After the Climb (River Rain 0.50)

Harvey kept going.

“I know moms alone can raise good sons. But there’s somethin’ about a boy and his father. When I met him, that dude, your dad, was past it, looked a million years old, and could barely get around, and he was still swinging his dick like anyone gave a shit how big it was. You are respected and successful, you know it, he knew it, and he still treated you like you were a bum. Nothin’ woulda been good enough for him, Bowie. You told me you didn’t wanna play football, but you did it anyway, because he wanted you to. You made All-State, he gave you shit because he was a plumber, but you didn’t get a full ride to his dad’s alma mater. That is not a father, man. That’s a jackal whose only sustenance to keep himself feelin’ steady is feeding on his young.”

“I got two boys, Harv, I know this.”

“Well, shouldn’t she know it too?”

Duncan ate a forkful of egg, chiles and cheese and didn’t answer.

But that also got in there.

“Now tell me if I got this wrong,” Harvey kept at him.

But Duncan had had enough.

“Listen, Harv—”

“She’s her, pretty, talented, wants to make it big in Hollywood as an actress, and you’re the man your father convinced you that you were. How relieved were you when you had a valid reason to cut her loose?”

Duncan’s throat closed.

What he was feeling inside must have showed on his face, because Harvey nodded once, decisively.

“Just what I thought,” Harvey muttered, and shoved eggs, biscuits, gravy and country fried steak in his mouth.

But Duncan was thrown.

Because this was something he’d never told anybody.

He’d barely admitted it to himself.

But as obliterated as he was, thinking Genny had done that to him, as time went on, he could not deny he’d felt relief.

Not at losing her, never that. He wasn’t even certain he’d breathed the same again after she was gone.

Until yesterday, when she stood at the foot of his steps.

But they’d been gearing up to move. Possibly to New York, but she preferred the idea of LA, because of the weather, and there were more opportunities there that interested her.

She’d been the lead in all the high school plays. The drama teacher adored her, said she had something, said she had what it was going to take, and encouraged her at every opportunity.

She’d gone to college, double majoring in drama and education, in case acting didn’t work out, she could teach and have a fallback position.

But she had dreams, goals, and a plan.

And they were on the cusp of executing that plan.

But Duncan could not deny he had concerns about it.

Because he could get a job doing anything, if it was manual labor.

But she was going to be someone.

And he’d had his own plan, and at that time, it seemed a more distant dream to reach than Genny’s dream of making a career of being an actor.

And that was when Corey struck.

Fucking hell, that guy had known precisely what he was doing.

Further, from that very night he slept without her for the first time in over a year, to what he had to admit was now, it had haunted him, like the ghost of a shackle cuffed to his ankle, one he had no hope of losing, that what had actually happened was what Harvey just said.

He’d jumped right on what Corey told him so he could set Genny free.

Free of the burden of him.

Free so she could be all she was supposed to be.

“Am I gettin’ in there?” Harvey asked with mouth full.

“You’re an asshole,” Duncan replied, and shoved more food in.

“In this instance, I’ll take that as a compliment.”

Duncan’s phone vibrated in his breast pocket.

He reached in, pulled it out and saw it was a text from Chloe.

She had his number because she’d confiscated his phone, demanded his passcode, and she was Genny’s girl.

For the life of him, he could not refuse her.

He didn’t and she’d texted herself from his phone.

So now he was open game.

He sighed before he read the text,

Plan in place. Noon thirty, El Gato. Our partner in crime knows what to do.

“Shit,” he murmured.

“What?” Harvey asked.

“Chloe, she’s full steam ahead.”

“And?”

“She wants me at El Gato at twelve thirty.”

“I could use some beef pinchos,” Harvey declared before shoving more food in his mouth.

Duncan stared at him a beat before he stated, “If I go, you are not going with me.”

“I totally am,” Harvey declared in return.

“Bud—”

“And you’re going.”

“Har—”

Harvey put his hands, still holding fork and knife, to the table and gave Duncan his full attention.

“Jesus, Bowie, you know I’m gonna tell Beth all this shit and you know she’s all romantic and you know she loves you like a brother and you know she’s gonna lose her shit if she finds out I didn’t get your ass to El Gato at twelve thirty. And last, you know she’s gonna ride my ass if you balk and keep ridin’ it until I get your shit together. So throw a man a bone, please. I don’t need her nattering in my ear, and you don’t need Beth wading into this situation.”