Page 137 of The Business of Love Box Set 1: Books 1 - 4

PETER

E very muscle in my body felt like it had been pulled tight around the bones—so tight, in fact, that when I rolled my shoulders, turned my head from side to side, or lowered myself into a chair, little groans of discomfort escaped me.

I felt rickety and old, like an elderly man riddled with arthritis and muscle deterioration.

In reality, I was just sore from all the work I’d done on the cabin over the last couple of days.

With Katie busy at work and getting ready to fly back to the Big Apple, I found myself with a lot of time on my hands. It seemed weird to miss a person I hardly knew, but it felt just as weird to refer to Katie as someone “I hardly knew.” Perhaps it was because I felt like I’d known her for ages.

Or perhaps it was because I wished I had.

Katie was the sort of person who walked into your life unannounced and changed the name of the game. She’d changed how I thought about myself and my future and what I wanted. Sure, I’d always thought about ending up with the right woman, but she hadn’t been a fully formed idea in my head yet.

All I had were tidbits of what I thought I wanted in a partner. I thought I’d wanted someone with a lot in common with me so we could do a lot of things together. I thought I wanted a woman who would go with the flow. Someone who was low key and easygoing and flexible.

Katie definitely had those qualities but she’d channeled them in a different way than I expected.

Yes, she was easygoing, but she was also a career driven woman who valued her work and commanded respect.

I didn’t think we had much in common except for maybe our relaxed senses of humor and our desire to laugh and make others laugh.

There is still so much to discover about her.

What was her favorite meal? Her favorite pastime?

Did she like to sing in the shower? I suspected she might.

How did she spend her days when she was sad?

Did she sink up to her chin in a bubble bath surrounded by flickering candles with a glass of merlot within reach, or did she cuddle under the covers in her favorite pair of pajamas?

Was it neither? Did she watch funny movies to get a laugh?

Did she call a friend or maybe her twin brother?

Did she let people see her cry?

Why are you thinking about these things?

My mind had been a minefield of unfamiliar territory these past few days. Thinking about Katie was quite literally driving me insane, and the housework on the cabin had been a nice reprieve. Working with my hands in turn kept my mind busy, which helped pass the time.

So far, I’d managed to gut the kitchen cupboards and put up new plywood inside.

I wasn’t going to bother with painting, but I had laid down cupboard inserts on the bottoms so cookware and glasses and plates weren’t resting upon the exposed pieces of wood.

I’d patched some drywall holes, nailed baseboards back onto the walls that had long since bent and bowed off of them, and even managed to go into town to pick up some paint to freshen the place up.

The next time Katie came in here, she would see some major improvements courtesy of yours truly.

I hated how badly I wanted her to notice my efforts.

At the end of yet another long workday, I grabbed myself a beer from the fridge and stepped out onto the porch with my phone in hand.

I popped the cap off the beer. It rolled across the porch to bump up against one of the support beams, where it teetered and landed on its top.

I tilted my head back and took three big gulps of beer, smacked my lips, and closed my eyes.

It had been a long day.

In the back of my mind, I knew there were still things that needed to be done, things that were not on the island.

I needed to call my father’s care home and check in on him.

I hadn’t touched base with them in over a week. To some people, that might not seem like all that long, but to those who know what it is like to have a parent or an older family member with Alzheimer’s, they know how precious time is. Things could change in a matter of days.

Drastically.

If I said I didn’t worry about that daily, I’d be a liar.

I had a crippling fear that I would call the care home one of these days and they’d tell me my father had succumbed to the deterioration of his mind and his days were limited.

Once he took a turn for the worse, it wouldn’t be long before he was gone.

It was hard to prepare for the death of someone I loved when I felt like I’d had to say goodbye to them three years ago already.

Sometimes he didn’t know who I was. Sometimes he called me his brother’s name, Walter.

Walter had died over thirty years ago in a drunk driving accident.

I never met him. Mike hadn’t even been born at the time.

But Alzheimer’s was a disease that made no sense, and my father was living in the past these days.

