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“Good. I should get going. Leave you to your plans.” He started out but peeked his head back in. “I hope I get an invitation.”
I laughed, shaking my head. “Bye, Charles.”
He left and I locked the door behind him.
A few days later, Joe was finally released from the hospital, and I didn’t go to the Club. I wanted to be home when he arrived. We decided that Joe would live with us, much in the way Big Bob had. We could keep an eye on him while he was healing, and when he was better, he could go back to being a driver.
Part of me wanted to find him something else to do. Picturing him in the car made me think of Big Bob’s body lying next to him, dead. But Joe wanted things to go back to normal. He wanted to go back to being my driver, so I relented and gave him what he wanted.
I helped make up his room and get it ready for him. We had already moved his stuff in, which wasn’t much. Two suitcases and some books. His stuff was mostly books, which surprised me. I never thought of him as a reader, and some of them were books I had read.
When he walked through the door with Nate trailing behind him, I ran over and hugged him. Then I realized what I did and quickly released him, not wanting to hurt him.
“You never hug me.” Nate pooched out his lip, pouting.
I smacked him on the shoulder and then pulled him in for a hug, too. “Happy now?” I asked when I released him.
He nodded as a smile appeared on his lips. Men.
“We have your room all ready for you, Joe,”Padresaid, shaking his hand.
“Thanks for this,” he said to my father.
There was a hint of a smile but not quite. My father seemed too tired to smile. It looked like it was all he could do just to stand in the foyer. “Happy to have you.”
“Nate, can you show him to his room?” I asked, wanting a moment alone with my father. There was more to his health than he was telling me.
“Sure.” Nate smiled as he placed his hand on Joe’s shoulder, nodding down the hallway. “Come on. I’ll show you where it is.”
Once they were gone, I turned to my father. “You okay?”
He sighed. “I’m okay, Addie.”
“Come on.” I slid my arm around him, something I had never been able to do before. He was always much too thin now, thinner than he had ever been before. “Let’s get you to bed so you can rest.”
He didn’t protest or try to argue at all. I gently guided him back to his room and tucked him into bed. But this time, I laid next to him instead of leaving. “Do you think this is going to work?” I asked, breaking the silence.
“You being the boss?” He was quiet for a moment. “I do. It won’t work in the same way it worked for me. You’re going to have to forge a new path, but I know you can make it work. You can make them respect you. You just have to…”
“I have to what?” I knew what he was going to say but I asked anyway.
“Be nicer. You want to think that the heads of the family don’t matter because of how they treat you, but they do.” He let out a deep breath. “I know you rely on Nate, but relying so heavily on one person isn’t good, for him or for you.”
I took a deep breath. “I know. I trust him, though.”
“I know. I do, too. And now Joe is back, so that’s good. You can trust him, too. And I know you think Joe is… less than smart, but he’s more than that. So much more than you know or realize. You can trust him, too.”
“Who else can I trust, Kent—”
“You can’t trust Kent. You can never trust Kent.” He shook his head. “The only thing you can trust him to do is work in his own best interest. If something will get him what he wants, he’ll do it. If not, he’ll vote against it.”
“I always thought he was my friend.” That was, until he spoke against me at the first meeting after I came back.
“Kent was Reggie’s friend and no one else.”
Something clicked. “In my last talk with Kent, he brought up Reggie. He seemed annoyed that I didn’t feel bad about what I did to him. And I still don’t.” I let out a deep breath. “I need to keep my eye on him.”
“Yes, you do,” my father agreed. “He’s very analytical and likes to see how things play out before he makes a move. Watch him. He’s family but watch him.”
