Chapter One
Griffin - Present
I dragmyself into work a bit later than usual. Sleep has been a fickle bitch lately. Not only do Wren and I have four kids from twelve to under one, but there’s a cloud of anxiety following me around lately.
Charlie shoves a mug of coffee in front of my face. “Baby keeping you up late?”
I yawn in response and accept the coffee. “Elisa is almost eight months old and still isn’t sleeping through the night.”
“You’ve got to let her cry it out a bit,” he says.
I take a sip of the coffee, burning the roof of my mouth. “You know I can’t let my princess cry.”
“You’re going to get hurt trying to fix cars this tired,” he cautions me.
Another yawn escapes. “Speaking of getting hurt at work, does Liam seem off to you?” A few weeks ago, he wrenched his back while replacing an engine in a classic Mustang.
Injuries are a part of this job. My hands are scarred from getting cut on tools and car parts. Charlie isn’t wrong that this isn’t a job you should do impaired. Even when you’re at the top of your game, shit happens, but for Charlie and I we can take meds to get through it. Liam can’t take anything stronger than an ibuprofen without possibly triggering a relapse.
Charlie shrugs. “I thought he seemed on edge at family dinner last week, but I chalked it up to having to sit through the greatest hits of all his biggest mistakes. Hearing how you’ve fucked up over and over has to mess with your head.”
I exhale my tension. “I really thought we were all doing better than when everything first happened.”
“When you started having an affair with your son’s wife, you mean,” he corrects me.
I turn my head and glare at him. “You know damn well she’d already left him before anything started with us. But, yeah, it was still hard no matter what the timeline was. I don’t regret being with her, no matter how fucked up our relationship began. I do hate being the cause of any of his hurt, and I know that I was. His hurting her first doesn’t absolve me of shit. I just thought that we got all of that sorted out in group therapy when he was getting sober.”
It’s said that the first year of marriage is hard. I think that is doubly true when you marry your son’s ex-wife on the heels of her getting over the betrayal of finding out he cheated on her. In truth, it’s a miracle we made it through that. Love doesn’t always conquer all, and we had some moments that first year where I was truly afraid the strain would shatter what we were building.
We loved each other enough that we put in the work. Now here we are over a decade later, stronger than ever. All of theodds stacked up against us haven’t beaten us, not the fact that she’s nineteen years younger than me, or that she was once my daughter-in-law, and not all of the mundane struggles that challenge every marriage.
I thought that a friendship, or at least kinship, had been built between her and Liam. Oddly, they act more like siblings most of the time than two people who used to be married. But lately, there seems to be more of an edge to the squabbling they do, rather than the teasing nature it has been for years. I guess it was too much to wish that we would be able to heal all the wounds enough to be a big, happy family.
I look around the shop and notice that he isn’t in yet. Considering I am also running behind, I want to give him some slack, but the last time that he started showing up late consistently was when he was using.
“Speaking of Liam, have you seen him today?“ I ask Charlie.
He shakes his head and continues to tighten some bolts on the engine he’s working on. “Nah, but he has a young one at home, too. I figured maybe baby Griffin is sick or something. He’s come in late a lot the last week or so.”
Charlie sets the wrench down on his work table, and I can tell he’s hesitating in asking me something.
“Will you just spit it out already? You’re making me nervous the way you’re just staring at me with that serious look on your face,” I say.
Charlie pinches the bridge of his nose, smearing grease on his face. “I don’t want to throw this out there because it’s probably nothing, but...”
My hand starts to shake, sloshing a little bit of the coffee onto my skin. Despite the time that we’ve been standing here talking, it’s still scalding hot and leaves a red patch of skin behind. I’m more concerned with what my gut is telling me than the scalding hot coffee on my hand.
“Just say it, Charlie,“ I beg. My voice is low and quiet because part of me is too afraid to really ask the question that I have been wondering about.
“I haven’t seen Claudia’s car in the driveway for several days now. I know her family lives a couple of hours away, but it isn’t like her to just take off without saying something to our wives at least. And now Liam is late to work. I know I said that he could have been up with baby Griffin, but I’m not even sure the kids are home.”
I swallow down a lump in my throat. Each thing on its own isn’t concerning, but when you combine everything together, all the warning signs I ignored the first time are present.
I exhale. “I think he might be using again,” I say the words that I have been dreading admitting.
Charlie crosses his arms, smearing more grease across his overalls. “What are we going to do? We can’t just stand by and watch him spiral out of control like last time. I learned my lesson not saying anything when I found out he was cheating on Wren.”
Wren steps out of the office where she runs the business side of Hale and Storm Automotive. There’s a grim expression on her pretty face, one I had hoped I’d never see again.
