Page 129 of Forever, Maybe
Dennis shrugged, his cheerful demeanour dimming slightly. “Aye, if ye want, but…” He flicked his gaze toward the queue, where impatience simmered—arms crossed, toes tapping, tuts loud enough to cut through the smell of food.
“Yeah, I know,” Daniel said quickly, raising a placating hand. “It won’t take long.”
Ryan slipped out of the van from the back, theStuffed!logo stretched across his regulation black T-shirt. Blue latex gloves encased his hands, and up close, he was taller than Daniel had expected. Lankier, too, as if he'd shot up too fast and the rest of his body hadn’t quite caught up. He rubbed his nose self-consciously, and something in the gesture made Daniel’s chest tighten.
He remembered that feeling. The acne, the self-consciousness. Shouldn’t they have better treatments for it these days? Then again, those things cost money, and Ryan—poor lad—had grown up in a single-parent household.
The queue of onlookers was still watching them. Daniel cleared his throat. “Everyone’s watching us. Shall we move to the side a bit?”
Ryan hesitated before falling into step beside him.
Might as well get straight to the point. “Are you my son?”
Ryan recoiled. “What?No!”
Daniel blinked. “You’re not? But we look so alike, and I thought—”
“I thoughtyouwere married and have been for a long time. Like, way before I was born. Isn’t your brother the cheatin’ bastard in your family?”
“Luke?”
“No, Mark!”
Daniel stopped short. The conversation had just taken a spectacularly strange turn. He studied Ryan again, the resemblance shifting before his eyes. Yes, the boy looked like him. But he also looked an awful lot like Mark.
“Wait,” Daniel said slowly. “Are you saying… Mark’s your father?”
“Aye. Ma mum never telt anyone who ma father was, but when I turned sixteen, I asked her and she let me know. She was in Amsterdam with her pals years ago and ran into Mark. Turns out they went to school together. One thing led to another, and… well.” He shrugged. “Here I am.”
Disappointment hit Daniel like a punch to the gut. An instant son, snatched away just like that. But Ryan’s story made sense. Joe had been booted from his room because Mark had pulled.
“Sorry,” Daniel muttered. “Looks like there’s been a misunderstanding.” As if that wasn’t painfully obvious. “Does, er… my brother know about you?”
“Oh, aye. Ma mum telt him at the time. He didn’t believe her. Said the baby wasn’t his.” Ryan’s mouth twisted. “He’s never tried tae met me. Never paid a penny for me.”
Dear God in Govan. Mark had never told a soul. That time his brother had brushed off a call as a wrong number. Daniel was willing to bet that had been Ryan.
The boy rubbed his nose again, a nervous habit that tugged at something in Daniel’s chest. “I thought, see… if I worked for you, I might run into him. Ask him why he’s ignored me all these years. Arsehole.”
Arsehole was right. Mark didn’t deserve him. If Ryan had been his son, what would Daniel have done? Fast-tracked him through the company? Paid for him to go to college? Given him one of the rooms in that big Pollokshields house and told him to make himself at home?
The queue outside the sandwich van had doubled—partly because Dennis was struggling to handle customers on his own.
Daniel looked at Ryan, at the way he held himself, all stiff shoulders and guarded eyes. If he knew him better, he might have hugged him. Dug out a twenty-pound note and promised he’d drag Mark kicking and screaming into his life.
But there were too many people watching.
Ryan broke the silence. “Why’d you think you were my dad?”
That straight-forwardness. Maybe they weren’t related by blood, but there was something familiar there.
Daniel puffed his cheeks and blew out air. “Seventeen years ago, I went on a trip to Amsterdam, the same one my brother was on, and I slept with someone. Well, I think I did. I got too shit-faced to remember afterwards. I was married at the time.”
Ryan’s eyebrows raised. “That wasnae decent o’ you.”
“No. It wasn’t. Look, you better get back to work. I’ll speak to my brother. My mother will definitely want to meet you. You’re her oldest grandson.”
Ryan perked up at that, doubtless imagining a woman on a mission to make up for years of missed birthday and Christmas presents. “Am I? Cool.”
