both laughed. Elliott sobered.
“You’ll have to fight for him, Tawny.”
Her gut knotted. “I know he’s in love with someone else...or at least he thinks he is. Who is she?”
“I know there is someone—someone he won’t discuss, which isn’t unusual for Simon because he’s very self-contained. But that’s not who I’m talking about.” His blue eyes held a trace of pity. “It’s Simon you’ll have to fight.”
* * *
“I hoped I’d find you here. She’s asleep.”
Startled, Simon looked up from adding sugar to his coffee. It was time lapse at its worst—his father had aged ten years in the span of a night. Talking to his father was always more awkward than conversing with a stranger.
“Can I buy you a cup?” Simon offered.
“Any chance of scaring up a cup of tea?”
“Find us a table and I’ll see what I can do,” he said.
In record time he returned with a steaming cup of water, a tea bag, cream and sugar. “It’s the best I could do.”
The table rocked when he sat down.
“Thank you. I seem to have found the one with the wobble.”
“It’s fine,” Simon said. He didn’t think they’d be here long enough for it to matter.
His father set the tea to steeping and an awkward silence settled between them, the same general stiffness he’d felt his whole life with his parents.
Simon cleared his throat. “Since Mum’s fine and she’s resting, we won’t go back up. You’ll explain it to her, won’t you? Tell her I didn’t want to wake her?”
His father nodded his gray head. “I’ll let her know. Thank you for coming.”
Had he doubted that Simon would? “Anytime. I’m glad you called me.”
Silence stretched between them like a thin, taut trip wire. His father, with neat precise movements, prepared his tea. One sugar. A dollop of cream. No lemon. Stir twice. As a child, his father’s tea-making ritual had fascinated him in its unswerving sameness.
Charles looked up from his cup, catching Simon unaware. “She wanted you here...and so did I.”
“All you had to do was call.” Perhaps it was exhaustion. Perhaps it was the courage to say things in the wee hours of the morning. But Simon said, “All I ever wanted was for you to love me.”
His father’s ever-erect carriage faltered. He looked like a tired old man. He shook his head. “I fear we’ve been terrible parents. I’ve always loved your mother so much, I didn’t make room for anyone else. That was wrong, dreadfully wrong. When I thought I might lose her tonight, I realized how important not just she is to me but you, as well. To both of us. I believe Tawny was right—we’ve got a wonderful son we need to get to know.”
The chill inside him had nothing to do with the air-conditioning. “I don’t want to be the putty that fills the gap just because you think you might lose her.”
“No. Never that. Your mother and I have missed you these last couple of years. But things have come full circle. Whether it was your intention or not, you cut us out of your life.”
There was nothing to say, so Simon remained silent.
His father nodded in acknowledgment. “It was nothing more than we deserved. We can’t change the past. All we have is the future. Your mother and I would like to be a part of your life.”
He’d waited a lifetime for this. He should be ecstatic. But he’d built a wall around his emotions. Every hurt, every lonely hour had mortared yet another brick into place. One offer of intent couldn’t tear down something so firmly in place. Simon rubbed at his neck, stiff with tension. “I don’t know.”
“Fair enough.”
Charles sipped his tea. Simon finished his coffee. His father cleared his throat.
“Well, yes. What about Tawny? Is she Elliott’s fiancée?”
Simon infinitely preferred to focus on Tawny and Elliott instead of his relationship or lack thereof with his parents. “Up until last evening she was Elliott’s fiancée. I’m not gay and never will be. Elliott, however, just came out of the closet.”
His father blinked. Twice. “This is rather akin to a racy BBC drama.”
Simon smiled. His father never meant to be funny, but sometimes...well, he just was. Simon shook his head. “It gets rather complicated, but the bottom line is Tawny and I aren’t an item. I got stuck at her apartment last night—well, this evening—and when Mum thought that...well, we just let her think it.”
“Ah, that’s just details and I really don’t need to know all of that. All I need