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CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The silence in my truck is deadly. Linc won’t meet my eyes. He stares out the window as I navigate the midday traffic on the highway leading out of downtown San Diego.

His favorite T-shirt is torn. His hair’s a mess like he’s been pulling it out. And, dammit to hell, he looks far too much like an adult.

I haven’t yelled. But I’m close.

Throttling my voice, I say, “You owe it to me to tell me what the hell you were thinking.”

He sighs, but holds his silence.

“Linc. This conversation is not an option. You’re not getting out of this truck until you tell me what the hell is going on.”

He sounds like a teenager when he draws out the word, “Dad.” Every parent has heard that sound. The ‘I’m so over it' voice. Well, I’m fucking over it too.

Smoke is about to start rolling out of my ears. I bark at him, “Start talking.”

He has the nerve to reach up and flick on the radio. As he leans back, he says, “I fucked up.”

“Linc,” I glare at him. “Language.”

“You say it all the time, Brock .”

The hair on my neck stands up. It might be because I’m about to self-combust from the anger I’m holding inside.

I don’t even give him a response to using my name like a curse. We’ve already had this conversation.

Sounding surprisingly young, he asks, “Can we get some food? I haven’t eaten since yesterday.”

After I steam for a few miles, I finally look over. He’s got his head back, his eyes closed. That’s when I see how dark the circles are under his eyes. His cheeks are sunken and his pale lips are pressed tight. Looks like he’s in hell inside his own head.

It punches me in the chest. Shit. I suddenly feel really bad for the kid.

It’s hard being a teenager. Ask me how I know…

I’ve done all the same shit. Well, not exactly the same shit. But I’ve run the roads, had plenty of fistfights, skipped school, been suspended, lost my head over girls, wrecked cars. You name it. I’ve done it.

No wonder my parents were in a rage all the time.

Sighing, I soften my voice and say, “Yeah. I can do that. I know a good place that’s not too far away.”

There’s a diner right by the highway that has good breakfast food. I pick the booth in the back, where no one else can hear our conversation… in case he decides to talk. Or in case I decide to tell him about the school I’ve been looking at.

Which I won’t do, because he’s going to have a fit of rage.

I can feel it coming like a storm.

As I sit across from him, I watch as he orders two full breakfasts plus a side of toast with butter and jelly. He’s grown so fucking much. I can’t believe it. Another few inches and he’ll be past where I was at his age.

He’s gonna be a big man when he reaches his full height. Probably in his early twenties if he’s like me. That’s when I hit six foot three.

His muscles have really started to fill out. For years, I’d wondered if he’d be lanky like his mother or built like me. Looking at him is like looking in the mirror at a younger version of myself. Right down to the dark, dark green eyes. It’s a trait we got from my grandfather. To this day, I’ve never seen eyes like ours, so dark green they are nearly black.

When I’ve had enough of the awkward silence, I say, “You’re probably going to get community service.”

He glares at me, says flatly, “I know. I know all about it. My friend Mick just got busted for the same thing.”

“So, he hitchhiked to San Diego and got caught trespassing?”

“Nah, he just got caught skateboarding at the library at two AM in Lynn’s Cove. Trespassing, though.”

“That’s a little different than scaling the wall into a gated community in a city where you don’t live. What were you doing?”

He shrugs. “I needed to talk to someone. ”

My brows drop. “Who do you know in San Diego?”

He flips his phone around in his hands and purposefully won’t look at me. “It’s not important.”

“I disagree.”

I’ll be getting a copy of the phone records detailing every damned call and text the kid’s made. I’ve never had to go that far before, but he’s never gone this far before either.

The waitress shows up and slides his plate of toast in front of him. She promises to bring my meal right away. Linc proceeds to dive in and eat like a farm animal.

“I’m taking your phone and you’ll be on lockdown at the house.”

He glances up as he chews. “I figured.”

“Whatever you did was worth all of this?”

He nods.

“That’s it?”

He nods again.

I groan, “Fucking hell.”

“Language,” he mutters around a mouthful of toast.

