Page 103 of My Revenant
“Then I’m coming too.”
If I denied him, I expected there’d be little chance of me prying myself out of his koala grip, and if I was honest, I didn’t particularly want to. I’d just have to hope Roy would be okay with Jonah being my shadow for the day, and look for a moment I could get away to find that big bastard.
Roy raised an eyebrow when we walked into the shop. His eyes flicked from Jonah to me, a question on his face I was going to force him to ask before I answered with as little detail as possible.
“All good?” he spoke after a moment.
“Will be.” Because it wasn’t yet, but we’d find our way through.
Roy nodded his head once, looking back at my rabbit again. “Jonah, I assume?”
Jonah’s fingers caught the back of my jacket as he stepped in closer, that harsh mask he always wore around people he didn’t know firmly in place. He nodded.
Roy grunted. “Well. I ain’t paying you if you ain’t workin’.”
I huffed in amusement, and Jonah stiffened, obviously trying to figure out how to respond to that.
“You can start by getting the coffee order,” said the grumpy mechanic, already putting Jonah to work. No doubt sending him off so we could speak privately.
He pulled cash from his wallet and held it out to Jonah, who was still trying to figure out the situation he was in and how to respond. Roy made that decision for him. “Black, no sugar. Whatever this one wants.” He gestured his head toward me. “And you.” Jonah looked at me, mild panic beneath the scowl as Roy stepped forward and slapped the cash into his hand. “Go on, then.” Roy usheredhim out, and I smiled and gave him a reassuring nod as he was whisked toward the entrance.
The door chimed, and I heard Jonah grumble something under his breath, but he started walking toward the diner.
“Well then.” Roy turned his attention back to me. “You takin’ time off and then bringin’ him here. Now, I don’t have a problem with that, provided he doesn’t get in the way, but I need to ask you, son. You boys in trouble?”
Briefly, I wondered what might happen if I told Roy everything. Would he still have the same level of care for me? Would he still want me working here for him? Would he still call me “son?” I couldn’t risk it. Couldn’t lose him.
“I’m sorting it out.” I settled for. Not a lie.
Roy nodded and waited for me to continue. When I didn’t, he sighed, crossing his thick arms over his chest. “Boy, you want him to stick around here, you’re gonna have to give me more than that.”
“You really gonna kick him out, Roy? He doesn’t want to be alone right now.”
Roy stared at me, and I stared right back, both of us waiting for the other to give in. He huffed, and I won.
“Just… what do you need from me, kid?” he asked. I wasn’t sure what I needed, but I had the urge to confide in him, like a scared child seeking the guidance of a parent, someone older and wiser who could make promises like “it’s going to be okay,” and it’d be believable because there was no reason to doubt them. But that wasn’t my life, and Roy wasn’t my father. That was something I didn’t have anymore. I had to do this on my own.
“I need to go somewhere for a bit. Can you keep Jonah busy? Tell him I had to do something for work? I don’t want him to worry.”
“Should he worry?” I knew what he was really asking was, “ShouldIworry?”
“No, everything’s going to be just fine.” Words spoken with hope rather than confidence.
Roy stared at me with an intensity that threatened to shatter the walls I kept between us. “I don’t talk much, ’bout your pa.”
The mention of my father was so unexpected that I couldn’t help the sharp inhale it provoked. “You don’t talk much about anything.” I tried for teasing, but it fell flat.
“Wedidn’t talk much ’bout what really mattered. And I could see—” Roy cleared his throat. “I could see he struggled, and I’d ask him if he was good, and you know what he’d say to me, son? He’d say, ‘Everything’s going to be just fine.’ Now, I ain’t no fool, and I knew he wasn’t feeling all that good, but like a fool I let him go with that. Because that’s the type of men we were. But—” He cleared his throat again, his jaw clenching, his eyes piercing right through me, and I felt heat behind my own as he continued. “But maybe if I hadn’t, he wouldn’t have—” His eyes glassed over. “He wouldn’t have done what he did.”
My throat tightened, and as a tear escaped the pale eyes of a man I was used to always seeing so stoic, it felt like my own were being unwillingly drawn from my depths like water from the bottom of a deep well. Because I’d been selfish enough to believe I was the only one who’d missed him, who remembered him, who’d cried for him.
“But I can’t fix that now. He’s gone, and I can’t bring him back. He asked me somethin’, though. Made me promise him somethin’. You know what that was?”
I shook my head as my vision blurred.
“He made me promise if somethin’ ever happened to him, that I’d look out for his boy. Now I’ve tried, kid, and maybe I coulda tried harder, and I’m sorry for that. But I failed him once and I’ll be damned if I do it again. So, I’m gonna ask you one more time. You boys in trouble?”
The bucket pulled to the surface of the well and spilled its contents in rivulets down my cheeks. “Yeah,” I whispered. “We might be.”
