Page 89 of The Grump I Slept With
Confusion rattled around inside my head. Dad had blown in here like a storm to insult me and then clean up my mess? Christ, I was too exhausted for this.
“Have you been getting any real sleep?” he continued. “Something more than naps on the couch when you pass out? You’ve been sending me work updates and questions at all hours lately.”
“I always pop you the occasional question,” I argued, following him back to the kitchen.
“Not usually at four in the morning,” Dad said, setting the rubbish bin down. “It’s like you’re working around the clock.”
“What does it matter when the work is getting done as long as itisgetting done?” I scrubbed at the back of my head, feeling ambushed. I still didn’t know what the hell he was doing here—except that it was apparently on my mother’s orders. And since when did she call Dad to discuss me? What was I—twelve?
“I’ve been chatting with some of the old guard,” Dad said. “They said you’ve been more irritable and stressed at the office.”
My CFO and several of the team leads were still holdovers from when Dad was in charge. I knew they kept in touch, but I didn’t know it was to spread inane office gossip. I huffed, crossing my arms as I leaned up against the counter. “What is this?”
Dad looked at me pointedly. “This is me making sure you’re all right.”
“I’m fine,” I insisted. People ate take-out all the time. It was hardly an indicator of a breakdown. And since when was he the type to stage an intervention? That wasn’t like him at all. Me and Dad. We didn’t dothis—whatever this was.
Dad yanked my fridge open, shaking his head again. He pulled out an old kebab wrapper. Actually, that one wasn’t that old.I’d only ordered it the other night. But he found more, and his expression grew more concerned with each one.
“You only eat this kind of junk when you’re upset or stressed,” he said, dropping the wrappers on the counter next to the fridge.
“It’s convenient,” I argued. “I’ve been busy.”
Dad wasn’t buying it. “You’ve done the same thing since you were a teenager. Don’t you remember when you sat your Advanced Highers? Your mother and I thought we were going to have to give in and buy a kebab shop to keep you stocked.”
I scoffed, rolling my eyes. He was blowing everything out of proportion.
“Look, I may not be great at communicating all the time,” Dad said, using his serious tone on me. “But Idopay attention. I know when you’re hurting, Locke. And so does your mother, even from all the way in Dorset.”
I lifted my shoulder, trying to shrug off his words as a sharp pang flared between my ribs. I didn’t want to discuss this right now.
“Nicola also spilled the beans about the baby, assuming I already knew,” Dad said. “Congratulations, by the way.”
I winced, rubbing my face. Now I felt like a right arse. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I was going to…It just hadn’t come up yet.”
Dad sighed, slumping back against the counter. We stayed like that, on opposite sides of the kitchen, that divide hanging between us. “That’s the problem, isn’t it?” he said eventually. “You should have been buzzing to tell me about the baby. But neither one of us really knows how to talk to the other about anything other than work, do we?”
“…I suppose we don’t,” I said.
He nodded. “And that’s my fault.”
I jerked back. “How’s it your fault?”
“I should have worked harder to build a relationship between us where we could talk about anything,” he said. “The kind you used to have with your mum. I just…That was never my strong suit. And after the divorce, it was easier to crack on with work than it was to pick at things that sat deeper. Especially since my own feelings were so raw. I didn’t want to start conversations that might cause either of us pain.” Dad rubbed at his jaw. “I made a real mince of that, and it’s coming back to bite me now. I feel like such a failure.”
I frowned at him. How could Dad think he could ever be considered a failure? “Dad, you’ve made an enormous success of yourself. Look at all you accomplished for the company. Even when you were going through the divorce, you never missed a stride. You have to know how much I admired you for that.”
“Then I taught you to admire the wrong things, to prioritize the wrong things,” Dad said, looking sad. “I’m sorry.”
My jaw tightened, his words echoing Isla’s.Prioritize. Prioritize. Prioritize. “What would have been the right things to prioritize?” I asked.
“My family,” he stated, without hesitation.
“But you still have me,” I reasoned. “You didn’t lose me because you worked hard.”
“And I’m grateful for that every day,” Dad said, stepping forward and squeezing my shoulder. “But we don’t have the relationship I would have wanted for us. Look, son, me shutting downemotionally for all those years, throwing myself into one project after another, means that here I am on the wrong side of sixty with a life that’s a whole lot emptier than I’d like it to be.”
Hearing him admit to exactly what my mum had been so worried about hurt, and I fought the sting behind my eyes suddenly.
