Page 34 of Second Chance Wedding
“S’okay, Ben,” Brooks said softly. “Just trying to get to know you. And if your dad isn’t around, that’s his loss.”
Brooks shifted gears to slow at a light, and Cole pondered Ben’s words. Ana had surely dated, but as a single mom, maybe she’d kept her dates secret? Never brought a man into Ben’s life until she knew it would work out?
But then, she obviously hadn’t brought one around if Ben said she’d never had a boyfriend and didn’t date.
Could it be true? “Do you know a Quinley?” Cole asked, remembering Ana mentioning the name as her emergency check-in.
“Yeah, that’s Mom’s best friend. She was Mom’s roommate in college.”
Cole leaned an elbow on the door and ran his fingers over his chin and mouth, his gut unclenching at the news. Here he’d been thinking Quinley was one of Ana’s male friends.
But why the relief to find out she’s female? It wasn’t like he and Ana were going to ever be together again.
“You and your mom do fun stuff together? Go to the beach? Out on a boat?” Brooks asked, obviously pushing to keep the kid talking.
“No. Well, sometimes with Quinley and her rich boyfriend, but not for a long time. Mom just works.”
“Being a single parent can’t be easy,” Cole said. “And living at the beach isn’t cheap.”
“That’s what she says,” Ben told them. “She worked all the time before when I was little, before she got the store going, but it’s worse now. She never stops.”
“Do you go in and help her out?” Brooks asked. “Might free up some of her time if you did.”
Ben lifted a bony shoulder in a shrug.
“My mom says I have to now because…you know,” Ben said.
“So that brings up another question. Why did you steal it?” Brooks asked. “And where were you going?”
Brooks’s questions drew Cole’s full attention. His brother slowed to make the left turn that would get him to the gate leading to the south end of the island.
Once through the gate, Brooks put the truck in low gear and headed out onto the sand where they bounced across the softer sand to the more firmer stuff closer to the water.
“I was…going to meet my friends,” Ben said in a low voice. “There’s this girl, and…I thought it would be cool if I could pick her up in a limo.”
Ben glanced up at Cole and then hurried to look away.
“And where were you and your friends going?” Cole asked.
“A party, but it doesn’t matter now. According to my mom, I’m grounded for life.”
“Boo-hoo,” Brooks said gruffly. “Let me paint another picture for you, okay? Let’s say you took the limo and didn’t wreck it at the hotel. You go, you pick up your friends and this girl, and you go to the party. You with me so far?”
“Yeah,” Ben mumbled.
“So at this party you drink because that’s what kids your age do. Then you get back into the limo, and you drive your friends and this girl. You don’t mean for anything to happen, but you wreck it, and you hurt that girl you like so much. Not to mention your friends and yourself and whomever or whatever else you hit along the way.”
For all his goofiness, orneriness and outright cluelessness at times, Brooks was a dad. And right then, he proved just how good of a dad he would be to the four kiddos Brooks and Allie had at home.
“You want that girl to like you?” Cole asked.
“Well, yeah.”
“Then be the guy she can count on. The one who gets her and…listens when she talks,” Cole said. “Don’t be the jerk that’s all flash and never there when she needs you.”
A particularly rough bounce left them all reaching for something to hold onto despite the seatbelts they wore.
“He’s right, Ben. Besides, the girls that would want you to steal cars aren’t the ones who’d visit you in prison. They’d just move on to the next guy. Remember that.”
