Billionaire Mountain Man

by Claire Adams

  The next day, Allie came over in the late morning, we all piled into the car and went to the public side of Moose Lake, and the beach was already pretty crowded with people lying out on towels parked on beach chairs under umbrellas and kids digging by the water’s edge with plastic shovels and buckets.

  “This looks like a good spot,” I said, and we set up the beach quilt and the chairs. Declan wanted to go in the water immediately. Allie said she was going to suntan for a little bit, so we went down and waded in. Declan dunked himself, then worked on dog paddling and frog-kicking. After he got tired of that, he asked if I would give him a ride, so I dove in, then swam up behind him and he climbed on my back, arms wrapped around my neck.

  We swam out to the buoys and then made our way back to shore. He let go of my neck and slipped off my back once we got shallow enough that he could touch. I dove back under once more. When I resurfaced, I looked toward the beach, where Allie was. She was sitting up on her towel, talking to a couple guys that I didn’t recognize. They looked young, probably her age, a couple of fresh-faced kids that just graduated from college.

  “... sick lake house,” one of the kids was saying as Declan and I made our way over. “You should check it out.”

  “The house sounds great,” Allie said, “but I don’t really go to house parties.”

  The two kids glanced at me as I reached for a towel. They were both smooth, practically hairless. Boys, really. Backward baseball caps, a tribal tattoo on the taller one’s upper arm. They eyed me, then Declan.

  “Hey,” I said, wrapping the towel around my waist.

  They looked from Allie to me, then back again.

  “This is Cole,” Allie said. “Cole, this is Devon and Asher. They’re from New York.”

  “My parents have a lake house here,” the one named Devon said. He looked at Allie again. “He your boyfriend?”

  I was curious to hear what she’d say, all the while vaguely aware that Declan was watching this interaction with great interest.

  “We’re neighbors,” Allie said. She had those sunglasses on so I couldn’t see her eyes. I felt a pang of disappointment circulate through me, though I knew that was stupid.

  “Well, if you want to come too, you can,” Devon said.

  “What is it I’m being invited to?” I asked.

  “Apparently there’s a big party on Tuesday,” Allie said. “Who has a party on Tuesday, though? I’ve got to work the next day.”

  They both shrugged. “Why not have a party on Tuesday?”

  She sighed. “Neither of you are probably working this summer, huh?”

  They looked at her as if she was speaking some foreign language. No, of course they weren’t working. These were rich summer kids who were going to spend the next two months partying their asses off at their parents’ second homes.

  “Nah,” they said at the same time.

  She gave them a wry smile. “Must be nice.”

  “Well, hey, if you want to come by, you should,” Devon said. He gave Allie the once-over, and then they sauntered off. I felt old, and at the same time, very territorial. That feeling ebbed a bit when I saw them start talking to another group of girls. Clearly, they were just looking to populate this party of theirs with as many pretty people as they could.

  We pulled the sandwiches I had made earlier out of the cooler and ate them, along with some fruit salad and a few pieces of dark chocolate.

  “Think I need to work on the tan,” I said when we were finished eating. I stretched out on the towel on my back. I adjusted my sunglasses and let my eyes close. Most of the sunscreen I’d applied had probably washed off, but I just didn’t have the energy to get up and get the bottle from the beach bag. It felt too good lying here, my feet dug into the warm sand.

  “Are you taking a nap?” Declan asked.

  “No,” I said. “Just closing the eyes.”

  “You can take a nap if you want,” he said, “and then maybe when you get up, me and Allie will be finished with our sandcastle city and you’ll be so surprised with how good it is!”

  I turned my head and looked at Allie. “That okay with you?” I asked.

  “Of course!” she said. “I think you’re going to be very impressed when you wake up.”

  I smiled. I doubted I’d be able to actually go to sleep, but being able to lay there and not have to worry about what Declan was getting into was a luxury all on its own.

  And I think I did actually start to doze a little; maybe not quite full-on sleep, but I was definitely straddling that gray area between awake and asleep. Everything sounded a little further away, and it didn’t quite seem like I was totally there in my body.

  “How come those guys wanted to know if Dad was your boyfriend?” I heard Declan ask.

  “They were just wondering,” Allie replied. “A lot of the time, people assume that if you’re together like this, that you’re boyfriend and girlfriend or married.”

  “Are you guys going to get married?”

  She laughed. “Me and your dad?”

  “Yeah. Most kids at school have two parents, you know.”

  “A lot of them do. But not all of them. Some people come from a home with two parents; some only have one. I didn’t really know my dad when I was growing up.”

  “You didn’t?”

  “No. And that’s okay—that’s just how it works out sometimes. Everybody has a different life experience.”

  “I wish I knew my mom.”

  There was a pause, and even with my eyes closed, I could tell that Allie was trying to figure out what to say.

  “Maybe you could ask your dad about her sometime,” she said.

  “I don’t know. I don’t think he wants me to. I tried asking my grandma about her once, but she almost started crying.”

  “Sometimes it’s hard for people to talk about things.”

  “Why would it be hard for her to talk about that?”

