“Always,” Mark said.
“Dad.”
Mark opened his eyes. “I’m fine. I’m just overtaxed, that’s all.”
“Maybe it’s not a great time to be screwing a woman two decades your junior.”
Mark grinned. “But what a way to go, right?”
When Sam just looked at him, he sighed. “And that’s not what I’ve been doing.”
“What have you been doing then?” Sam asked.
Mark hesitated.
Never a good sign. “Christ,” Sam said. “Gambling?”
“No!” Mark shook his head. “Still got a real high opinion of me, I see.” He paused. “I’ve been working.”
“Working,” Sam repeated.
“Yeah. I took a job at the arcade, running some of the games, okay?”
“That’s a teenager job,” Sam said.
“Or the job of a man with no résumé,” his dad said.
Sam didn’t get it. “Why?”
“I’m going to pay my own way,” Mark said.
“Since when?”
“Goddamn it, I’m tired of being a mooch off you.”
Sam sighed and sank to the couch next to his dad. “Well, if you’re going to take all the fun out of my resentment. . .”
Mark laughed, but it was hollow. “You’ve worked so hard all your life,” he said. “And people here love you. I want to be a better man, son. Like you.”
Sam took the unexpected hit to his solar plexus, heart, and gut. “You can’t work, not right now.”
“Yes, I can. I am. I already have twenty hours. I’m going to pay you rent and get my own car. And you’re not the only one who can build shit, you know. I’m going to make you shelves so all your CDs and DVDs aren’t on the damn floor all the time.”
Sam stared at him, but his dad looked serious. And sincere. “How about you wait until after you get better?”
Suddenly looking older and very tired, Mark closed his eyes again. “Yeah. Okay. Hey, you got stuff for sandwiches?”
“I think so,” Sam said. “You want one?”
“You got any potato chips to put in it?”
Sam blew out a breath. “Yeah.”
Sam fed his dad, watched him carefully for a while, and determined he really was just tired and not ill enough for a call to Josh.
“Stop hovering,” Mark muttered, eyes closed from his position prone on the couch. “I’m not dying tonight.”
“That’s not funny,” Sam said.
“You’re right, it’s not. It’s sad as hell that you’re watching me instead of being with your woman. Go be with your woman.”
“Dad—”
“Jesus.” Mark pulled out his phone and hit a number. “Hey, darlin’,” he said. “Yeah, I’m fine, but I’ve got someone here who’s not. I’m sending him to you, okay?” Mark slid his gaze to Sam. “Okay, I’ll tell him.” He clicked off. “She says to be ready for lesson number five. What’s she teaching you?”
Sam managed to keep a straight face, but Christ, she cracked him up. “I have no idea,” he said evenly.
His dad shrugged. “Well, when a woman looks like that, with a heart like that, you ignore the crazy, son, and get ready for lesson number five.”
Two days—and two extremely long, hot, erotic nights later—Becca was in the hut, opening for the day, when the man single-handedly responsible for the perma-smile on her face walked in. She was surprised, seeing as she’d left him boneless and facedown on her bed only half an hour earlier. Knowing he was leaving today on a two-day fishing expedition, she’d let him sleep.
“You got up early,” he said, heading for the coffee.
“So did you.”
“Twice,” he said.
She laughed. It was true. And once the night before as well. “Did I wake you when I left? I tried to be quiet and not talk.”
“I wouldn’t have minded some talking,” he said. “I really liked the More, Sam, oh please more.”
She threw her pencil at him.
He caught it in midair and grinned.
“I got up thinking I’d try to work on my next jingle,” she said.
“You haven’t said what your next assignment is.” He caught her grimace and smiled. “It can’t be worse than your last few.”
“Yeah, it can. It’s diapers. But at least it’s for baby diapers.” She blew out a breath. “It’s because I’m not doing anything spectacular. I keep waiting for my muse to really kick in, but the truth is, I think I’ve lost my talent.” She caught something in his expression. “What?”
“It’s not because you’re not talented,” Sam said. “It’s the importance you’re attaching to it.”
That this was true didn’t help. “I need to be successful at something,” she said. “At this,” she corrected when he opened his mouth. “I’m going to be successful at this if it kills me.”
“You know,” he said. “It wasn’t all that long ago when you got mad at me for blaming shit on myself, like when I got my dad and me kicked out of that apartment.”
“You were thirteen,” she said. “I’m not a minor by any stretch of the imagination. I run my own life, and I take the fall for it.”