I just shake my head. “So, now you’re just going to be sitting around the house all day and night. Suspended. On lockdown. With no phone. I sure hope you’re learning a lesson. Hope that whatever bullshit you got into was worth it.”

He raises his eyes to mine, and there’s anger burning hot in those familiar green irises. “It is.”

The rest of the meal is eaten in silence. He watches me eat. I watch him eat. Both of us locked in angry silence.

My phone dings with a text from Reeves. New lab reports are back from the arson case. The ladder truck needs a new front tire, they found a metal shard in it. The sprinkler in the lounge went off, soaking the microwave, causing it to short circuit. He’s taking Avery shopping for a new one.

Great. Just fucking great. The last thing I want to think about is Reeves using his Texas charms on Avery. I grunt and shove my phone in my pocket, when I really want to smash it on the floor.

“Let me guess. They need you at work?” Linc sneers.

“A lot going on. And much of it falls on my shoulders.”

Voice full of sarcasm, he says, “I thought you didn’t want to be Chief.”

“I didn’t. But the county needed me to do it. If there had been more time, maybe they could have found someone.”

He stabs the tall stack of pancakes that the waitress just delivered and says, “What about you? What about having a life again like you said you would?” He makes air quotes, “One day.”

“I do have a life.”

He mutters, “Yeah. You’ve got a life. And I’ve got a life.”

“Not anymore, you don’t.” I grit out. “You threw yours away last night.”

“Like you threw your marriage away by working all the time?”

For a stunned second, I just stare at him. Then my collar starts to burn as heat works its way up my neck. “I was working to take care of you and your mother.”

“In Afghanistan?”

“Yeah. In Afghanistan and about a half dozen other countries.”

“Pretty hard to take care of me and mom when you’re across the world.”

Low. Fucking. Blow.

It slices me like a dull, rusty blade .

I know I deserve his anger on many levels. There were a ton of things I missed.

“I know that I was gone too much. But there’s something bigger than just home. I wasn’t just taking care of you two, I was also taking care of my unit so they could do their job. And the other men and women who serve. And the people who live in war torn countries. I was helping keep our country safe. But yeah, I was working a lot. All the time. I was gone too much. I know it. And I’ll never forgive myself for that.”

We stare at each other. The hard truth hanging between us like barbed wire. But I feel like we’re finally getting to the bottom of something. Linc is mad about me working back then and now. Hell, maybe he’s mad about the divorce.

Feeling the full effect of my hurt and frustration unfurling again in my gut, I say, “Your mother and I had a lot of problems. Not just that I was gone a lot.”

He glances away. “Yeah, whatever.”

“Is this why you’re acting out?”

“Acting out? Because I do all the shit you used to do, you can’t call it acting out, Brock.” He says my name in a low, angry hiss.

“What is it, then?”

“Life,” he mutters. “My life.”

“Well, it’s not your own to direct until you’re eighteen. I’ve been trying to be the best father I can, and you’re just pushing it and pushing it, Linc. You’re about out of rope.”

He turns those angry, reckless eyes on me. “Yeah, well, I guess I better get a knife, then.”

A vein ticks in the side of my head. Something in my skull is at serious risk of rupturing. I shove up from the table and stride through the aisle between the tables of diners. My chest feels like a boa constrictor has me tied up .

My vision is blood red. My pulse is pounding through me, right down to my fingertips.

I’m sure I’ve never felt this exact surge of emotion inside of me before now.

Breathe, breathe. Breathe.

Be the adult.

I pace the parking lot until my blood pressure returns from the stratosphere. Then, I go in and pay at the cashier.

Linc finishes his breakfasts, both of them, and walks right past me and straight to the truck.

As soon as I get back to the station, I’m calling the damned private school. Because for the life of me, I can’t figure out how to stop him, and I’m scared as shit that one of those calls is going to be for something far more tragic than getting arrested for trespassing in some snooty ass neighborhood.

I know what it’s like to be his age. I know what it’s like to be wired like I am. One step away from making a fatal mistake for some instant gratification.

Linc might have inherited my genes, but there’s no reason to believe he also inherited my luck. And that’s the only thing that’s saved my ass.