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Hale felt that tightness in his neck, but he ignored it.
“I didn’t call to discuss my relationship with your sister. I called, essentially, to remind you that you have your father’s blood in your veins too, and this is absolute bullshit, what you’re trying to do. You got daddy issues, grow a pair and work it out with him, man to man.”
Oskar recovered and came out swinging.
“You work out your issues with your dad?”
“No, I didn’t,” Hale answered readily. “And he blew his brains out before I had the chance. Learn from that, Oskar. I don’t suspect your dad is that way, but I never dreamed my dad was either. We weren’t close, but I’d give everything I have, and you know that’s a fuckuva lot, to have that chance. I also know he’d give everything too, because in the end, he did. I have nothing from him, except everything, yet not one dollar of that is worth more than having him back.”
Oskar was silent for several loaded beats before he broke it.
“I’ll talk to Mom,” he bit off.
“That talk better go well,” Hale warned. “In two days, if I don’t hear relief in Elsa’s voice, it’s on.”
With that, he hung up.
He buried that call, his memories of Corey, his thoughts on his dad, thoughts he’d never shared with anyone, not even Tom, thoughts he didn’t even allow himself to dwell on.
Doing this, he finished his food, his wine, and then he took a shower and went to bed in another room that was not his, in another city that was not home.
* * *
Two days later,he had his phone date with Elsa, who was ecstatic.
Because her dad got word that her mother had caved. The settlement had been decided at two million, and the papers were being drawn up.
Hale was glad.
* * *
Hale openedthe door to his dad’s place in LA, the home he’d spent half his time growing up in, and he dropped his leather bag at the bottom of the stairs.
He then went to the balcony, stepped out on it, heard gulls crying immediately, and drew in two lungs full of Pacific sea air.
The sound of the waves drifting up and wetting the sand hit him.
He then wrapped his fingers around the edge of the railing, because it struck him then, hard, right in the solar plexus, so that air in his lungs felt trapped.
He was home.
This was home.
Not LA.
This house.
This was home.
His father’s house was home.
He turned and looked inside.
He hadn’t changed a thing because of Genny, Chloe and Sash. They seemed to find comfort there. They seemed to get something out of being in Corey’s space with the pictures of themselves sitting in frames all over it.
On that thought, he walked in, not burying anything for once by going to the kitchen to check that Kayla had informed his Cali housekeeper he was coming home, so his bed would be made with fresh sheets, the house cleaned, the fridge and cupboards filled.
Instead, he walked through the vast open plan living room and kitchen with its floating stairs in the middle to one of the rooms that led off it.
