Page 19 of The Seascape Between Us (The Men of Saltwater Cove #4)

Chapter Thirteen

Grey

I ’m not sure how long I stood next to the bed while Daniel slept. Probably long enough that it would have been creepy if Daniel had woken up and found me there, but I couldn’t make myself turn away. A part of me was terrified that if I looked away, he would disappear from my life all over again.

In sleep, Daniel’s face softened, making him look younger, closer to the man I remembered. A strange ache gripped my chest, and I finally forced myself to turn away. After all, I couldn’t stand there all night—tempting as it was.

I slipped out of the bedroom and quietly closed the door behind me, wandering through the dining room into the living room, uncertain what to do with myself now that Daniel was sleeping.

Once again, I wished I’d thought to have Carter grab my laptop when he’d brought over the bedding and towels.

I supposed I could have sent him a text and asked him to bring it over now.

After I slipped my phone from my pants pocket, I changed my mind. It was past seven. Carter would have left by now, and June would have taken his place. Quite frankly, the woman terrified me. I’d only met her once, and since then, I made a point of avoiding her.

Daniel’s night manager, who had been working for the hotel back when Ramona had still been running the place, had been very clear since my arrival that she was Team Daniel .

To be fair, so was the rest of the staff—even Alistair—but only June had threatened my testicles with a blender if I did anything to screw Daniel over.

Intellectually, I knew she wasn’t serious, of course, but that faint smirk twisting her thin mouth, lifting her wrinkled cheeks left me less than convinced her threats were idle.

I could wait until tomorrow when I went back to the hotel for mine and Daniel’s things to grab my laptop. In the meantime, I’m sure I could find something to fill my time until Daniel woke up and I ordered food.

In the living room, I stood at the front window, watching the sun sink into the ocean and casting a soft rose-gold glow over The Square.

A lot had changed in the years I’d been away, but enough had stayed the same so that I could almost convince myself, back in my father’s house, that I’d stepped back in time.

That I was twenty years old again, and despite all the family turmoil in my life, I didn’t give a shit; I was in love, and the future was stretched out like a gleaming, golden road.

Of course, all I had to do was look down at my rumpled pants and shirt that I wouldn’t have been caught dead in at twenty, acknowledge the twinge in my lower back from the Seascape’s uncomfortable hotel bed and I felt every one of my thirty-seven years.

I backed away from the window and dropped onto the sofa. Man, it was strange being back here after so long, especially with Daniel asleep in my father’s bed, considering how everything had ended when I’d last stayed here.

To say my father hadn’t been a fan of Daniel’s would have been an understatement. My father had not liked when I’d first started seeing him, and he sure as hell didn’t like it when Daniel and I had started to get serious, and I’d wanted to transfer to the university in Saltwater Cove.

“He’s a nice enough kid, but he’s going nowhere. He’ll drag you down with him,” my father had said the first time I brought it up. He’d even warned me about Daniel and Ryan, that he’d seen them together and they’d looked like a hell of a lot more than just friends.

I’d told him he was wrong, that he must have misunderstood.

But the truth was, his every word had been like thin, sharp darts to my chest. I’d already started having my own doubts about Daniel’s friend , Ryan—their quiet conversations, the way Ryan would sometimes grip Daniel’s shoulder or rub his back.

Then I’d finally seen them together, and I’d had to admit my father was right.

With all that in mind, I couldn’t figure out why my father would have invested in Daniel’s hotel as a silent partner years later, or how Daniel would be the last person to see my father alive, since Daniel was the only person my father saw regularly after Sean passed away.

Guilt gripped my insides and gave them a twist. I hadn’t come back to The Square after my father’s husband passed away, and while my father had worked hard at coming up with excuses to keep me from visiting before Sean died, I still didn’t feel good about not coming back to pay my respects, whether my father wanted me here or not.

I’d liked Sean well enough when I met him. He’d been a quiet, thoughtful man, kind and patient. The complete opposite of my father. When I came to stay here, seventeen years ago, he’d given me a wide berth. Maybe he thought I’d blamed him for how my parents’ marriage turned out.

