by Jill Shalvis
questions and more. “I wasn’t pretending to work to be left alone,” she said. “I really was working.”
He grinned, his teeth white against his tanned skin and stubble. “Good. Go with that. It’s almost believable.”
Yeah. She had a problem. Because her high school crush? Fully reinstated.
Chapter 6
That night Tanner got home after a long day on the water with clients to find his voicemail loaded.
“Call me,” Sally Taylor, the high school principal, said, and brought back all sorts of memories from his own high school years, where his mom getting calls from the principal had been a weekly thing.
Tanner let out a long breath. This couldn’t be good. It couldn’t be anywhere close to good. His second message was from Elisa.
“Call me,” she said.
Shit. Definitely not good.
The third and last call was from Troy himself. No message.
Yeah. So not good. Tanner called his son first. “What’s up?”
There was a long, weighted pause. Then a tentative “What did you hear?” from Troy.
Tanner felt an eye twitch coming on. “Spill it,” he said.
“It wasn’t my fault.”
Oh, Jesus. He’d heard this before. “What wasn’t?”
“The almost fight,” Troy said.
Tanner put a finger to his twitching eye. “Keep talking.”
“It’s cliquey here. You’re either an athlete or a nobody.”
Tanner got that compared to Miami, where Troy’d grown up until a few weeks ago, Lucky Harbor was probably the equivalent of moving to the moon. “I thought you wanted to play football,” Tanner said. “I talked to the coach for you.”
“Yeah,” Troy said, “and he told his quarterback son, who isn’t excited about me joining the team just in time for the playoffs and stepping all over his toes.”
“Ignore him,” Tanner said. “He’s a punk ass. Don’t get drawn in to the drama.”
Silence.
“Troy? You hear me?”
“Yeah. I gotta go.”
Disconnect.
Now both of Tanner’s eyes were twitching. Either he was getting an embolism or he was irritated as shit. Maybe both. He called Elisa.
“He’s out of control,” she answered with. “His grades are slipping. He talks back. He won’t do what I ask. And the principal called today.”
“I know. What did she want?”
“I don’t know. I missed her call too,” she said. “I came back to Lucky Harbor for the sole purpose of getting you to help me, but honestly? I think you need to do more. You need to take custody.”
“Done,” Tanner said.
Elisa paused. “Well, that was easy.”
“Why are you surprised? The day I left the Gulf I asked you for joint custody.”
“You were in the hospital and recovering from a life-threatening accident, remember?”
He wasn’t likely to forget as he’d also been mourning losing Gil. “You said there was no way in hell you’d give him up.”
“That was before your son insinuated to my boyfriend that Dan wasn’t old enough to shave.”
Tanner didn’t say what was on his mind at that—which was that it seemed like a fair question to him as Dan was a decade her junior.
“So you’ll take custody?” Elisa asked.
Tanner frowned. “Why do you keep forgetting to say joint?”
“Right. Joint.”
“Wow, that’s convincing.”
“Hey,” she said, her voice angry. “The absentee dad doesn’t get to judge. Now I’m in desperate need of a week off. Are you going to help me or what?”
“Yes,” Tanner said immediately. Hell, yes. “I’ll come get him right now. I can be there in ten minutes.”
“No, he’s grounded. He’s already in his room for the night. I’ll bring him to you tomorrow.”
“Before school,” Tanner said. “The docks. I’ve got a job for him.”
“Ha. Good luck.”
Tanner stared at his phone for a long time after she disconnected and then at his ceiling. He was trying not to take offense at the absentee dad comment, since basically it was true.
But shit, he’d had little choice. Their circumstances had been dire. He’d been seventeen when he’d gotten her pregnant thanks to a bottle of “borrowed” hootch and a technical foul on condom use. He’d been eighteen when Troy had been born. Going into the navy had been the only way to make enough money to support them all.
Elisa had known it. She’d been all for it.
Until Tanner had actually gone, that is, and then suddenly the reality of being alone with a baby had set in. She’d moved to Florida without consulting Tanner, and he’d had little choice but to agree that being with her grandparents was good for both Elisa and Troy while he was away.
Unfortunately, absence hadn’t made the heart grow fonder. That year he’d gotten divorce papers for his birthday delivered to his base.
