There was a long silence after he left.
“Damn,” I heard his son, Roman, whisper.
“Yeah,” another of his triplets said, “Damn.”
One of the women—the quiet, elegant one with auburn hair, involved with the enormously muscled man who was training Lucas—moved to stand near me. “What’s your relationship with him? Pardon my bluntness, but I’m curious.”
I let out a laughing sigh. “I’m not sure. We’re…friends, at the very least.”
Roman eyed me. “Friends, huh?”
I nodded, gazing at him steadily. “Yes, friends. Why?”
“He’s just starting to get his feet under him,” he said. “Last thing he needs is to fall off the wagon because he got his heart broken.”
I wasn’t sure how to answer that. “Roman, I…all I know is, he’s a good man. Or he’s trying to become one. I like spending time with him. Could there be more than that? I don’t know. Maybe. But I’m struggling to get my feet under me as well, following a life-changing tragedy of my own. So I don’t know, in answer to the question you’re almost but not quite asking—will we become romantically involved? The answer is, I don’t know. I don’t know if I’m ready for that, with anyone, least of all with someone with his…” I hunted for the right word.
“Baggage,” the bearded triplet filled in—Ramsey, I think it was. “You got yours, he’s got his. Problem is, his baggage can kill him. If he drinks again, he’sgonnadie. That ain’t a question, that’s a fact.”
“I’m aware of that,” I said.
“And you’re still interested in him, in being his…friend?” This was Roman’s girlfriend, Kitty.
I shrugged a shoulder. “Yes, I suppose so. I’m not going to hold his past struggles against him. We have all done our share of making mistakes in this life, me included.”
Roman nodded, as did his brothers, and most of their cousins. “Just…don’t lead him on, okay?”
“I appreciate your concern for your father, and that you’re merely looking out for him, but—”
“You understand, that in a lot of ways, he’s still the nineteen-year-old kid on the side of the road, watching everyone he loved drive away from him, right?” This was Remington. “He never got over that. He aged, but he never grew out of that person, never stopped being that.”
I sighed. “I think I’m starting to understand that,” I said. “And unless he can find some healing and move beyond it, I think all we are capable of being is friends.”
Roman held out his hand, and I took it—he shook my hand gently but firmly. “Sounds like we’re on the same page, Olivia.”
“I think we are,” I said, offering him a smile. “But if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go catch up to Lucas. He needs a friend right now.”
“He wants to be alone, I can tell you that much right now,” Roman said.
“I understand that,” I said. “But I saidneeds, notwants.”
“It was good to meet you,” Roman said.
“You as well.” I scanned the crowd of Lucas’s family. “All of you. It seems to me like you all have created something wonderful for yourselves, here. A gathering like this, every week? Amazing.”
Sebastian’s wife, the pregnant one…Dru, I think it was? I’d heard so many names so quickly, and it was hard to keep them straight all at once. She reached over and drew me in for a hug.
“You’re welcome here anytime, Olivia,” she said. “I mean that.”
“Thank you,” I answered, feeling a warmth in my stomach. “That means a lot.”
I gathered my purse and headed out the door, with one last backward wave—I heard conversation erupt behind me, the gathered clan discussing what had just happened. I glanced both ways down the road, at the docks across the street, looking for evidence of which way Lucas had gone. The answer was, not far. I spotted him down the wharf a ways, leaning on a post, watching the waves curl and ripple, the seagulls playing. He looked lost and morose.
I made my way over to him; stood beside him in silence, content to let him break it.
“So. That’s the story,” he said, not looking at me. “Now what?”
I glanced at him, puzzled. “What do you mean, now what?”
