Or should he say, Rex especially.
Since his almost-arrest, he’d gone into hiding, but Mike didn’t kid himself that the man had left Serendipity. There was an egocentric part of Rex that was still looking for validation here. From Mike, Simon, or Ella—Mike couldn’t be sure. If he didn’t get what he came for, Mike wondered how far he’d go in retaliation.
Mike approached Simon, hoping maybe Simon, who’d once known the man best, had a clue. Simon sat behind his desk doing some paperwork in the family room. “Hey,” Mike said, making his presence known.
“Hey, yourself.” Simon looked up from his desk. “What brings you here midday? They not keeping you busy enough at the station?”
Mike shook his head. “For a small town, they keep me busy enough. Meetings and more meetings.”
Simon laughed. “Which brings me to my point.”
Mike raised an eyebrow. “You have a point?”
“I do. Sit.” Simon gestured to the sofa.
Mike acted on instinct, listening to Simon and lowering himself into the seat. “Dad—”
“Me first.”
Mike clenched his jaw. He wanted to have his say, but the old Simon was back and he intended to go first. “What?”
“Maybe I should have done more…I always realized you kept yourself apart from me, from the family. That you didn’t feel like you belonged, but I didn’t know what else to do—”
“Dad!” Mike jumped up from his seat. “You couldn’t have done more. Hell, you probably should have done less.” He paused, being more honest than he’d ever been. “But I’m glad you didn’t. Even if I was a pain in the ass.”
Simon grinned. “I wouldn’t have wanted you any other way. You challenged me, son. Nothing wrong with that. I’m just sorry you held yourself down to that man’s standards and not up to your own.”
Mike dipped his head, thinking about what Simon said. “I thought everything I did wrong was about me. It was about him, wasn’t it?”
Simon stared in silence. Mike knew the drill. Simon liked to let his kids figure things out for themselves. It might have taken Mike almost thirty years, but he’d finally figured out that Rex’s problems had nothing to do with his own. That didn’t mean Mike didn’t have his own issues, however.
“Whoever you are, whatever you do, you make your choices, Michael. It’s not because Rex is your biological father.”
“I’m beginning to prefer the term sperm donor,” Mike muttered.
To his credit, Simon laughed.
“Can I ask you a question?”
The man who’d raised him and denied him nothing nodded. “Did you do the right thing with the money and marrying Mom—and fall in love later? Or—”
“No or about it. I loved your mom from the day I laid eyes on her. Everything I did was for her.”
“At great risk to your own career and freedom,” Ella said, surprising Mike by walking into the room.
“I didn’t mean for you to hear that,” Mike said, hoping his burning cheeks weren’t bright red.
Ella sat down next to Simon. “I’m glad I did because I think this talk is long overdue. You need to know—I loved Simon even back then. I may not have realized just how much or what kind of enduring love we’d share, but I did love him.”
“And Rex?”
“Lust, Michael.”
“Okay, that’s enough.” He turned his head, unable to look his mom in the eye.
But Ella wasn’t deterred or finished. “As for Simon, maybe it started different, softer, but it was always much more real.”
Watching them over the years and even now, as they held hands, united as they discussed the past, Mike couldn’t help but believe.