Page 7 of Walking on Broken Paths

Chapter Six

Between May and September, Willis Dinner Cruises operated three times a week, rain or shine: Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays.

On the second Saturday in June, they were almost at full capacity. There were thirty passengers in attendance out of thirty-four that the dining room could seat, mostly consisting of couples and small groups of friends.

Parker slowly piloted the boat in the sheltered waters of Charlottetown Harbour, sunglasses shading his eyes. He’d gotten lucky with blue skies scattered with clouds—fair weather always got the company better reviews than rain.

He considered himself lucky that his only job—aside from adminy things—was ferrying the passengers from the marina and back. Parker had staff for everything else, from cooking to serving and everything in between. He just had to stand here and navigate.

The tour didn’t go out into the Northumberland Strait, the body of water to the south between the island and mainland Canada. The water was usually choppy out there, fair weather or not, making for an unpleasant dining experience.

There was something to be said for living the high life in the big city, surrounded by every amenity imaginable. There was also something to be said for island life and its picture-perfect landscapes. Everything was so green here, teeming with vitality.

Parker hated to admit it, but he didn’t miss his old life in Montreal. He missed the work, but not the go-go-go nature of living in the city.

The problem with living in Charlottetown though? It was sometimes too slow, leaving Parker with too much time to think about things.

Thing the first he was thinking about? The email giving him until the end of the month to pay Willis Dinner Cruises’ overdue docking fees, otherwise he’d lose his berth.

Thing the second? The writing assignments he owed the agency: two brand-new letters plus one rewrite. All due early next week.

Thing the third? What to do with Dad’s house. Sell it? Lease it? Keep living in it? Not to mention all of Dad’s personal items. At some point, Parker would have to start going through his belongings.

Thing the fourth? Jesse. But then, Jesse had been hovering in the background of Parker’s thoughts since they’d bumped into each other earlier in the week.

Should he tell Jesse that he wanted to jump his bones?

Or take him on a date?

Or both?

He should.

Maybe?

Ugh. What was the protocol here? Now that Jesse was back in his life, Parker didn’t want to lose him again, and he was afraid that admitting anything to Jesse would send him fleeing west again without a word.

“Let’s say, hypothetically,” he said when Matilda joined him in the wheelhouse, “that you were attracted to someone, but you didn’t want to scare them off because you want them in your life either way. What would you do?”

“Still have the hots for Jesse Melnik, huh?”

“What?” Parker jerked his gaze in her direction before refocusing on the view in front of him. “How do you—I mean, no . It’s someone else.”

“Your dad and I used to watch you two dance around each other when you were teenagers.”

Parker opened his mouth to rebut, then paused to let that sink in. Dance around each other ... Did that mean what he thought it meant? Had Jesse had feelings for him too?

Butterflies burst to life in his stomach.

“Plus, I saw you at The Churchill Arms the other day,” Matilda continued. “And you looked just as smitten with him now as you did back then.”

Oh good, he was being obvious. Super.

He bit his lip. “Do you think he could tell?”

“No. Men are stupid.”

Parker snorted a laugh. “I don’t know how to respond to that.”

“Just agree with me.”

“Okay, Mattie.”

She patted him on the back.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Parker pressed.

Staring straight ahead, Matilda sighed and tucked a greying strand of blond hair back into her ponytail.

“Because there’s no easy answer. I think what you need to ask yourself is whether you’d have any regrets if you didn’t tell him.

And I know what you’re thinking: what if you do tell him and you regret it anyway, because he doesn’t feel the same way? ”

Parker grunted his confirmation at her deduction.

“You’re both adults, Parker. Theoretically, you wouldn’t let this one thing come between you. So what do you have to lose?”

“When you put it that way...” Parker grumbled.

“I make a lot of sense, right?”

Grinning, he bumped their shoulders and shoved his sunglasses to the top of his head. The sky was streaked with a medley of pinks and oranges that reflected off the water, turning the world into a canvas. “Do you have any regrets?” he asked her.

“Some,” Matilda admitted. “But none that keep me up at night. How about you?”

Sure, he had regrets. He regretted not trying harder to keep in touch with Jesse after Jesse had moved out west. To be fair, Jesse hadn’t accepted his calls and he hadn’t returned his emails.

There was only so much butting up against a brick wall that a person could take before they gave up, and Jesse had been the thickest of brick walls.

It had hurt too much to keep trying when all Parker had gotten in return was silence, so he’d eventually gotten on with his life while grieving for both Mikey and Jesse on his own.

And he regretted that his dad had passed away so young. At only sixty-five, he should’ve had years ahead of him still.

Although, given that Parker couldn’t have done anything about that, perhaps that wasn’t a regret. It was wishful thinking more than anything else.

“I do,” he finally said. “And I don’t want to add to them.”

“Any that keep you up at night?”

“Just one.”

“Anything you can do about it?”

He let out a long breath. “Maybe.”

Fuck, he wished his dad was still around to talk to about this.

Matilda was great—she’d been in his life forever.

She and Dad had been so close that Parker had often wondered if there’d been more between them than friendship, but they’d both always sworn up and down that they were simply the best of friends.

Platonic soulmates, Dad had called them.

Parker looked at his dad’s oldest friend and noted the new lines by her eyes and mouth and the faraway look in her eyes. “How are you, Mattie? I’m sorry I haven’t asked before.”

Her smile was half-strength at best. “Sometimes good, sometimes not so good. A day at a time, you know? Grief hits at the most unexpected times.”

“Tell me about it.”

Most days, Parker got out of bed in the morning, went on a jog, and carried on with his day as if everything was as it had been.

Then there were days when he awoke with fresh grief and it was a struggle to get out of bed just to take his morning piss.

And, of course, there were days where he operated at a hundred percent capacity only for something to trigger his grief—a scent, a memory, an object—and send him crashing back down to reality.

“I was watching TV last night,” he told Matilda. “Some made-for-TV movie. A commercial came on for Dad’s favourite laundry detergent, and I just...” He gripped the wheel hard.

“Lost it?” Matilda finished for him, her voice utterly gentle.

“For half an hour, to be precise. Picture a grown man sitting in his living room, crying over fucking Tide.”

Matilda tried not to laugh—Parker could see it in the way her lips pressed together and her eyes gleamed. But she lost the struggle, bursting into giggles, and all Parker could do was laugh along with her.

Because it was pretty funny.

Sad, but also funny.

That was life, though, wasn’t it? There was beauty in sadness and sadness in beauty.

And Parker would live the rest of his life with both.