Steam (Homecoming Hearts #4)(33)

Trent realized he’d been standing in front of his wardrobe after his shower for goodness only knew how long. Five minutes? His feet were starting to get cold. With a sigh, he picked out some clothes and dropped his towel to the floor. He glowered at his temporarily free cock to behave itself until he got some boxer-briefs on. If his body could only cooperate, he wouldn’t need to knock one out thinking about his new friend again.

It occurred to him that because he didn’t want to face his dad, his mind was running off on tangents. But Trent had made up his mind that he was going to see him again today and try to talk. The trouble was he was ashamed to admit he couldn’t remember where exactly his dad lived nowadays. It was staff accommodation somewhere, but Trent was damned if he could recall the details. So that left him in the uncomfortable situation of only being able to approach him while he was at work in the gift shop.

He wasn’t giving up, though. He was going to ask his dad if he wanted to visit his mom’s grave together at some point. He was also determined to ask if there was a memorial to her somewhere in the resort. This place had been her home and his dad certainly felt like she was still present within its walls. If there wasn’t a bench or a pond somewhere for her, Trent thought he could offer to have one built.

He knew it would more than likely fall under his dad’s category of ‘too little too late’ but Trent had to try. He knew he didn’t want to visit a lonely grave to feel he was close to his mom again. It was almost certainly one of the reasons he had avoided coming home during the past two years. She deserved somewhere beautiful, here on the grounds of the place she and his dad loved so much.

As he walked through the snow from his cabin over to the main lodge, Trent swung between musing on his parents and trying not to worry about Ashby anymore. Normally, if something was beyond his control, he just forgot about it. He didn’t chew over it for hours. But making amends with his dad was eating him up, and for whatever reason, Ashby was occupying almost as much space in his thoughts.

He pinched the bridge of his nose and pushed through the door into the warmth of the resort. The temptation to be reckless and just start drinking niggled at the back of his mind. But he swore he wasn’t going to do that anymore. There was a vast difference between a little too much wine at dinner and all-day boozing for no damn reason other than he was feeling sorry for himself. He had to stop running away from his problems. That was the whole point of coming here.

Unfortunately, luck wasn’t on his side.

As soon as he reached the gift store and saw the middle-aged lady behind the counter, he remembered it was Wednesday. Wednesdays and Thursdays were his dad’s weekend, so he wouldn’t be back now until Friday, when Trent was flying off to Ohio for Blake and Elion’s wedding on Saturday. He wasn’t going to be able to speak to his dad until at least Sunday night now.

Fuck. He scratched his chin and scowled at the shop from just outside the door. Now that he’d made up his mind he really didn’t want to have to wait. But this wasn’t the kind of conversation he wanted to have over the phone. Besides, with his dad as grouchy as he currently was, he’d probably just hang up on him.

Trent shoved his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket. Typical. He was trying, he really was. But Barry would lose his shit if he knew how little progress Trent had made. At least he had three months to try and fix this mess. Barry didn’t need to know how badly he was doing just yet.

He had just turned around to leave when the sound of crashing and clattering made him snap back around. To his horror, he saw Merlin come tearing down one of the shop aisles toward him. His leash was trailing behind him, knocking half the contents of the bottom shelves off in its wake as it whipped back and forth. He’d obviously been behind the counter but had smelled Trent or something and come bolting out.

“No!” the part-time woman cried in horror, leaping to her feet. “Bad puppy!” An older guy looking at a map of the local area had to jump back to stop his legs being taken out from under him.

Trent dropped to his knees and tried to calm the puppy when he reached him. “No, shh!” he cried as the little dude barked and barked, his yelps earsplitting. “It’s okay, buddy, calm down.”

“He was tied up, I swear,” the woman said as she hurried to try and grab Merlin’s leash. “Your dad is out of town for today, so I said I’d watch him. But my dogs aren’t like this one!”

Trent felt bad he didn’t recognize the woman, but at least she knew he wasn’t a customer who was going to complain. Trent wasn’t so sure about the guy who had been looking at the map, but fingers crossed even if he did find Bob to moan at, Bob wouldn’t care.

That Kiefer Burton might, though, Trent realized. If he was still around. He seemed to have his wits about him. Trent couldn’t remember his dad ever mentioning an owner above Bob before. If he wasn’t such a sleazeball, Trent might have hoped Kiefer was visiting in order to do up the place. But Trent couldn’t help but worry Kiefer was intent on doing the opposite.

Knowing how much the resort meant to his dad, Trent would rather not have him made aware of any extra issues he couldn’t already see for himself.

Between him and the part-time lady, they managed to wrangle the chubby puppy so he wasn’t near anything breakable. Trent cringed and wondered how many other broken bits of useless knickknacks he’d end up paying for after this particular destructive outburst. He was going to have to set up a running tab at this rate.