“Thanks for saving me,” I said awkwardly.
“It’s nothing,” he said, shoving his hands into his pockets. It was so characteristic of Dominic that it had my chest twisting. “Least I could do, all things considered.”
I looked at Frank. Really looked at him. His clothes were clean and orderly. There was still stubble on his face and shadows under his eyes, but his gaze was clear and steady. “You’re sober.”
Frank gave a clipped nod. “For now. Attended my first AA meeting recently.”
“When?”
He shifted on his feet. “Day after you decided to pay me a visit.”
Well. That hadn’t been the intended outcome when I’d given him a piece of my mind, but it wasn’t a bad one.
He gestured at the seat beside my bed. “Mind if I sit? It’s been a long night and you’re heavier than you look.”
I nodded and he sat down with a grateful sigh. “I’m sorry. Did you have to carry me far?”
“Not really. When you passed out and I realised you had a head injury, I put you in the recovery position and called an ambulance. Should’ve checked you over before I moved you in the first place. Sorry.”
“Don’t apologise,” I said, staring at the corrugated ceiling. “I’m grateful you found me.”
“I had to fib about that,” Frank said. I turned to face him. “You walked past my house and I knew something was wrong, so I thought I’d better follow you.”
“How’d you know something was wrong?”
“You looked angry,” he said finally. “But also resigned. Desolate. Fucking hopeless, if I’m being honest.”
That pretty much summed it up.
Frank’s green eyes, the same as his son’s, met mine. “And…maybe heartbroken?”
How did he—shit.I groaned inwardly as the memory of my drunken ramblings returned.
‘He said he loves me, but if he did, he wouldn’t have left.’
Christ on a cracker. Had I seriously outed Dominic to hisdad?
“No,” I said tonelessly. “I didn’t mean it like that. We were just friends.”
Were. What a lie. We were never friends.
Now we were nothing at all.
“Okay.” Frank shrugged. “Doesn’t matter to me if you were more than that, though.”
I tried to steer the conversation away from this dangerous path. “Okay, so you saw a teenager looking angry and miserable and decided you needed to intervene?”
“No.” He shook his head “It was the way you were trying to drown yourself in a bottle of whisky that did that. You might think I’m a monster, Ryan, and maybe I am, but I haven’t always been one. I like to think the real me is still there, somewhere. Doing things like helping you…maybe it’ll help him reappear.”
Frank sniffed suddenly, lowering his gaze. “You were right in what you said to me that day, Ryan. My wife would be ashamed of me. I’m ashamed of me. I’ve driven Dominic away, and I don’t know if I’ll ever get him back.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I just stayed silent.
“What I do know though, is that I’ll never stop trying,” he continued. “You can’t stop trying either, kid. After the bollocking you gave me, I’d expect you to know the answer to your problems doesn’t lie at the bottom of a bottle.”
“I don’t think getting pissed one time puts me on the same level.”
Frank gave me a hard stare. “No, but giving yourself alcohol poisoning and a concussion puts you a lot damn closer than it should.”
