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“Oh? Is everything okay?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll see you when you get home, buster…”
“Thanks, Dad. I love you.”
“Love you, too.”
As he pulled up to the house, Luke felt a hammer of awareness in him seeing his dad sitting on the front porch, waiting.
It wasn’t angry or upset, just a concerning love a father felt for his son… even if he wasn’t his biological father. He’d been there forever, always open and accepting, and this man was his dad like no other.
He sat there, in his jeans, boots hanging off the concrete slab porch, dangling… with two beers beside him.
Point taken.
His dad wanted to talk –alone– man-to-man.
“Hey…” Luke said simply, getting out of the truck and walking up to the house.
“Hey yourself,” his dad said, smiling. “Take a seat.”
“What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” he smiled. “A man can’t sit with his grown son, ask how he’s doing, or wonder how things are?”
There was something in his father’s eyes, a shrewdness and understanding lurking in those depths, that caught him unawares. Oh yes, his step-dad ‘Toady’had always known when he was sneaking around or doing something mischievous.
“You know…” Luke said softly in amazement.
“Suspected…” he chuckled, leaning over and bumping his shoulder against his, handing him a beer. “I didn’t raise you from a three-year-old boy to not learn some of your thoughts, habits, and quirks, young man. You’re twenty-eight and stepping out into the world, wanting to take strides in learning who you are, what you want to be, and becoming your own person. I get that… but sometimes things stay the same, too.”
“What do you mean?”
“Still hate broccoli?”
“Ugh…” Luke said, shivering with disgust. “Yes, and you know it.”
“Love pizza?”
“Yup.”
“Still sniffin’ after Nicolette Saxon?”
Luke glanced up in awareness as his father took a long drink from his beer bottle innocently in that moment. Finally, his father laughed quietly and shook his head, knowingly.
“For a while now, you’ve been makin’ ‘moon-eyes’at her… and she watches you, too. Just be careful and know that you need to do right by that girl,” his dad said quietly. “You can’t fool ‘round with that young lady. If you are just sowin’ your wild oats? You better find another field, because you’lldiein that one if you hurt Valkyrie’s daughter. Am I clear?”
“She’s incredible,” Luke admitted quietly, “And I’m scared to mess things up or ruin a friendship, you know? I mean, I’ve known Niki forever and…”
“Niki, huh?”
“Dad…” Luke hesitated, looking at his father’s profile as he took another sip of his beer, looking deep in thought. “How did you know you loved mom?”
His father looked at him slowly, a smile touching his face.
“Something I saw in your beautiful mama’s eyes struck me,” his father said softly, and Luke nodded silently.
