“It’s a heady feeling, innit? To find the person you wanna write your life story with. It can only be you, Nate. And now, years down the road, we haven’t even reached the middle. We have decades of memories to make—and nothing makes me happier. You’re my world. You are always in my heart.”
You become blurry on the screen, and I quickly wipe my hand over my cheeks.
CHAPTER 14
Two months ago
Alexandria
Ash Riley
Ichecked James’s reply quickly.
Yeah, still ongoing. Let me know if you want me to go over there.
Oh, I’d be home soon enough. In half an hour, if my GPS was correct.
I inserted my earbuds and called Nate instead.
He was chuckling when he took my call. “Hey. Dad just told me he’s sending your old man a collection of magazines from the fucking ’70s as a care package.”
Christ. Those two old fuckers knew each other. “He will love that. Are you still at your folks’ house?”
“Yes, but I’m about to head home. I just have to wake up Lily,” he answered. “I told her we’d head up to see Grandma and Grandpa this weekend, and I guess she passed out from sheer excitement.”
I chuckled, though it sounded forced to my own ears.
It’d been a clusterfuck of a few days, once we’d heard my old man was in the hospital. He’d somehow managed to shoot himself in the foot with a nail gun a few days ago, and it’d been a source of frustration and entertainment until we’d learned that the wound had gotten infected. So I’d packed a bag and headed up there to support Ma and tell Pop to lay off the damn garage project for a while.
“You must be exhausted,” Nate murmured. “Are you all right?”
If he’d asked me forty-five minutes ago, the answer would’ve been yeah, sure, I was okay. Now, though…
“We might have a teenage rebellion on our hands,” I said, clearing my throat. “What did Dylan say about where he’s going tonight?”
“Uh, he’s at Steven’s house,” he answered.
“Yeah, he lied.” I checked the rearview before switching lanes. “I got a text from James about forty-five minutes ago. Apparently, there’s a big party raging at my house as we speak.”
“What the—are you serious? I can’t believe him.”
“Can’t you? He’s a teenager.” My brother and I had pulled that shit once or twice too, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t royally ticked off. “Can you go someplace private? I wanna talk this out before I become our son’s worst nightmare.”
“Already on it. No, Micah, stay here with Nana—I’ll be right back.” He’d left wherever they were a few seconds later when the background noise faded and a door clicked shut. “Okay, I’m alone. Do you want me to drive over too?”
“No, it’s okay. I’ll handle it. But I wanna make sure we’re on the same page.”
“Oh, you have my full support to ground his butt. Even when we know it’s standard teenage behavior, we can’t condone itjust becauseoneof his fathers did the same crap to his parents decades ago.”
“Damn, boy. We’re throwing out decades now?” I asked defensively.
“You turn forty-six in a few months. I think we’re passedyears.”
What-the-fuck-ever.
“Stay on topic instead,” I muttered. “Before I barge in there, I need the shrink in you to level with me. And the dad, for that matter. Do you think he’s acting out because of us splittin’ up? He and Hallie have had this knowledge for over a year now.”
Granted, we’d made sure to talk to them alot. We always touched base and tried to dig below the surface to see how they were doing; we’d even gently told them—told them, not asked—to see the school counselor right after we’d let them know we were separating. But teenagers weren’t easy. Dylan wasn’t much of a talker when it came to sensitive subjects.