  Another pause. “I’m not sure.”

  I continued to lay there underneath the hot sun, feeling my skin starting to crisp, despite the sunscreen. I didn’t want them to think that I was awake, that I had been able to overhear every word that had been said. There was a part of me that wanted to just tell Declan everything, and tell him all about it, but he was too young, of course. It wouldn’t make sense to him, and it would leave him with far more questions than answers. It might feel good to talk about it, but I wouldn’t let myself do it, even though a part of me longed to tell Allie; I didn’t want to keep anything from her.

  We stayed at the lake for a while, only packing our stuff up when the sun was low in the sky and the mosquitos started coming out. Declan was sound asleep in his car seat before I’d even made it out of the parking lot.

  “It’s amazing what a day at the beach will do to a kid,” I said. “I definitely remember being a kid and coming off the beach and just being so tired I didn’t think I’d be able to walk back up to the house. And then just falling asleep in bed, no covers, and waking up the next morning with the sheets full of sand.” As kids, my sister and I would often sleep on the screened-in front porch because it’d be cooler out there than up in our bedrooms.

  “I didn’t go to the water much,” Allie said. “My mother, as I’m sure you could tell, isn’t really the outdoors-y type. We did belong to a country club and go to the pool sometimes, but it was so chlorinated it made my eyes burn. And she would never go swimming anyway.” She shook her head. “Sometimes, it feels like I was raised by the completely wrong person. Like I would’ve been much happier with the sort of mom who went barefoot and spent her days outside in the garden. But I guess we can’t choose who raises us.”

  “Do you think Declan is happy?” I asked.

  She looked at me. “Where’s that coming from?”

  “I just...wonder sometimes. And you’re his teacher, and you’re also around other kids a lot, too, so you’ve got something to compare... Do you think he seems happy? Or do you think he feels like he’s being ra
ised by the wrong person, too?”

  I had never admitted this before, but sometimes it felt like I was failing. Despite that everyone around me was telling me what a good job I was doing, I sometimes wondered if it was just because they saw me as a guy trying to raise a kid by himself. The bar was pretty low when it came to that—I often felt that people thought I deserved a medal just because I hadn’t abandoned him.

  “You’re doing a great job,” Allie said. “Raising a kid isn’t easy, and it’s especially not easy when you’re doing it by yourself. Declan is a well-adjusted, happy boy. He’s creative, thoughtful, and just such a great friend to all the kids in class.” She paused, a look of understanding crossing her face. “Did you hear us talking earlier? When he was asking me about his mother?”

  “I might have overheard something.”

  “Don’t think that just because he was asking about his mom means that he isn’t happy with you,” she said. “It’s natural for kids to have questions like that, especially when they start to realize that there are other kids who come from different family situations than they do. And there’s nothing wrong with that.”

  I think that deep down, I knew that I was doing the best I could for Declan, and that compared to some other situations, things were actually pretty good, but there was still that part of me that wondered if he felt like something was missing, if he wasn’t entirely happy. My own childhood had been so free of stress and carefree, and I hated to think that maybe Declan wasn’t having a similar experience.

  “Thanks,” I said. “It helps to hear you say that.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Allie

  I was standing right by the door, helping one of the students put his carefully sculpted Play-Doh sculpture into his cubby when Cole came to pick Declan up.

  “Hey,” he said when he saw me, his voice sounding subdued. He looked pale, even though he’d gotten a lot of sun the other day when we’d gone to the lake.

  “Hi,” I said. “You feeling okay?”

  He stifled a yawn with the back of his hand. “Actually, not really,” he said. “It was a struggle to get through the day today.” He coughed into his elbow. “You might want to stay back; I must’ve picked up some sort of cold or something.”

  He made his way over to the clipboard to sign Declan out, fumbling twice with the pen before he was finally able to sign his name.

  “You’re not looking so good,” I said, though I stopped short of actually putting my hand to his forehead to feel it. “Why don’t you just go home and get into bed? I’ll bring Declan home later. I get off in about 45 minutes, and I’ll bring him to the playground or something, that way you can get some rest.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure.”

  “It’s not a problem? I can probably manage lying on the couch while he plays with LEGOs or something.”

  “It’s really not a problem at all. You should go home and get some rest.”

  “Hi, Dad,” Declan said, coming over. “Is it time to go? I don’t want to leave just yet.”

  Cole managed a tired smile. “Well, then, bud, I guess it’s your lucky day; you can stay a little longer and then Allie will bring you home, okay? I think I’m starting to get a little cold or something, so I’m just going to go home and lie down for a little bit.”

  “You’re sick?”

  “Just a cold.”

  Declan nodded. “Okay,” he said. “I hope you feel better soon. I hate being sick.”

  “I’ll leave his car seat by your car,” Cole said.

  “That was very neighborly of you,” Kris said after Cole had left. “It’s good you can help him out like that. It’s definitely harder for the single fathers than the single mothers; they just don’t seem to have the same sort of support network.”

  “I don’t mind at all,” I said.

