Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 73240 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73240 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
“I can see your shadow under the door,” Calvin Harrington called through dryly, and Ash’s heart jumped. “Your mother’s in the kitchen, if you’re looking for her.”
Closing his eyes, Ash breathed in deep—and almost wished for Brand’s steadying presence here to give him courage, but fuck…he had to do this himself. No one could push his orbit into intersecting with his father’s but himself.
He just hoped he wasn’t about to push them into a collision, just because he was trying to…to…
He didn’t even know what he was trying to do.
Be present, maybe.
Not something he’d ever really been good at.
He opened his eyes, squared his shoulders, and pushed the door open. “I’m not looking for Mom,” he said. “I’m looking for you.”
Calvin Harrington’s rooms were simple, utilitarian, his furniture all chosen with a purpose unlike the other, more opulently furnished rooms in the house; his bed was a small and simple walnut four-poster—and he was currently propped in it, changed into clean pajamas and nearly buried in quilts, a move that had Amiko Arakawa’s handiwork all over it. He looked tired, but better; as if, in his own bed instead of that hospice bed, he was still a living man and not just a ghost that had forgotten it was dead.
He’d been staring toward the open windows, but now Calvin Harrington turned a thoughtful look on Ash, tilting his head back against the headboard. “Ah? I thought you’d avoid me for at least a week,” he said. His voice was no longer quite so weak and thready, picking up some of that ringing timbre that could command attention in a boardroom. “Direct. I’m impressed.”
Ash closed the door, then leaned against it, fidgeting his hands together behind his back. “Not so direct that I know what to say to you.”
“We never have known what to say to each other, have we.” His father smiled, lines seaming in his square, blunt-featured face, wrinkles that didn’t seem to have been there just weeks ago practically collapsing in on each other. “Don’t just hover there, son. Sit. Let’s talk.”
Biting his lip, Ash ventured closer, then stole the wicker chair next to the bed and sank down into it. “You’re looking better. Your color’s good.”
His father barked out a snorting laugh. “No, I’m just flushed with irritation. Your mother’s a tyrant.”
“Because she loves you.”
“I’m lucky she’s still willing to, aren’t I.” A touch of pain flickered across his father’s face, old and etched in deep. “Lucky you’re still willing to, as well.” His eyes cleared, focusing on Ash with a frank, clear regard. Even if his body was so clearly weak, his hands clutched and trembling against the quilts, those eyes were still sharp, intelligent, incisive. “We don’t know each other very well, do we, son?”
“No,” Ash admitted softly, and wondered why it hurt to say something they’d both known their entire damned lives. “Not really.”
“I shouldn’t have waited this long to change that.” Calvin Harrington’s gaze was haunted, before it shuttered as he lowered his eyes to the shaking claws his hands made, bone white through skin. “It’s odd how two strangers can love each other even when they don’t really know each other, isn’t it?”
“You’re still my father.” Ash smiled faintly. Only his father would find such a fucking backwards way to say he loved him, but God…had he ever, before this? “You haven’t been bad to me.”
“I haven’t been overly good to you, either. Being too permissive out of guilt isn’t the same as being good.” Stick-thin shoulders heaved in a deep sigh. “I was young, when Amiko left. I didn’t know what to do with a child on my own. And I thought…” Dark blue eyes pleaded for understanding. “I thought I might break you.”
“I wasn’t a toy you could break, Dad.”
“I know that now.” Calvin Harrington hesitated, his shriveled, dried lips working, before he murmured, “But I thought maybe it would be better if I sent you away where I couldn’t damage you while I figured out what I was doing.”
Ash shrugged stiffly. “Boarding school wasn’t so bad. Met Vic. Made good friends.”
“Lost a father.”
The words hit like a slap—the sharp sting of days of terror, fear of losing someone he’d never really had and never really would if his father’s last sands slipped through that broken hourglass. Ash swallowed, looking at his father tentatively. “Have I lost you?”
“I’d like to think not.” His father pried a hand free from the duvet and held it out—clearly with great effort, his entire arm shaking as if the weight of the hand at the end of it was too much. “Do you think we could be good friends?”
Ash couldn’t stand it. Couldn’t stand that shaking hand, and he pushed himself forward quickly, taking it, steadying it, curling it in his own. His father’s hand was so cool, his skin waxy and fragile, and Ash’s throat tried to close; he wouldn’t let it, making himself speak, making himself steady his voice.