Melting - Sean Ashcroft Page 0,29

for breakfast?

I poked my head around the corner to check.

And found them hugging, a trail of tears glistening on the side of both of their faces.

That was a relief. At least I hadn’t accidentally torn the family apart with one offhand comment.

“Wes,” Mr. Lewis said as he spotted me hovering. “Come over here.”

My feet moved without brain input when he waved me over, and I couldn’t help a sigh escaping me as the tension broke when he wrapped his arms around me, too, letting go of Hayden and squeezing me tight.

Behind me, Hayden sniffed, and my heart hurt for him. I had an idea why Mr. Lewis hadn’t told him—when I’d first come to work for him, he’d made a point of telling me how busy Hayden was, how critical a time he was at in his career. He’d even explicitly told me that he wouldn’t want me to think he was a bad son.

I understood now.

Hayden wasn’t a bad son—I’d never really thought so, I hadn’t thought much about it at all.

He’d been in the dark.

“I owe both of you boys an apology,” Mr. Lewis said. “Wes, for not warning you that Hayden didn’t know. And Hayden, for not telling you sooner. I should have told you before you came over.”

“You should have told me when it happened,” Hayden corrected. “I would’ve come.”

“Which was exactly what I didn’t want. You’d just opened Pleasure, you were working hundred-hour weeks to get it off the ground, and it would all have collapsed under you if you’d had to fly out and sit by your old man’s bedside. I was fine. Look at this,” Mr. Lewis said, lifting up the t-shirt he’d thrown on over his swimming trunks. “You see how small this scar is? Couldn’t have been a big deal if it’s so tiny, right?”

That was bullshit, and I was pretty sure we all knew it, but it was enough to make me laugh, more from nerves than anything else.

Hayden joined in, a startled chuckle escaping him as he stepped closer to get a look at the scar, practically hidden under his dad’s chest hair. If you didn’t know it was there, you’d never notice it.

But he had been critically ill. He’d had professional carers for nearly a year after.

And then he’d had me. Right after I’d lost my own dad.

I cared a lot about Mr. Lewis.

“You’re still in trouble,” Hayden said, pointing his finger like a stern school teacher.

Mr. Lewis’s hand fluttered to his chest with all the drama I’d come to expect from him. “Me?”

“Yes, you. For not telling me.” Hayden wet his lips. “I would have wanted to be here, Dad.”

“And I made a decision for your future,” Mr. Lewis said gently. “You understand, don’t you?”

“I understand,” Hayden agreed. “I just don’t like it, and I’m asking you right now not to do it again.”

I knew Mr. Lewis wouldn’t make that promise. He cared so much about Hayden.

“I hate to interrupt, but breakfast is getting cold, and I can’t be the only one who’s starving here.”

“And you’re feeding a man with a heart condition pancakes?” Hayden asked, turning to me.

I shrugged. “They’re oat flour pancakes. Practically a health food.”

Hayden narrowed his eyes like he didn’t quite believe me, but he didn’t have it in him to be mad at me, either.

“If I have to live on a zero-fat, zero-sugar, zero-fun diet, I’d rather not live to see a hundred,” Mr. Lewis said. “Ten more good years is enough for me.”

The look on Hayden’s face told me it wasn’t enough for him, and I knew the feeling.

“Come on,” I said, heading for the kitchen. “You won’t care if they’re bad for you when you taste them.”

The smell of lavender rose around me as I plucked the dead flower heads from the bushes behind the pool, settling over me like a comforting blanket after this morning’s events.

“Thought I might find you out here,” Mr. Lewis said, the pool gate squealing as he opened it.

That needed oiling. I’d get to it later—and do the front door hinges at the same time.

“Needs doing,” I defended. “You don’t want your lavender looking all sad and dead.”

Mr. Lewis laughed. “You work too hard. You and Hayden should form a club.”

“With you as the chairman?” I asked, turning around to face him.

If I was being honest with myself, he looked a lot better than he had done two years ago when I’d first started working for him. Back then, he’d still been struggling with the