I don’t think I could say no to Lucy. And that was dangerous.
“But you’re not living here?” Lucy asked, pivoting in his seat to face me.
“Not yet, no,” I replied carefully, but honestly. I didn’t want to get into the fatherly drama of it all, but I didn’t want to lie to him either. “There are some things I need to handle first. Things with the will.”
“Why did you bring me here?”
I smiled. “Well, that’s the fun part. Come on.”
I flung open my door and rounded the car to pull him out, too. “She has camping supplies in the garage, and I have a key.”
Lucy’s eyes widened. “You’re taking me camping? In February?”
I snorted. “I also have a portable heater. Don’t worry. I wouldn’t let you freeze.”
I kissed his left cheek, then his right, then the tip of his nose.
He laughed, tension oozing out of him, and it felt like it could have been by my kisses alone.
That kind of power was dangerous for a man like me.
“Come with me. I’ll set everything up for us.”
By the time I’d swiped what supplies we needed from her garage and stationed the heater by the outlet on the back porch, Lucy had pulled over the chairs and spare blankets.
The back porch was large, since Nana had had it built to host neighborhood barbecues. Since Mom died and Dad left, they’d done everything they could to involve Nana and me in those community events. I already knew I was going to bake cookies for all of them one day soon, once I was approved to move back in, as a small thank you for everything they’d done for us, especially after she was too weak to host anything properly.
Now, though, the porch was perfect for an impromptu camping trip. There was a fire pit in the cement near the end, and a flat spot large enough to set up a standard-sized tent.
“Have you gone camping before?”
Lucy paused in his efforts to load the sleeping bags into the tent. “Uh, no. Not really.”
I whirled around, catching him with that guilty expression again. “Why?”
He shrugged. “We never had a back porch. And Dad couldn’t leave cell range or be more than an hour away if he had to answer a work call and drive back in.”
“Nobody else took you? School friends?”
Lucy shook his head. “I went to a private school. Everyone else had parents like my dad, too. No camping for any of us.”
“Fuck,” I winced, sitting beside him, “Lucy, that’s sad.”
He just laughed, a small, brittle thing that made me want to pull him into my lap. “Is it? I hadn’t noticed.”
“Lucy…”
“No. Just,” he sighed, “I get it, okay? I don’t really have room to complain about my life. I always had what I needed, every toy I wanted. I did sports, had all my paints and art classes paid for, and never had to get a real job. I have a great life.”
Oh. His face was downturned again as he fiddled with the zippers on the sleeping bags. I’d said that to him, hadn’t I? With all the hatred I held toward people like Mr. Sterling, I never meant for that to hurt someone like Lucy. I didn’t even think people like him existed—people who were rich and sad, and who deserved better than what they got.
“Hey.” I reached for his hand. Thankfully, he let me take it. “You’re allowed to have struggles, and you’re allowed to be upset for things you missed out on. Maybe I haven’t really helped that. I didn’t understand people like you until I met you.”
“People like me?”
“The kids of rich assholes,” I clarified.
That, at least, got Lucy to raise his head, shooting a suspicious glare my way.
