy turned you into the fine man you are today. Life teaches us many things, one being the test before we get the lesson.”
Dryly I asked, “What’s the lesson here, Alan?”
“You love her, take the jump.” He held out his arms as if to take a leap off the cliff and while I appreciated the sentiment, I couldn’t see myself doing that with her. I hadn’t exercised the demons in my past. I wasn’t good for her. However, that wasn’t the kind of thing you told a girl’s father and especially one who was holding back pertinent medical information. He tried to wring a commitment from me when I wasn’t ready. He could use blackmail and manipulation all he wanted but if he knew me that well, he also knew how poorly I responded to authority. Fuck, I had a whole garage filled with carved shit lining the shelves to tell that story all on its own.
I blew out a frustrated breath.
“It’s not that easy. If you know my story, then you know exactly why I’m no good for her. The fact is we both know that she is too good for me and deserves better. You of all people should understand that.” Frustration ate at my core. My dad was a violent miserable soul and for the most part I’d followed in his footsteps and that wasn’t what I wanted for her.
“If it helps I’d be proud to know you were taking care of her. Happily call you my son-in-law, but it do
esn’t matter what I want for my daughter. What matters is what she wants. I know she wants you and I know the love is there.”
There was that damn word.
Love.
It settled uneasy within me, not because I didn’t feel it or wasn’t capable, but because I felt too much of it, and it scared me shitless.
“She doesn’t want me. She wants a fairytale I can’t give her.” Standing I ran my hands through my shorn hair. The length was getting to me and I’d need the less frou-frou of the bunch over at the new hair place in town to buzz it off again.
“Don’t sell yourself short, Hunter. You can place my daughter on a pedestal all you want, son. Nobody is perfect. Remember the gumbo?” Alan smiled as if the memory was pleasant for him. My eyes must have rolled because he laughed; somehow I had never fully gotten over what happened. That was why I kept EpiPens on me even if she was nowhere around.
Taylor Jane was perfect in my eyes. A perfect pain in the ass on some days, but a beautiful disaster I wanted to keep, though I knew I shouldn’t. Wanting what you couldn’t have was half my problem and the reason I pushed her away so many times over the last few years.
“You need to tell her what’s going on with the house.” I gestured to the space around me as I pushed off the mantel of the fireplace.
“Could you bare it if she was with someone else?” It was a serious question, one I never considered.
I husked away from the mantle catching my breath.
“What about that dipshit, Crenshaw? Or that idiot at the bank.” Stranger though was Alan’s need to remind me, he wasn’t subtle in the least.
Logic told me to take another approach, one that was much less touchy feely.
