Page 77 of Honeymoon Phase
I inhale deeply, staring at the embers sizzling in the hearth, hating that I have the memory of my dad’s face in death. Slackened jaw, discolored lips. I don’t want that memory. I want to remember him alive and well and yelling at me and my brothers to get our shit together.
“I always thought a heart attack would be the way to go. Quick and painless. But nothing about seeing my dad like that looked painless. I feel like I just hurt him for no goddamn reason.”
“You were performing lifesaving measures, Luke,” Addison says, her voice hoarse as she reaches out to grab my hand, her fingers trembling as she squeezes mine. “You would have hadregrets if you did nothing too. And if you got a firefighter call and showed up to someone else’s house, you would have done the same exact thing. Fact or fiction?”
I struggle to look into her eyes.
“Look at me,” she states firmly, grabbing my chin and turning me to face her.
I blink slowly, my eyes hurting over the fact that the woman I love knows this darkness in me now. I liked being the light in Addison’s life. I can tell she needs it. Craves it. Bringing this to her could have just set me back for all I know.
I breathe deeply and reply, “Fact.”
“Then that’s all you need to know.” She wraps her hands around my arm and lays her head on my shoulder, the smell of her floral shampoo invading my nose and unexpectedly comforting me. “You should sleep well at night knowing you did everything you could.”
“I just wish I could quiet the what-if questions. What if I’d called 911 to get an ambulance up there instead? What if I’d done CPR longer? What if my dad was showing symptoms earlier that day and helping me just made him worse?”
Addison’s head moves on my arm as she nods her understanding. “What if my mom wouldn’t have driven drunk? What if she would have opened up about not being sober and tried to get help? What if she would have attempted to have a relationship with me after jail? What if Aaron was still alive? It’s fucking exhausting to live with the what-ifs.”
“I know.” I exhale heavily and wrap my arm around her, comforted by the feel of her weight on me. This is everything I wanted back then. “I just miss him. I miss his voice. He had this gruff sound to him that just... felt like home.”
“Oh, I remember,” Addison says, leaning back to smile up at me. “I took most of the orders at the building center back then and he was a talker on the phone.”
I smile at that. I like that my dad knew Addison before he passed. It’s comforting to me to know that he knew my wife.
Her brows knit together, and she chews her lip before reaching to the coffee table to retrieve her phone. “I have something for you actually.”
I frown as she unlocks her phone to pull something up.
“I’ve been saving this, not sure what to do with it.” She pulls up the voicemail app on her phone and I frown when she scrolls down and clicks Play, turning it on speaker as she does.
Suddenly, my dad is in the room with us.
“Hey, Addison, this is Steve Fletcher... say listen... we need to revise an order that my son placed with you for the Hope House before I gave him the go-ahead.”
“Hey! You told me to do it!”Calder’s voice shouts from somewhere in the distance.
“I didn’t tell you to do it,”my dad argues.
“Someone told me to do it. I bet it was Luke.”
“Don’t pin this on me,”my voice says with a laugh.
“Then it was Wyatt. Ouch!”Calder yells.“Dad! Wyatt just decked me. That’s an HR violation. I want to file a report.”
The phone muffles and my dad’s voice is loud and clear in the line again.“Sorry you had to hear that, Addison. If you ever have sons who work for you at the lumberyard, I hope like hell you can manage them better than me, ’cause I’m fit to be tied with these knuckleheads. Anyways... call me back so we can get that order changed if it’s not too late. Thanks.”
I frown at the phone, too stunned to speak and then hear a scuffle into the line. It’s my dad’s voice again.
“For the record though... I wouldn’t change working with my sons for anything in this world. You would be lucky to have this life in your future. Talk to you later, kiddo.”
Addison lowers the phone and turns to see that my eyes are flooded with tears. It was like I could close my eyes and noneof the bad stuff happened. Suddenly, he was back on this earth, living with my mom. He was my boss and my dad again, giving me a pat on the back and I could pick up the phone to talk to him right fucking now. It’s equal parts wonderful and dreadful and I’d listen to that message all over to feel this beautiful pain again.
“Why did you keep this?” I ask, staring at my best friend in wonder.
She blinks and errant tears fall down her face as well. “I didn’t realize it was still on my phone until last year and I was too scared to share it with you then. It felt too personal. Like I didn’t have a right to give it to you, especially after I was so awful when he died. I hope it’s okay I played it for you now.”
“It is. Good God, babe, it is more than okay.” My chest swells with a pain that feels so bad and so good all at the same time as I pull my best friend into me and hug her with everything I have. “I think I needed that more than I realized.”