While I was never sure how my father had wound up leaving my mother and ending up with Sean, whether he’d been gay all along and married my mother because of pressure from his own family or whether he’d been attracted to women and men, whatever the reason, Sean didn’t need to worry that I blamed him for my parents’ divorce.

Gay, straight, or somewhere in between, my father leaving my mother had been inevitable.

I couldn’t remember a time when they could stand to be around each other.

There was so much I didn’t know about my father.

When he’d been alive, we hadn’t had the kind of relationship—any kind of relationship—where he would speak openly about who he was, and god knew, I wouldn’t have gotten any insight from my mother.

She refused to speak to me about him. Though, to be fair, she’d refused to speak to me about anything since her parents had left all their money to me when they’d passed away fifteen years ago.

But that was a whole other family drama.

When it came to Oliver Mackenzie, I didn’t know him any better than anyone else. The college professor. The town councilman. The activist. The shitty father. Maybe I did know him a little better than other people, after all.

Of course, I could know more about the man…

if I wanted to. I just wasn’t sure that I wanted to.

When Finn had come here to clean out this house right after my father had died last year, he’d boxed up my father’s personal effects and stored them in the attic—no matter how many times I told him to throw them out.

Finn had baggage with his own father, who had left him and his mother when he had been a toddler and never came back.

He’d been concerned that if he threw away my father’s things, I might regret it one day.

The thing was, I knew who my father was—at least, as a father.

He was distant, exacting, and generally disapproving.

My father as a man, I had no idea who he was, and while careening toward my forties like I was speeding downhill in a car with no brakes, I just wasn’t interested in knowing at this point in my life.

He was who he was, and nothing Finn had stashed upstairs would change that.

Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that if I didn’t at least leave the impression that I had looked at what was in the boxes Finn had stored in the attic, I had a feeling he’d ship them to my place in Portland once this house sold.

And of course, there was the letter Finn mentioned that one of the college students renting this place found. I should probably have a look at that. Maybe my father had left me some secret fortune besides a bunch of properties I didn't want.

Better to deal with my dysfunctional relationship with father rather than analyze what had happened between me and Daniel earlier and what it meant.

I climbed the stairs to the second floor, followed the hallway past the two bedrooms to a closed door at the end.

After opening it, I flicked on the light.

A bare bulb mounted above the base of a narrow set of stairs cast more shadows than light.

Forgotten cobwebs drifted high in the corners, adding to the less than charming horror movie-esque atmosphere.

Inside the attic, the air was thick and hot after an afternoon under the glare of the late spring sun and smelled of old dust and dry wood.

Between the setting sun and the thick layer of grime coating the small windows at either end of the room, darkness pressed in and I could barely see my own hand in front of me.

There had to be another light around here somewhere. I dug out my phone from my pocket and switched on the flashlight app, swinging the dull beam around the room. A long string hung from another bare light bulb mounted to an overhead beam.

I gave it a yank and a dull yellow light lit up the low, sloped ceiling, rough wood floorboards and cardboard boxes stacked against the far wall.

I didn’t move for a long moment. The sight of my father’s life reduced to a dozen or so cardboard boxes, forgotten and unwanted in an attic, felt like a punch in the stomach, stealing my breath. God, was this really all that was left of him, with no one who even wanted it?

I gave myself a mental shake. After all, I was being morbid. I just needed to get this done, and then I could leave this attic and never think of my father’s things again.

After crossing to the small space where his boxes were stacked, I stood looking at them. Someone, Finn presumably, had stuck an envelope addressed to me in my father’s neat print to the top of one of these boxes with packing tape. I smirked to myself. He clearly didn’t want me to miss it.

With a sigh, I peeled the envelope off a box before tearing it open. My heart rate kicked up in my chest, and sweat dripped down my spine. I closed my eyes, drew a deep breath, opened them again and slid out the folded letter.

Greyson,

I’ve tried writing this letter so many times and given up. The things I have to say to you are difficult to admit. I am ashamed of the things I’ve done, but I owe you an apology and an explanation, at the very least.