Page 8 of Abyss

Witnessing his dream of opening a restaurant servingsome of his favorite seafood dishes come to fruition would have given us one of his rare smiles. It’s what he’d always wanted, and what both Jett and I envisioned after he died.

We’d both grown up working on Dad’s fish charter, navigating the waters of South Lake Tahoe. Unlike the life we live now, there was no golden veneer. No struggle for power and prestige; no expensive champagne and handmade watches.

Just the scent of lake water, hard work, and humility.

Sure, Dad managed his business differently than I would have. His decisions—like giving employees too much leniency for tardiness, or not setting standards of exemplary service on fishing trips, or not scrutinizing his finances carefully—used to drive me crazy.

But it was those decisions, and the fact that I practically watched Dad’s small business turn to dust due to his oversight, that hardened me in my own ways. Even at a young age, I knew I’d do things differently if I ever ran my own company.

“How’s work?” Madison asks, sitting back in her seat. “Did you guys secure that contract with the new airport? What are they called?” She snaps her fingers. “Rose City Skyport, right? Will Case Geo excavate the new site?”

I pinch the bridge of my nose.

Just the thought of the hurdles we’ve jumped through for this client has my head pounding. If they weren’t so strategic for my efforts to establish Case Geo as the premier company specializing in environmentally conscious airport planning, I wouldn’t be bending over backward, revising our standard contracts for them. But as it stands, with the ridiculous amount Case Geo stands to gain from this client alone, they’ve got me by the fucking balls.

“We’ll secure them.” My jaw tightens, recalling our clients are also shopping around with our rivals—the same ones my brother and my ex-girlfriend left to work for. “We’re the better choice in terms of expertise and experience.”

Maddy leans forward, her eyes gleaming in that way I’ve seen all her life, when she’s preparing to ask me something she knows I might object to and brace myself. “Hey, Dad . . .”

At twenty-nine, being an immensely accomplished person herself, there’s not a whole lot my daughter asks from me, but I won’t deny that I like being the person she can still come to when she does need something.

It’s just that her requests are now a bit more . . . worrisome than the ones she used to ask for as a kid, like ice cream for dinner or to borrow my sports car to impress her then girlfriend. For example, her request to go shark cage diving for her birthday because her fiancée refused to. Needless to say, I tried not to pass the fuck out when a tiger shark zoomed toward us. Even with my extensive appreciation of marine geology, I’ve never been happier to set my feet back on solid ground.

She steeples her fingers together under her chin, as if she already knows she might need to pray for this one. “So, I need a little fav—”

“No,” I respond before she can use those wide blue eyes to pierce my resolve. I’m no idiot; the kid’s been conning me with that look her whole life, and she’ll probably succeed again today.

I won’t admit it, but I’ve always been a willing sucker for it.

I suppose it’s the guilt that sometimes comes from being a single parent—the one where you play both the good and bad cop. The worry you’ve worn the bad cop hat more than the good one lately, wondering if you’re not enough to fill in for the missing parent, the one she probably yearns for every single day. And though she tells you that you’re enough, thatyou’ve always been enough, you still wonder if she’s just sparing your feelings.

At only seventeen and living in different states, her mother and I weren’t destined to be together. She was visiting her friend in Lake Tahoe over the summer when we ran into each other at a party that led to a one-night thing.

A year later, she dropped Madison off at my doorstep with a note admitting she wasn’t meant to be a mom. And though she’d left her phone number scribbled at the bottom of the note, I never called her.

In fact, neither did Maddy—not when I gave her the phone number when she was eight, and then again when she was a teen.

I can only guess what her reasons were for not reaching out to her mom, but mine were simple: I don’t chase after quitters, never have and never will. And her mom had done exactly that when she’d flown back to Tahoe with our three-month-old—never having told me she was even pregnant—to drop her off at my door and fly back without a single word spoken to me. She may have left me her phone number to ease her conscience, but in my mind, the doors of communication were closed.

“You haven’t even heard what I have to say!” Maddy throws her hands up. “It’s not bad, I promise. In fact, it’d be really good for you.”

I highly doubt that, but I ask anyway. “Fine. What is it?”

She’s about to answer when Stella comes back to our table to pour us both more water and asks us if we want refills on our wine. We both agree, but I notice she doesn’t make eye contact with me.

I stop her before she can leave with our empty plates. “Is there something you want to say, Stella? You’ve been a bit lacking in your service—”

“Dad.” Madison tilts her blonde head, reminiscent of hermother’s hair color, giving me a warning look. While I raised her to be disciplined and tough, I’m realizing, now that she’s all grown up, sometimes those traits backfire on me.

I take a breath, softening my tone toward Stella, and hating the fact that I even care. She makes a decent paycheck working here and has been one of our best employees, but if hard work is no longer something that interests her, then I have no qualms about telling her to hand in her notice. “It’s just that you seem off lately.”

There. That’s about as nice as I can manage.

Stella swallows, blinking rapidly as her head swings from Madison to me. “It’s . . . we’re understaffed and overworked. I’m pretty sure you can see that. But you’ve fired the two servers we’ve hired over the past three weeks. At this point, it doesn’t seem like you even want to give people a chance to learn—”

“Maybe if you would spend more time letting them shadow you, I wouldn’t have to interact with servers who are clearly unprepared.”

“None of us have the time or the bandwidth to train a new person extensively, and some of this is trial by fire. We need to allow people to make a few mistakes.”

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