After the Climb (River Rain #1) - Kristen Ashley Page 0,18

cheese omelet.” And Duncan had his food. “Be back ’round for a top up. Anything else?”

“No, Shirl,” Harvey replied.

“Thanks, honey,” Duncan said.

She winked at him, shot Harv a sassy smile and said, “Don’t mention it.”

Then she sashayed away.

Duncan went for his cutlery.

So did Harvey.

They started eating.

Harv was the one who took them back to it.

“You know, I’ve met the man, and truth is, a man like that is no man at all.”

Duncan lifted his eyes from his food to give them to his friend.

“Sorry?”

Again, it was like he didn’t talk.

“And you are not the man you were back then,” he kept at it.

Duncan had a sense he knew what this was about, and it was no longer about Corey.

“Harv—”

“Your father was a jackass, Bowie.”

Yep, that was what he’d sensed.

Harvey raised one of his big mitts and waved it before he carried on talking. “Sorry, but you know it’s true way more than me. He fucked with your head. And Szabo was a genius and proved at his end that came in a variety of ways. He fucked with it too. You’re beyond that now, and she should know the man you became, despite those two.”

“My weakness destroyed us,” Duncan pointed out.

“Brother, you were twenty-somethin’ years old. You barely knew your ass from a hole in the ground.”

“That still happened.”

“You know, I had a dad who was proud of me from the minute Ma pushed me out. And he made no bones about it. And growin’ up, that was everything to me, Bowie, everything.”

Duncan said nothing, pleased as fuck Harv had that.

And to that day, fifty-four years old, missing it like a lost limb that he did not.

Harvey kept going.

“I know moms alone can raise good sons. But there’s somethin’ about a boy and his father. When I met him, that dude, your dad, was past it, looked a million years old, and could barely get around, and he was still swinging his dick like anyone gave a shit how big it was. You are respected and successful, you know it, he knew it, and he still treated you like you were a bum. Nothin’ woulda been good enough for him, Bowie. You told me you didn’t wanna play football, but you did it anyway, because he wanted you to. You made All-State, he gave you shit because he was a plumber, but you didn’t get a full ride to his dad’s alma mater. That is not a father, man. That’s a jackal whose only sustenance to keep himself feelin’ steady is feeding on his young.”

“I got two boys, Harv, I know this.”

“Well, shouldn’t she know it too?”

Duncan ate a forkful of egg, chiles and cheese and didn’t answer.

But that also got in there.

“Now tell me if I got this wrong,” Harvey kept at him.

But Duncan had had enough.

“Listen, Harv—”

“She’s her, pretty, talented, wants to make it big in Hollywood as an actress, and you’re the man your father convinced you that you were. How relieved were you when you had a valid reason to cut her loose?”

Duncan’s throat closed.

What he was feeling inside must have showed on his face, because Harvey nodded once, decisively.

“Just what I thought,” Harvey muttered, and shoved eggs, biscuits, gravy and country fried steak in his mouth.

But Duncan was thrown.

Because this was something he’d never told anybody.

He’d barely admitted it to himself.

But as obliterated as he was, thinking Genny had done that to him, as time went on, he could not deny he’d felt relief.

Not at losing her, never that. He wasn’t even certain he’d breathed the same again after she was gone.

Until yesterday, when she stood at the foot of his steps.

But they’d been gearing up to move. Possibly to New York, but she preferred the idea of LA, because of the weather, and there were more opportunities there that interested her.

She’d been the lead in all the high school plays. The drama teacher adored her, said she had something, said she had what it was going to take, and encouraged her at every opportunity.

She’d gone to college, double majoring in drama and education, in case acting didn’t work out, she could teach and have a fallback position.

But she had dreams, goals, and a plan.

And they were on the cusp of executing that plan.

But Duncan could not deny he had concerns about it.

Because he could get a job doing anything, if it was manual labor.

But she was going to be someone.

And he’d had his own plan, and at that time, it seemed a more distant