Waiting On You (Blue Heron #3)(108)

Carol Robinson owned a rarely used sailboat, and when Lucas asked if he could take his uncle out on it, she only charged him a kiss on the cheek. “Use it, use it!” she said. “That Joe is a nice man.”

He and Bryce lifted Joe into the boat, which was a sweet little sloop. Lucas wasn’t a great sailor, but he was good enough to take the boat out; Colleen had taught him back in the day. The past couple of years, when his divorce created too many solitary nights, he’d taken some lessons, too.

The sun was setting, that time of evening when daylight seemed reluctant to go, and filled the air with golden light. Joe sat in the bow and immediately closed his eyes, Lucas in the back with his hand on the rudder, his cousin next to him. The sails caught the wind and the boat slid out into the deep blue water.

Lucas looked at Bryce. “Everything okay?” he asked.

“Sure. Just...I don’t know.”

Maybe the reality of his father’s condition was dawning on him. It was hard to believe it hadn’t yet.

“I miss Paulie,” Bryce said.

Not what Lucas expected to hear. “She’s a good person.”

“Yeah. Doesn’t judge and stuff.”

They rounded Meering Point. A bunch of kids were playing under a waterfall, their gleeful shrieks carrying on the wind. “Bryce,” Lucas said after a minute, “you ever think you sell yourself short?”

Bryce gave him a questioning look.

“You’ve got more going on than you think,” Lucas continued. “You’re like your dad. Heart of gold, not a mean bone in your body. Why do you think you’re so good with animals? And kids? You saw how the girls love you.”

“Yeah, they’re great.” He picked at a hole in his jeans.

“Maybe you need to believe in yourself a little more.”

“Easier said than done,” Bryce said.

Lucas paused. “Why?”

Bryce shrugged and glanced at his father, who appeared to be sound asleep. “I don’t know, Lucas. Maybe because I’ll never be as good as you.”

Lucas blinked.

“I mean, not that there’s a competition. You have a great job—”

“Which I’m leaving.”

“—you married a Forbes—”

“And divorced a Forbes.”

“—and you never left Chicago. Dad thinks you walk on water.” He paused. “That’s why he sent for you. To take care of me, right?”

“Well, not the only reason. But yeah, he’s worried about you. He wants to see you settled.”

Bryce swallowed. “Settled how? Married with kids?”

“I think you could start with getting a job, buddy.”

“Doing what?”

“Doing anything. No shame in hard work.” The boat was really skipping along now, the waves slapping sharply against the hull.

“My mom says I should wait till I have something I’m totally into. No need to do grunt work.”

“You can start out with grunt work. I did. Lots of successful people did. Right? Paulie’s father used to clean chicken shit, if you believe his commercials.”

Bryce pondered that. “Don’t you think it’s better to be unemployed and kinda cool, or have a job doing grunt work?”

“Bryce. You’re thirty-one years old. Being unemployed is not cool. Get a job.”

He nodded. “Yeah, I guess.” He paused. “Maybe Paulie would think...well. That I grew up a little.”

“Do it. Show her you’re worth a second chance,” Lucas said.

“I don’t even know if I like her that way.”

“Have you ever missed a girl you’d broken up with before?”

“Nope.” Bryce glanced at him and smiled. “But Paulie’s not my usual type.”

“What is your usual type?”

“Slutty and beautiful. The fling type.”

Lucas laughed. Colleen had said something like that, too. “Maybe it’s time to try something else, then. Have some faith in yourself, Bryce. You can be good at something other than video games and dog adoptions, you know.” He squeezed his cousin on the shoulder, and Bryce smiled.

“Yeah. You’re right, dude. Thanks for the pep talk.”

“It’s what I’m here for. Now go sit with your father.”

Joe woke up as his son sat next to him, and he put his arm around Bryce’s shoulders. Bryce kissed his father’s head, and the two sat in the breeze, the sun making the water quiver in the shimmering light.

Lucas turned his head, sensing that this was the goodbye Joe so wanted with his son.

He would’ve given a lot to have been able to say goodbye to his own father this way...or any way. To have felt his father’s arm around him once more, to have held his hand when he finally slipped away, instead of knowing he died alone on a cold cement floor in the prison basement in a state he’d never seen except through bars.

He would’ve given anything to have been able to just have seen his father’s face once more.

But at least Bryce would have that. And if Lucas couldn’t have been there for his father, he was here for Joe.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

ONCE AGAIN, COLLEEN was indulging in a little Clorox therapy, this time in the ladies’ room of O’Rourke’s.