If the Sun Never Sets - Ana Huang Page 0,74
he’d see step foot in one of his bars: Joe Ryan. His father.
Chapter Thirty-Four
He’d entered the Twilight Zone.
That was the only explanation Blake could come up with for his current predicament: sitting in his office at LNY on opening night, across the desk from his father.
His father. Here. In New York. Wearing a suit, of all things.
Joe never wore a suit unless he was going to a funeral.
Maybe this was Blake’s funeral, come too little, too late. He’d already been in hell for the past month.
“Quite a party you got out there.” Joe looked wildly uncomfortable in his formal outfit. No doubt Blake’s mom put him up to this. His father would never wear a tie of his own volition.
Blake steepled his fingers beneath his chin. He hadn’t spoken to his father since their argument on Joe’s birthday. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Perhaps not the nicest way to start things off, but his patience ran a short fuse these days.
Joe’s eyes sharpened. “Watch your tone.”
“Or what? You’ll send me to timeout?” Blake leaned forward and planted his hands flat on his desk. “I’m a grown-ass man, Dad. I have my own business and my own money. You don’t scare me anymore. You can’t tell me what to do.”
“Did I come in here telling you what to do?” Joe roared. “You think you’d be more goddamned grateful, considering your mother, sister, and I flew all the way out here for your big night. You know I hate airplanes!”
“One night out of how many? A dozen?” Blake sneered. “I’ve invited you to every opening, and this is the first one you’ve ever attended. You didn’t even show up for the Austin celebration, and that was right in your goddamned city, so excuse me if I’m not falling all over myself because you’re here.”
His ugliness boiled to the surface, grateful for a target to take itself out on.
Hell, Blake’s personal life was already in shambles. He might as well continue the trend and take a match to his already-frayed relationship with his father.
Watch everything burn and get all the agony out of the way in one fell swoop.
“I can’t talk to you when you’re like this.” Joe stood and loosened his tie with sharp, angry jerks. “I don’t care what your mother says.”
A glint on his wrist caught Blake’s eye. “What is that?”
His father glowered at him. “What’s what?”
Blake jutted his chin toward the item that had captured his attention. He’d asked a silly question because he knew what it was. It was a gold Patek Philippe timepiece with a brown alligator strap and the number 50 custom-engraved on the back of its case.
Blake knew because he’d bought it for his father’s fiftieth birthday.
Discomfort filled Joe’s face. “It’s a watch.”
“It’s the watch I gave you for your fiftieth. You’re wearing it.”
“Of course I’m wearing it,” Joe snapped. “It’s a watch. What else am I supposed to do, eat it?”
“You’ve never used any of the presents I’ve gotten you in the past.”
The golf clubs Blake had bought for Joe’s forty-eighth birthday, collecting dust.
The rare whiskey he’d bought for his forty-sixth birthday, unopened.
The birthday cards he drew when he’d been too young to buy presents, tossed.
“How would you know? You don’t come home often enough to know what the hell I use.”
Blake’s nostrils flared. “Don’t try to guilt-trip me. That bottle of whiskey was still unopened last time I checked, and I was home two months ago. Four years after I gifted it to you.”
“It’s a nice whiskey. I’m saving it for a special occasion.”
“The golf clubs?”
“I used them until Rick moved away. He’s the only one of my friends who played.” Joe scowled. “Why the hell are we talking about this?”
“Because.” Blake curled his thumbs around the edge of his desk. The smooth oak seared into his skin until he was sure you could see the wood grains etched across his fingers if he released them. “Nothing I give or do is good enough for you.”
Shock glittered in Joe’s eyes. He stopped fussing with his tie and collapsed into his seat again. “Is that what you think? That you’re not good enough?”
“You’ve never given me any indication otherwise,” Blake said bitterly. “The only thing I’m good at is football, remember?”
His father’s reaction when he’d told him he wanted to start a sports bar all those years ago had burned itself into its memories.
You know nothing about running a business. A sports bar? C’mon. There are a million sports bars out there. Take