But that was all in the past. Tanner was a here-and-now kind of guy, and he was going to take what he could get. In this case, it was a second chance with his son—teenage alien or not.
Tanner woke before dawn. Both the military and the rig job had required brutal hours, so it was second nature by now.
He showered and dressed and left his house in the pitch dark, heading to the harbor. Sam arrived at the same time, and so did Mark, Sam’s dad, who worked for them on a part-time basis answering phones, dealing with clients, whatever was needed.
“Troy starts today,” he warned them.
“Oh, boy,” Mark said. “Batten down the hatches.”
“Dad,” Sam said.
“Maybe we should fingerprint him,” Mark said, warming to the subject.
“Dad,” Sam said again.
“Put up nanny cams,” Mark said, grinning, getting into it. His grin faded when he realized neither Sam nor Tanner was smiling. “Too far?”
Sam gave Tanner a look that said I’ll trade you a teen for a dad. “You’ve got this,” he said.
Tanner exhaled. “You think so?”
“Just remember what you were like at fifteen.”
He’d been an ass. “Not helping.”
Sam clapped him on the shoulder. “We’ve got your back.” Then he headed to the warehouse to work on the boat he was building.
“Hey,” Tanner called after him. “How are you going to have my back holed up in the shop?”
“Call me if you need me.”
“But you don’t answer your phone,” Tanner said.
Sam vanished. Tanner sighed and eyed Mark, who was still grinning.
“Now maybe you guys will see that this daddy shit ain’t all it’s cracked up to be,” Mark said.
“This isn’t funny,” Tanner said.
“A little bit it is.” Mark had recently come back into Sam’s life. He was good at handling the office crap that none of them wanted to do, and even better at annoying Sam. But Tanner got that it was important for Mark and Sam to spend some time together—as long as it was supervised. No need to tempt fate and risk Sam going to jail for murder one.
Tanner drew a deep breath and headed to the dock. Thirty minutes later a car pulled into the lot and Tanner walked up to the warehouse to meet it.
Elisa didn’t stay to chat when Troy got out of her car with two duffel bags.
The teen eyed Tanner, not looking super thrilled. Then he eyed the sign hanging off the warehouse door that said: NINJAS & PIRATES & LASERS & SHIT—STAY OUT.
He blinked. “You’ve got lasers?”
“Sam doesn’t like company in there when he’s building a boat,” Tanner said. “The sign is supposed to scare people off. He changes it every week or so.”
Troy looked disappointed. “Mom said I’m going to stay with you for the rest of the week and that I had to give you an hour of work every day before school.” Eyes hooded, his ’tude dialed to Sullen Teen, his face was closed off.
Tanner kn
ew it matched his own face, from the square jaw to the hard set of his mouth, to his dark hide-everything gaze. “Glad you showed,” Tanner said.
Troy hunched into his jacket. “I don’t think she wants me at the house right now.”
“That’s what happens when you’re a shithead.”
“Maybe it’s because of her boyfriend, Dale.”
It was Dan, and they both knew it. But if that was true, that they didn’t want Troy around, Tanner was going to be seriously pissed off at Elisa. The problem was that he had no real faith in either Troy’s or Elisa’s version of the truth. They were both acting Troy’s age.
“I want you here,” Tanner said, and when Troy looked up, vulnerability and uncertainty flashing across his face, Tanner’s heart squeezed as he nodded reaffirmation.
But the kid was good and he masked his emotions real fast—something else he’d gotten from dear old dad—giving a casual shrug like he didn’t give a damn, staring down at his shoes as if they held the secrets to life. “You gotta say that.”
“No, actually, I don’t,” Tanner told him. “I never say anything I don’t want to. I’ve always wanted you with me.”
Troy didn’t respond to that other than to make a noise that suggested Tanner might be full of shit.
Yeah. He got that. Hell, he’d been there, right there in Troy’s shoes, so he didn’t bother to try to convince the kid. Words couldn’t do that anyway, only actions could. “You lost your job at the arcade and you got in trouble at school again,” Tanner said. “Yeah?”
Troy shrugged.
“If nothing else, a Riggs always owns up to their own shit. Got me?”
Troy hesitated. “I get you.”
“And?”
Troy stared at him for a long beat and Tanner held his gaze, hoping Troy was going to step up.
Troy blew out a breath. “And I got fired,” he admitted. “And in trouble at school.”
