last night. I doubted it ruined Katie’s night or that she even noticed I was ruminating on my sick father but I had been.
With a sigh, I sat up, gently pulled the covers down, and swung my legs over the side of the bed. The concrete floors were cool under my bare feet as I crept silently across them to my suitcase on the bench at the end of the bed. I flipped it open and rummaged through it looking for my jeans and a plain T-shirt. I got dressed in the bathroom so as not to wake Katie, and when I returned to the bedroom, she was still fast asleep and cuddling one of the spare pillows.
A smile tugged at my lips.
I could have watched her for hours. Staying here with her was much more preferable to going to see my brother.
But I would regret not going. If I left California and went back to the island without seeing my father and doing the right thing, I would always wonder if I’d made a mistake.
It was time to just rip the band-aid off and do the damn thing.
Leaving without saying goodbye to Katie didn’t feel right so I woke her up with a hand on her shoulder. “Katie? Hey, I’m sorry to wake you up.”
She lifted her cheek from the pillow and blinked up at me. She still looked half asleep, but she smiled at me. “Morning,” she said thickly. “Is everything all right?”
“Everything is fine. I’m just going to run out and see my brother and my dad.”
She propped herself up on her elbow and pushed her hair off her forehead. “Do you want me to come with you?”
Yes. “No,” I said. I didn’t want her to see my father in his state. And I didn’t want to overwhelm him by introducing him to a stranger. There was no telling what state he’d be in today and he was far past the age of liking or understanding surprises. “You stay in bed and get some more sleep. It was a late night.”
“Are you sure? I don’t mind. All I need is a cup of coffee and I’ll be good to go.”
I chuckled softly. “No, you stay here. You’ve had a total of four hours of sleep and I know you don’t get many days off. Enjoy it.”
Katie closed her hand over mine on her shoulder. “If you insist. Thank you.”
“I do insist.”
She let her cheek fall back to the pillow but continued watching me out of one eye as I put my watch on where it rested on the nightstand table and tucked my phone into my jeans pocket. “How long will you be gone?”
“I’m not sure,” I said. “A few hours at least. If the others are going to go out and do something, you should go with them. I’ll catch up.”
Katie snuggled deeper into her pillow. “Okay, maybe I will. I don’t get to spend as much time with these losers as I used to and I kind of miss them.”
I laughed. “I could tell they missed you too. Have a good day. I’ll touch base later, okay?”
She nodded sleepily. “You can’t leave without a stinky morning-breath kiss.”
I walked back to her side of the bed, stroked her hair, and leaned over for a soft kiss. I could feel her eyes on my back as I left the hotel room and I was sure by the time I’d reached the elevator that she had promptly fallen back asleep.
As I rode down to the lobby, a knot formed in my stomach. I didn’t want to do this, but I knew it was the right choice and the path that would leave me without regrets or guilt.
Put on your big boy pants, Peter. You can handle this. Then it’s back to paradise with the girl of your dreams.
The yellow taxi dropped me off at the curb in front of my father’s old house, the house Mike and I had grown up in.
It looked much the same. The house was a single-story gray homestead with a cracked driveway and siding in need of pressure washing. The roof looked to be in rough shape, the windows were cloudy, and the garage door had a giant dent in it that hadn’t been there when I left for the Virgin Islands.
I sighed and shook my head. “What have you been doing here, Mike?”
It was the ugliest house on the street. Several neighbors had petitioned me to get the house cleaned up so