Page 62 of Badd Love
"And you believe him?"
I nodded. "Whatever he may still feel, he hides well. He likes Hayden, he knows Sunni loves Hayden, and he wants her, andthem, to be happy. I just think it was a lot more than a crush or puppy love."
"She shot him downsomany times," Duncan said. "It almost hurt to watch, sometimes."
"Jax is more like his mom than people realize,” Dad said. “Eva is quiet, but like your Uncle Lucian, still waters run deep. I know Jax presents as this hyperactive, outgoing computer nerd, but he's got his mom's depth of emotion. Eva doesn't love easily, but she loves deeply. Jax is the same."
I hated myself for this a little, but I felt jealousy for a second—my dad could recognize that in my cousin, but not me? People have this idea that I'm all jokes, a good time guy, and little else, directionless and shallow.
“He hides the depth a little too well, then," Duncan said. “Like somebody else we know."
Dad smirked at me. "I see you over there, son. I know you and Jax are more alike than anyone realizes."
I should've known better than to doubt Dad. “Yeah, yeah. I'm so deep. Real Marianas Trench of emotion, me."
Dad tapped the side of my calf with a foot. "Knock it off. Self-deprecation is for suckers." He transferred his crossed feet to my lap, which was weird—but kinda…nice.
Affection from your father, when you're a young adult trying to find your place in the world, occupies a complicated place. On the one hand, you wanna be cool and independent and manly. But on the other hand, I'm not so far from my youth that I've forgotten the comfort of my father's embrace.
"Dane, I don't doubt the genuineness of your feelings for Lindsey. And I don't know her pretty much at all—I barely even met her the day of the wedding. Butyou,I do know, and I know you're struggling with finding your purpose. I know that can be hard in a family like ours, with so many of your siblings and cousins seeming to know exactly what they want."
I nodded, head hanging. "Dad, did you…did youwantto take over the bar when you did?"
Dad blew out a breath. "Askin' the deep shit, huh?" He sipped beer and thought for a while. "No, I didn't. I wanted to get outta fuckin' Ketchikan like the rest of my brothers had."
"So why'd you stay, then?" I asked.
"It'd be easy to say I had no choice, but there's always a choice—just not always agoodone. Sometimes there's only one real possible choice to make. After your grandmother died, your grandfather…" Dad hesitated, hunting for the right word. "Basically, his body stayed alive, but the rest of him died with her. He gave up, more or less. Spent more time drinkin' than anything else, although he did his drinking behind the bar instead of on a stool in front of it. My last couple years of memories of Dad are of him leaning against the service bar, a rocks glass half full of Jameson in his hand, watching sports. He was a diehard Mariners and Seahawks fan and never missed a game of either team. He'd pull drinks for the service bar, but he'd do it one-handed. He never got wasted, and he wasn't mean or violent or anything like that. He just…drank and drank and drank all day, behind the bar, silent and brooding."
"What was he like before Grandma died?" Dunc asked.
Dad blew out a breath. "Really takin' a stroll down memory lane, huh, boys?"
Callie, one of the waitresses, popped her head out, asking Dunc to comp a ticket for her for a disgruntled customer; he came back out a few minutes later with fresh pints for all three of us.
"Pop was…honestly, a lot like Uncle Lucas. Big and strong as a fuckin' ox. He had a drier sense of humor than Uncle Lucas. It could be hard to tell if he was teasing you or being serious, and he played that up. He convinced your Uncle Zane once that if he didn't stop picking his nose, his whole nose would fall off andhe'd be noseless the rest of his life. Now granted, Zane was like six at the time, but Pop played it so straight I almost believed him myself. Zane got so scared he quit picking his nose on the spot."
Dunc grinned at me. "Shoulda tried that with Dane, eh, Dad?"
"I have scratchy boogers, okay?" I said, flipping him off. "You gotta get rid of the crusty ones."
Duncan gagged. “Oh, fuck, that's gross. Crusty ones, bro?Really?"
"Like you don't pick your nose in the car?" I said. "Every guy picks his nose in the car."
Dad chuckled. "Just don't get caught wiping 'em on the seat."
"You flick 'em out the window, obviously." I shook my head. “Way to hijack the conversation,Duncan.”
Dad stared into space. "Pop was awesome, back in the day. He used to take us camping almost every weekend." He smiled faintly, remembering. "Xavier, Lucian, and the twins were too young to go, so Mom stayed home with them. Dad took me, Zane, Bax, and Brock. He had this giant canvas tent, like, I think it was legitimately used in the Boer War or something, an officer's tent, I think. It wassofuckin’ cool, boys. It took for-fucking-ever to set it up, but as a kid, it felt like a palace in the wilderness. He'd dig a firepit right outside the front of the tent, and he always used a…shit, whaddya call it? Ram would know. An old native American trick where you dig the firepit and then you dig a little tunnel under it and away. The secondary hole pulls the smoke out and lets fresh air in, so the fire burns hot and the smoke is drawn away."
"Dakota firepit," I said.
"Yeah, that's it." Dad was quiet for a moment or two. "He'd bring a whole cooler full of hot dogs and fat-ass steaks and cans of beans, and we'd cook on the fire and go fishing, paddle aroundin the canoe, swim in ice-cold glacier-melt rivers. He'd always be up before us, always. We’d wake up, and there'd be Pop with his special camping mug, a battered old tin thing that he only used at the campsite. Still got it somewhere. He’d sit and fill that mug from the percolator that was always on the edge of the coals, all day long. We’d hike out into the bush, and Dad would teach us about plants and all that shit, point out animals we'd never have seen otherwise, stuff like that. Teaching us woodcraft, basically. We'd get back to camp and cook up the dogs and make hot chocolate." He shook his head, his voice thick. "Haven't thought about those days in fuckin'…decades."
He eyes Dunc and me, frowning. "Jesus. Just realized something—I'm older now than he ever was." He sat forward, pulling his feet down, tossing back the last of his beer. "Dane, son, I know this is gonna sound like bullshit, cliché advice, but you gotta follow your heart. Just don't leave your head out of it—your big head, I mean. The little head is a terrible decision maker."
"Are we talking about my purpose in life or Lindsey?" I asked.