Tanner nodded. “You’ve got a job here. You’ll make more money than you did at the arcade, but your responsibilities will be more important. You on board with that?”
Troy was showing some interest now. “You’re going to pay me?”
“Yeah, we’re going to pay you, though you’re going to work your ass off for it. Yes or no?”
Troy blinked. “I get a choice?”
“I’m not into slave labor, Troy.”
“Do I have a choice since I have to live with you for a week?”
Tanner blew out a breath. There was no gain in telling him that Elisa had dictated that decree. All it would do was hurt him, something Tanner was going to make sure didn’t happen on his watch. “I’m your dad,” he said. “That means this is more of a dictatorship than a democracy. So yeah, you’re with me this week. My rules include: respecting your mom, respecting your employer—whoever that may be—not getting in trouble at school, and in general being a decent human being. It does not include you being forced to work for me. That’s your choice. Now I’ve got a lot of shit to get to so I’m going to ask you one more time. Yes or no?”
Troy shoved his hands in his pockets. “I get grounded for saying the word ‘shit.’ Or ‘hell.’ Or ‘fuck.’” He said this last with great defiance, and Tanner decided to pick his battles.
Besides, he and Cole and Sam swore like it was their job, so he didn’t have a soapbox to stand on with this one. “Yeah, well, when you’re as old as I am no one’ll ground you for swearing,” he promised.
“That’s not fair.”
“Nope,” Tanner agreed. “But life isn’t fair. Yes or no, Troy.”
Another shrug. “I guess.”
Tanner studied him a moment. “I’ll take that as a ‘oh, thank you, Dad, yes,’” he finally said dryly. “You’ll be scrubbing the deck today.”
As if he’d just been asked to make molehills out of mountains, Troy blew out a breath and rolled his eyes. Which was just about the kid’s favorite thing to do, and if he persisted at it, Tanner was going to put those eyes in a jar and roll them for him. “The equipment’s in the hut.”
The hut was what they used for the front office of Lucky Harbor Charters. “Mark’s already in,” Tanner said. “He’ll get you what you need.”
“The old guy?” Troy asked. “He tells stupid stories and never stops talking.”
“Mark is Sam’s father,” Tanner said, “and you’ll need to give him the same amount of respect that you’d give me, Sam, or Cole.” Tanner held Troy’s gaze for a long beat, but apparently Troy was smarter than he looked because he didn’t quite dare roll his eyes again.
But neither did he look happy or thrilled, or any of the things Tanner had ideally hoped to see. Apparently, getting Troy’s head out of his own ass was going to take some time. And just as apparently, the two of them working together was going to make them or break them, though Tanner would accept nothing less than success—God help them both. Because there was no going back. Like the explosives Tanner had worked with for so many years, he had one chance to get this right, to avoid blowing things sky high with his son.
He received an email and glanced at it. It was from his mom.
Honey, I stopped by the B&B spa and picked up a deep muscle tissue cream for your leg. You remember Chloe Traeger? Well, she’s Chloe Thompson now, married to the sheriff, and she runs the spa. She says to come by so she can massage the knots out of your leg. She said you need to be doing this weekly. Also, she wants you to do yoga with her for PT.
Tanner did remember Chloe, vividly. She’d been as wild as he, and a lot of fun. But he would do yoga with her over his cold, dead body.
Troy read the email over his shoulder and snorted.
Tanner slid him a look. “What?”
“Grandma’s pretty bossy for a nice old lady.”
Tanner couldn’t help it—he had to laugh. “Don’t let her hear you call her old or you’ll really see bossy.”
“You going to do the yoga?”
Hell, no. But he didn’t want to form the kid’s negative opinions. “There’s nothing wrong with yoga.”
“Yeah, if you’re a girl,” Troy said.
Tanner deleted the email.
“You think she’ll be baking brownies again anytime soon?” Troy asked, an unmistakable note of hope in his voice.
Tanner met Troy’s gaze. “She told you she baked those brownies herself?”
“Yeah.”
Tanner laughed. “She buys them at the bakery from Leah.”
“Really? Why did she lie about it?”
“She didn’t. I guarantee you she heated them up in her oven specifically so as to not be lying.” He shrugged at Troy’s confused expression. “Look, for most of your life, you’ve lived far away
