“See? Goddamnit! Why’d you plug that thing in?” Luke roared.
Aiden went to the phone. He said hello. “Yes, Mom, I’m here—he’s fine. Yes, fine. I took his pulse, he’s alive, he’ll be fine. Yes, Mom. Yes, Mom. Mom! I just got here! Would you let me— Yes, Mom. Goodbye. I love you, too.” Before he could get back to his chair, it rang again and Luke groaned very loudly. Aiden picked it up and said hello. “Jesus, I just got here! Will you give me ten minutes to find out what the hell’s going on? Yeah, he’s fine! I’ll call you back. Now leave us alone!”
Aiden went back to his chair, his beer.
“See?” Luke said.
“Yeah, but you obviously unplugged the phone after all the calls started. You never bothered to tell anyone you were fine. What if Shelby called to say she’d thought it over and decided to sit it out here until her classes started? What’s the deal?”
“She wasn’t going to call.”
“What if she did?”
“That wouldn’t be good for her.”
Aiden was stunned silent for a minute. His mind was whirring. Then he was slowly overcome by a sly grin. “Oh man,” he said. “You wouldn’t be able to keep yourself from answering the phone if it rang, hoping it could be her, so you unplugged it.”
“You’re out of your mind…”
“You’d rather have her think you weren’t here. That a day or a week after she left you, you got it together and you were out looking for girls. Jesus, Luke.” He laughed. “What if she wanted some more time with you? Huh? What if she wanted to give you some more time with her to work out your issues?”
Luke shook his head helplessly. He got up from the sectional and went to the kitchen to get a beer. He went back to the living room. “That would be a bad decision.”
“Okay, now we’re on the same page. You’re looking out for her. You going to come clean with me, or do we have to have six more beers to get there? Because I don’t drink a lot anymore. On call all the time, you know…”
“I thought I explained this,” Luke said, sounding annoyed. “She’s a beautiful young girl. She might be a chronological twenty-five, but subtract a few years of her being tied to an invalid. She would be carded in most bars. I was almost her first flirt! She should do things! Experience things! She’s been patient and dedicated a long time—she has to get out there and…”
“And not take a chance on you and then realize in a couple years that she was hasty,” Aiden supplied.
“Aw, what the hell,” Luke said, standing up and running a hand across the back of his neck. “She’s not ready to make that kind of choice. She might think she is, but she’s not!”
“Because you weren’t?”
“She’s too young!”
“Because you were?”
Luke didn’t respond. He turned his back on his brother.
Aiden stood up and approached Luke’s back. He put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. “You weren’t too young when you married Felicia. You weren’t too naive or inexperienced when you were twenty-five. You had it all—you were sharp and loyal and you knew how you felt. You had enough passion and commitment to never change your mind. You got screwed up by someone who wasn’t your match. I’m sorry, buddy, but it wasn’t your fault. Jesus, will you ever let yourself off the hook for that? You didn’t cheat on her! She went out on you!”
“She wasn’t enough,” he said. Then he laughed ruefully and shook his head. “That’s what she said to me…”
“Felicia?”
Luke turned around. “Shelby. She said she knew she wasn’t enough…”
“Oh, Christ,” Aiden said in a breath. He thought for a second and said, “Okay, look, let’s not just get tanked and whimper. Let’s go out, get a decent meal, maybe have a conversation that doesn’t include yelling, and when I’m satisfied you’re all right and won’t unplug your phone anymore, I’ll get out of your hair.”
Luke answered with a weak nod.
“Want to go to that bar you like so much?” Aiden asked.
“No,” he said immediately. “I need a little more time on that. Let’s go over to Fortuna. There’s a fish place…”
Aiden drove Luke to the next big town over and they ate at a nice little restaurant near a wide river. They ordered the same thing, which happened a lot in their family. There were things Aiden wanted to understand, but knowing Luke it wouldn’t work to just come out and ask him. So Aiden got him talking about the town, the people, the cabins and what he thought he’d end up doing with the property.