I stared down at my phone and considered putting off the call for one more day. What harm could another twenty-four hours do?

Irreparable harm .

I called the care home.

A nurse named Tiffany, who preferred to be called Tiff, answered my call with a cheery voice. “Everglade Senior Assisted Living. This is Tiff. How can I help you?”

“Hey, Tiff,” I said, swirling my beer around so it sloshed up the neck of the bottle. “It’s Peter Stenley. I was calling to check in on my old man. How’s he been?”

“Peter,” Tiff said delightedly. “I was wondering when you were going to call.”

Was that a good thing or a bad thing?

No, if it was a bad thing, she would have called me already. She has my information.

“How’s St. John?” Tiff asked.

“Beautiful. Sunny. Really hot.”

“Sounds like paradise, and a lot like California,” she teased.

“It’s nothing like California.” I chuckled. “For starters, nobody has tried to run me over with their car. It doesn’t smell like diesel and wet McDonald’s wrappers, either. Which is nice.”

“That sounds lovely. Still sticking to the original three-month plan?”

“We’ll see,” I said, wanting to move on to the important subject, my father. “How’s he doing, Tiff?”

Tiff hesitated for a moment. After five or so seconds, she sighed.

My heart sank.

“He’s as good as he can be, Peter. He asks about you a lot lately. Specifically in the last few days. Mikey, too.”

I frowned. I hadn’t heard someone call my little brother Mikey in quite some time. It was what our father called him when we were kids. I’d been Pete. Or as per my elementary-school teachers and my Aunt Emera, Petey. I loathed the nickname as much now as I had back then.

“What does he ask about?”

“All kinds of things,” Tiff said. “He wants to know where you’re living now and if you’re single. He thinks you still work construction and has tried to call your old job sites a dozen times over.”

“Ah.”

“And he misses both of his sons,” she finished.

Guilt flared inside me like a lit torch. “I know.”

Tiff was quiet for a minute again. “Peter, it’s not my job as a nurse here to tell family members what to do and when to do it, but your father is one of my very favorite patients, and I would hate to let precious time slip between your fingers because I didn’t say anything.

The signs are here. I think it would be wise to try to come and visit him. ”

I didn’t say anything.

“I understand that you were planning on being gone for three months,” she continued, “and I also understand how much you needed the break. But I think it’s important that you know time is limited.

At least his moments of clarity are. He’s still your dad right now, Peter.

Bits and pieces of him show up every day.

It won’t be long before those moments are gone entirely, and by then, it will be too late to say a proper goodbye. ”

I cleared my throat as it tightened with anxiety and more guilt. “I’ll see what I can swing, Tiff. Thank you for being honest with me. I appreciate it.”

“You should tell your brother, too. He hasn’t been here in weeks.”

“I will. I promise. Tell my dad I’m coming to see him even though he’ll forget.”

I could hear the smile in her voice when she spoke. “Forgetting doesn’t matter. The moment will still matter to him. We’ll see you soon, Peter.”

“See you soon.”

She hung up first.

I stared at my phone in my hand before putting it down face first on my thigh.

The right thing to do would be to go back to LA to see my old man.

And I knew I would follow through. It would be a hell of a lot easier if there was someone in my corner to go with me—someone who had my back who I could go to at the end of the day, who could lighten my burden and remind me that there were still things worth being happy about.

Worth smiling for.

Someone like Katie.

I worried it was too soon for me to ask her to do such a thing with me. It would be a lot of pressure, not to mention a difficult request to say no to.

Hey, Katie, how do you feel about flying to LA with me so you can hold my hand while I visit my dying father?

The thought made me laugh. There was no right way to pose the question.

Hey, Katie, let me take you on a date. There’s only one catch. It’s in LA and before dinner we have to make a pit stop at the Everglades to see my old man. Don’t worry. It won’t put a damper on the night at all.

I shook my head. This wasn’t the kind of thing to joke about. Katie would think I was an insensitive ass.