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“Company still standing?” Leland asked, blanket to his neck.
“Sorry I had to leave you.” I sat beside him, angling my body toward him so I could lean in and feel his forehead. “I’d been putting off going in for a couple weeks now. This meeting was unavoidable.”
“We need you back, Franklin,”Robert had implored.“We lost the deal.”
“It’s fine,” Leland said, reeling me back from my wayward thoughts. “I told you it’s just some stupid bug. I was tired of lying in bed all day, and I wanted to sit in front of the fire.” He nudged his chin over my shoulder to the finished mural. “Isn’t it fucking beautiful?”
The fire crackling in the hearth morphed it into something majestic. “Finally you see what I see. You’re talented, Leland,” I said. He’d never called any of his masterpieces beautiful before. Leland grinned his charming, lopsided grin.
He’d finished the mural a couple days ago, and I’d successfully built four functional counter stools. I’d let him convince me to dive fully clothed into the ocean in celebration—during a rainstorm, on the coolest summer day yet. As the one who’d raised two kids who loved to play in the rain no matter the sickly consequences, I should’ve known better. But Leland tended to make me feel like a kid again, or maybe even for the first time.
A cool draft caressed the collar of my shirt as the sound of rain meeting the ocean escalated.
“It’s hot,” Leland explained when my lips thinned. I’d left the doors and windows closed so he wouldn’t get any worse.
“But you’re swaddled like a baby,” I said, rubbing the furry blanket between my fingers.
“That’s because it’s also cold,” he said, shivering.
“It’s the fever.” I shook two tablets into my palm and handed him the half empty bottle of water sitting on the coffee table. “I’ll heat up your soup.”
Thankfully, it hadn’t gone cold, and within minutes I’d returned, balancing the hot soup and crackers on a tray. I instructed Leland to sit up before settling it onto his lap and encouraging him to eat when all he wanted to do was sleep. I kept a watchful eye as he finished his soup and hydrated with water, and I continued to monitor his temperature until it broke. All the things I’d missed out on doing when Cole was a little boy. His nanny had taken care of the brunt of it.
“Thank you,” Leland said, folding his feet under him. “You’re good at this.”
“At what?” I asked.
“Taking care of people.”
“I’m not,” I objected. “Not really.” I stood, ready to run from his searching gaze.
Leland latched on to my wrist as I passed him, urging me to sit back down. “What makes you bad? Tell me, Franky. What do you think makes you so terrible?”
I sighed wearily, needing to know the answer myself. “I never held Cole when he was sick. Jasper either.”
“But you would sit by their bedside while they slept. You would sneak into their rooms at night to make sure their fever broke,” he said, repeating the details from a conversation we’d had days ago on our walk. It had started out as a morning run, but we’d been talking too much to maintain our fast pace.
“I didn’t make it to the parent teacher meetings or show up to their equestrian lessons.”
“But you were there for every competition, and you left an important business meeting to be there for Jasper on bring-your-dad-to-school day. He said you saved the day. You told me he said that.” Leland’s warm hand cupped my chin, bringing my head up and my gaze to his. The flames made his light eyes nearly transparent, and if I looked hard enough, I could see right through them and into his soul. I didn’t want to look hard enough, though, because then I wouldn’t want to look away.
“So you weren’t the most nurturing parent, and you weren’t there for everything. You were building a company. Something to pass on to them. You were there when it mattered, and I’d bet my life they know that. Your brand of love isn’t perfect, but it’s still love, Franky.”
“You make it sound so noble, but the truth is far harsher than that. Any good I’ve ever done by them, Cole in particular, had been inspired by the good being done by someone else.”
“Selene?” he asked.
“It started with Annabeth,” I said, referencing Cole’s mother. “Had she lived, she would’ve been his primary caretaker. It was why I’d agreed to the pregnancy. I wasn’t just building a company, I was building something that would surpass what my father, and whathis father, andhisfather before him had created. My life’s objective was to prove I could be better than him. I was heartbroken when Cole’s mother died, but secretly I was more resentful than anything. Sometimes I forgot what shade of blue his eyes were. That’s how many days would pass by before I went in search of him.” My pulse thudded in my throat, and I thought I might choke on my shame.
“I fed myself the same lie you just offered me. That I was building something great, something he could one day have and be proud of. And when we did spend time together, Nexcom was all I would talk about, in the hopes that he would understand why he couldn’t have more of my time. In later years he became eager to discuss the day-to-day operations of the business, even working summers for me. But now I wonder if it was because he truly cared for the job, or because he thought that was the only way to connect with me. And that in itself is its own form of expectation, of pressure.”
Leland listened intently, his thumb absently brushing my chin.
“Yes, Selene ensured I was there for the big stuff, and yes, she made me want to do better, but at my core, I’m not better, Leland. I’m just like my father, and I don’t know how not to be,” I admitted.
“Even with Selene’s influence, I wasn’t an active participant in our life. I’d only ever been an observer. Standing back and watching them thrive, happy that I’d finally gotten something right when it came to Cole.” I ended my purge on a ragged breath, feeling drained but not fixed in any way.
“I don’t believe you,” he whispered. “You paint yourself to be a monster, but from what I know of Selene, she wouldn’t have fallen in love with a monster. There must be some good in you. Iknowthere’s good in you. You just can’t seem to see it.”
