Dylan watched Nate closely, noticing the way his son didn’t maintain eye contact for long. It wasn’t a secret that Nate had gone to Alex about making his job at CISS full time and permanent despite Dylan’s insistence that Nate further his academics before stepping into that sort of role. But after a rather heated conversation with Alex at the time, Dylan had relented to Alex’s request to hire the boy on before the merger so that Nate would have an official position with Sniper 1 Security. Perhaps Nate still wasn’t happy with Dylan about his reaction to the situation.
Nate had been working for CISS since he graduated from high school three years earlier. Although he’d only been pitching in part time, it looked as though Nate was definitely interested in pursuing a long-time career in the security business. However, whenever Dylan had attempted to discuss it with Nate, aside from a few brusque responses to Dylan’s questions, Nate hadn’t talked much.
Seemed Nate was happy with the job, though. Or so Alex had told him.
That didn’t mean Dylan liked the idea of his son working for CISS, especially with things the way they were. As far as Dylan was concerned, school was the most important thing for his children, and if Nate expected to make a career in the security industry, Dylan wanted him to graduate from college with a degree that was worthwhile. Seemed that Nate and Alex were content with the two-year degree he’d already accomplished, and they’d brushed Dylan’s concerns off.
And yes, Dylan had been called a meddling father on more than one occasion, but he was a firm believer that that was what fathers were supposed to do. Even if their kids were grown and no longer wanted their father interfering in their business.
“Why’re you lookin’ for Alex?” Dylan asked his son.
“No reason,” Nate said curtly before turning and abruptly leaving the room.
Well, hell.
What was it with his kids and their hasty disappearing acts? If he didn’t know better, he would have thought they were keeping their distance for a reason. Granted, Dylan knew he had to accept some responsibility since he hadn’t been the greatest father in the world—not since Meghan died anyway.
“Wow, Dad,” Pops teased. “Way to run off the kids.”
“It’s a skill I’ve acquired,” he told his grandfather.
“I can see that.” Pops went to the refrigerator and pulled out a pitcher of tea, then retrieved two glasses from the cabinet. “Goin’ somewhere tonight?”
“I was thinkin’ about it,” he admitted. After leaving Ashleigh and Alex’s, Dylan made a quick stop, then he’d gone back to his house—the three-bedroom guest house at the back of his grandfather’s vast estate, where he’d been living for the past four years—and showered, shaved, and dressed in record time. Now, as he sat at his grandfather’s kitchen table, he was beginning to rethink his decision to go to Devotion.
“You look good, kid,” Xavier said. “Whatever you do, don’t change your plans. You need to get outta the house.”
“You don’t even know where I’m goin’,” Dylan countered, wondering, not for the first time, if his grandfather could read his mind.
“Doesn’t matter. You need to do something.”
Dylan nodded, then looked away from Pops.
“Did you…?” Pops’ gaze drifted to the door, then slowly back to him. “Did you visit Meghan’s grave yesterday?”
Swallowing hard, Dylan nodded. Another trip behind him on a day he dreaded because the memories still brought him to his knees.
Eleven long years of nursing a shattered, brittle heart after the death of his wife—his best friend in the world—had left Dylan feeling like a body without a soul. He had watched Meghan suffer, withering away, her fragile body succumbing to the cancer that riddled it while fighting the chemo the doctors had warned them wasn’t a sure thing. Up until her very last breath, Dylan had hung on, praying that God would not take her from him, but in the end, she had died. Right there in his arms, while he was unable to contain the tears as the love of his life was taken from him.
A knot formed in his throat as the memories took root. They hadn’t even gotten to celebrate their tenth wedding anniversary when she was taken from him. And through the decade since her death, Dylan had kept himself shut off from everyone, wallowing in his own pain and giving everything he had left—which admittedly hadn’t been much—to his two children. It had been on the day Nate had graduated from high school four years ago that something inside of him broke open.
Maybe it had been the fear that he had nothing left to live for because his children were making their own paths in life that had caused him to backslide. Or perhaps it had been due to Ashleigh—the one person who had stood beside him for so many years, never allowing him to fully immerse himself in the black despair that had threatened to drag him under—hooking up with Alex, Dylan’s business partner and best friend, that had done it.
Either way, the despair had continued to cloak him like a wet blanket, and he hadn’t been able to find his way out from beneath it. He hadn’t had a single relationship since Meghan’s death. He hadn’t been able to bring himself to do it, to try to get close to someone.
But there had been one woman.
Sarah.
Somehow, Sarah had always been able to make him smile. Back when he’d first met her roughly twenty-five years ago, when she’d been a bright-eyed freshman and he’d been a senior in high school, and in recent years when he’d run into her again.
For whatever reason, Sarah understood him. Whether it was due to the fact she’d suffered her own loss or because she could see through to who he’d been before his life had been forever changed.
Ever since he’d reconnected with her, he’d felt something that resembled hope. At that time, she’d convinced him to join a grief support group, which he’d been reluctant about but had opted to give it a chance. It hadn’t been his thing, but he’d gone a couple of times since she’d asked. But it wasn’t until their sexual encounter that one memorable night when he’d stopped all communication with her.
Until that night at her house, they hadn’t been intimate, nor had he ever expected them to be, but somewhere along the way, Sarah had become a friend. And he’d taken advantage of that. Until recently, he had tried not to think about her, but there were a few occasions where his thoughts of her had helped to clear the fuzz from his brain, offering him tenuous optimism that there might possibly be something to live for other than his children.
But then, Dylan would feel guilty for wanting to move on, afraid that if he fully dug himself out of the gloom he had become so intimate with, Meghan would somehow feel forgotten. But his sweet Meghan wouldn’t have wanted this for him; even he knew that. She would be disappointed to know he’d basically died right along with her.
“Hey.” Pops’ voice pulled Dylan from his thoughts and he looked up at him. “Where’d you go?”
“Sorry,” he said, grabbing his now empty coffee cup before he stood. Figuring one more jolt of caffeine couldn’t hurt, Dylan made his way around his grandfather to the coffeepot.
“So, what’re your plans tonight?” Pops inquired.
Dylan did not want to tell his grandfather that he was going to a fetish club. “Just goin’ out.”
“With friends?” Pops asked.
“Yeah.” It wasn’t a complete lie. Luke McCoy and Cole Ackerley, the owners of Devotion, were technically his friends.