Millionaire Boss (Freeman Brothers 1)

Having a pet wasn’t something I’d ever thought about. Working so much wasn’t exactly conducive to being at home and seeing to the needs of an animal. Up until fairly recently when I forced myself to start cooking more for myself, I could barely keep myself fed and would often forget things like bringing my clothes to the dry cleaner or starting the dishwasher. For as much control and organization I had in the office, my personal life was often a mess. I didn’t want to entrust myself with the life of another living creature. But seeing this little one bounce around might have been changing my mind.

It surprised the hell out of me I was actually considering getting myself a dog. But the more I watched her, the more I thought maybe it would help the loneliness that had taken over my heart. It was hard to admit that, but I could. I had gotten to that place now that I really could admit it. I was lonely. And it was my own damn fault. I went about pursuing my attraction to Merry exactly the wrong way and lost out on any chance of actually trying to have an honest relationship with her. Close bonds and love like my parents had between them didn’t come from two illicit sexual encounters at work. That type of thing made really being together impossible. So, my coping mechanism at that point was doing the only thing that made sense to do.

I was drinking my feelings.

I sat in one of the lounge chairs and took down what I wanted to say with my third beer but could possibly be much further down the line than that. I’d stopped really counting. It wasn’t the most responsible choice in the world, but I wasn’t batting a thousand with my decision-making skills recently, so I wasn’t going to worry about it so much. A few minutes later, Dad came up to me.

“Is there anything else I have in the house we need to get?” he asked.

“No,” I told him. “We got everything.”

“Do you want to go check?” he asked.

I knew that was code. It meant get up and come with me because we need to have a talk. That was a departure from the normal. Usually it was my mother who cornered me for a heart-to-heart talk. Or a good tongue-lashing when she felt I needed it. But this time it was my father who was stepping in to try to drag my out-of-control train to a stop. Finishing off the rest of the beer, I followed him up the steps onto my back deck. I tossed the bottle into the recycling bin and dropped down onto the swinging glider in one corner. Dad sat down beside me, and for a few seconds we just swung back and forth in silence.

Finally, he tilted his head slightly toward me.

“You know, your mom kicked me to the curb for a solid year,” he said.

“Wait, what? When?”

“Oh a long time ago now.”

“What did you do?” I asked.

“I crawled my way back to her,” he said. “It took me that long to get over myself and realized what needed to be done. I did it, though, and it’s been the two of us ever since. I can’t imagine anyone else in my life. That woman is my life, and I would do it all over again in a heartbeat, but if I had to I do it all again, I would go back to her the next day. Pride and feeling too manly and powerful be damned. When it’s worth it, it’s worth groveling for.”

He got up after that and walked away. It was a very short heart to heart, but it made a major impact on me. I had no idea that had happened between my parents. All that mattered was my dad messed up in some way and my mother kicked him out of her life, then held her ground while she waited for him to realize what he did.

It took him humbling himself and being able to admit he wasn’t always right, that he not only did something wrong, that he absolutely needed her. That was probably the hardest part. Admitting to being wrong wasn’t usually that much of a challenge. Especially not when you had three brothers who were more than willing to step up and show you all the ways that you were wrong. What was harder was admitting my fear that there was a place in my heart that was so open to Merry. I didn’t want there to be. I didn’t want there to be a place open for anybody. It was too much vulnerability, too much possibility of being hurt again.

But, actually, I did want it to be there for her. More than I could have ever imagined I wanted it. The conversation left me wondering just how much my family really knew about what happened between Merry and me. Obviously, they knew we’d had a fling. That’s what we told them. But it seemed they could sense something else. I wondered how much they could see, and even more than that, if she could see it too. If there was ever a chance she might be able to forgive me.