  Declan was more than happy to play with his friends for the next 45 minutes, and I could tell that he felt like it was a special treat that he got to be the last kid there. After I was done, Declan and I went out to my car. I secured his car seat in the back, and he climbed in, proudly showing me how he was able to do the buckles himself.

  “Are we going home right away?” he asked. “Can we go somewhere else first?”

  “Sure,” I said as I started the car. “Did you have anywhere in mind?”

  “Ice cream?”

  It certainly was plenty hot—with a touch of humidity—for ice cream. “Sounds like a plan,” I said. “I could go for a twist soft serve.”

  So we drove to town and went to the Cream Bar, which had 35 different flavors of soft serve ice cream. Declan got a chocolate with gummy bears, and I ordered a twist in a cone, which was my perennial favorite, though I made a mental note to come back here and try some of the other flavors.

  We sat at one of the picnic tables, under the shade of the umbrella. After we were finished with our ice creams, we went to the market. The air conditioning was on, and it was cool, dry, and pleasant to walk down the narrow aisles, looking at the different stuff.

  “We should get something for Dad,” Declan said.

  “I was just thinking that. What’s something you like to have when you’re sick?”

  “Candy?”

  I laughed. “I don’t think we’re going to get Dad candy. Maybe some ginger ale, though. I always had ginger ale when I was sick.”

  We got a bottle of ginger ale, some crackers, and then we passed the hot food bar. There were three different soups, and even though it felt way too hot for me to eat something like that, I knew that if Cole wasn’t feeling well, something like chicken noodle soup would taste good, even if it was the middle of summer.

  “Let’s be quiet, in case Dad’s asleep,” I whispered when we got back to Cole’s. It felt, in a way, like I was coming home, even though I wasn’t walking into my own house.

  “Dad’s not on the couch,” Declan said. “Where is he?”

  “He might be in his room.”

  I peeked my head into the bedroom. Cole was lying in bed, fast asleep. His cheeks were flushed, and with his face completely relaxed like that, he looked young, almost like a boy again.

  “Let’s just let him sleep,” I said as I pulled the door shut gently. “Do you want to come over to my house and we can work in the garden some more?”

  “Yeah, I want to look for some more worms!”

  “I bet you’ll be able to find some. We might even be able to put some of the seeds in the ground.”

  Declan and I worked out in the garden for a long time, until I realized that the sun had sunk below the tops of the trees in the side yard.

  “You getting hungry?” I asked Declan. “We’ve been working pretty hard out here.”

  And we had made good progress. Some kids might’ve gotten bored after a while, but Declan was more than happy to help, and I could tell that he liked getting to see how the garden was changing.

  The sun was starting to set as we walked back next door. I made Declan a grilled cheese for dinner, and then we watched a show together. Afterward, I could tell he was sleepy, so I told him it was time to start getting ready for bed.

  “Can you read me some stories?” he asked, stifling a yawn.

  “Sure I can,” I said. “But why don’t you go get into PJs and brush your teeth,” I said. I went upstairs with him, and he changed into pajamas and brushed his teeth.

  “You can go in and whisper goodnight to Dad,” I said.

  Declan tiptoed in and as he did so, Cole shifted, murmuring something. Declan came back out a few seconds later.

  “Dad says he’s feeling a little better,” he said as I followed him down the hall to his bedroom.

  He picked out three stories for me to read to him, and as I was almost done with the second one, Cole came in. He sat down in the glider chair that was next to the bed and listened to the rest of the stories.

  “Did you guys have a good time today?” he asked.

  Declan smiled sleepily and
started to tell him about the ice cream with the gummy bears. “The gummy bears got really hard,” he said. “They weren’t chewy at all.”

  His eyelids started to flutter, so I gave him a kiss goodnight, and then Cole and I went downstairs.

  “Hey, thanks for taking him like that today,” Cole said. “I feel much better now, and I think it’s because I was able to just come home this afternoon and sleep.”

  “We had a great day,” I said. “We got you some soup; I don’t know if you feel like having it now, but it’s in the fridge. I can heat it up for you, if you want.”

  “That might be good, actually,” he said. “I didn’t really eat much this morning.”

  I went into the kitchen and retrieved the soup out of the refrigerator. Instead of putting it in the microwave, I rummaged through the cupboards and found a small copper pot. I turned the gas burner on and poured the container of soup into the pot. I liked being able to do this; there was a warm happiness in me as I found a bowl and a spoon, and tested the soup to see if it was warm.

  He looked like he was feeling much better, I thought as he ate the soup. When he was finished, we went into the living room to see if there was anything good to watch on TV.

  We were sitting close to each other on the couch. At first, just our legs were touching, but we both must’ve shifted toward each other, a little bit at a time, because soon our sides were touching, too. It was as though I was being drawn in as if by a magnet. His eyes were half-closed, and he had a smile on his face.

  “I want to do this more than anything,” he said. “But I don’t want to get you sick. I do feel about a thousand times better than I did this afternoon, though.”

  “I’m not afraid of getting sick,” I said. “I hardly ever get sick anyway.”