“She said I didn’t make a daddy because I don’t have one. Then she said I didn’t have brothers or sister neither because you need a daddy for them.”
Miles’ eyes caught with Colleen’s again.
Taylor continued her story like it no longer matter to her now that she was in the safety of her home and her uncle was there. “She told me I’m too tan and need to stop going to the beach. She’s mean. I’m not going to let her hold my dolly tomorrow during show and tell.”
That made Miles smirk. He’d like to go into that school tomorrow and be his niece’s show and tell because he had something, he’d like to tell this Pammy chick.
Taylor leaped from Miles’ lap when Dorothy entered the house through the kitchen and called her name. “Grandma’s home and she’s going to make us hotdogs.”
Miles caught Colleen’s eyes again.
“Kids move on fast. She’s already over it. Don’t make it be more than it is for her.”
“What about for you?” Miles asked. “You look exhausted and twenty years older than you are. What the fuck are you thinking?”
“Thanks for the confidence booster.”
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
Colleen waved him off and wiped at her tears. “I need to focus on my daughter. I’m a busy single mom and with work, I don’t have time to…”
“Take care of yourself? Have a fucking life? Date?”
“Yes! I don’t have time for any of those things. Miles.” She sighed. “I love you and appreciate everything you do for us, but you’re not here every day. Don’t judge me.”
“I’m not judging you. Let me call him and…”
“No! This is my life, not yours. It’s my choice. I decided this a long time ago, I’m not changing my mind now just because he’s about to become richer than he already was. Miles, it’s not…”
“What?” Miles asked. “It’s not about the money? I never said it was. It should be about what’s right. He has a right to know and make his own decisions. You have a right to a life.”
“I let the dream of the only life I want go years ago. It’s done.”
“Coll, I can…”
“No! Drop it. I said it’s over. There’s nothing else to talk about. I’m happy for him and I wish him well. I’ll deal with the mean girls and their mothers.”
“Their mothers?” Miles asked with more venom rising to the surface of his voice.
Colleen rolled her eyes then smirked at her big brother when Dorothy called him to light the grill for the hotdogs.
18
Present
Falls Village, Maine
Teyler Walker and Miles Hamilton sit in the backyard of the house where Colleen and her siblings grew up. It’s a warm sunny day, the air smelling of spring and rebirth. Miles loves this time of year in his hometown. The promise of new beginnings managed to seem stronger here than in the hustle of a major city. It’s a place he ran from as an ambitious youth, but now as a man, he’s wondering if maybe he did so in haste.
“It’s nice here, right?” Miles asks Teyler from his Adirondack chair planted under the shade of the tree he’d considered burying Teyler under.
Miles is currently living in windy Chicago, spending long days in the office. When he was younger, he spent his nights in the beds of different women. But recently, he couldn’t seem to even muster up his dick enough to head to a club or a bar to find company for the night. It had him feeling old and wondering if he’d taken the wrong path in life.
In his early fifties, Miles Hamilton wasn’t happy with his empty life. Being back in Falls Village and seeing the change in his sister, since she reunited with the man she loves, has him wondering if he should rethink his life choices.
Miles looks across the small table, holding a few cold beers and snacks, at the man who will soon become his brother-in-law and he smiles.
“It is,” Teyler agrees. “But you can’t take my word for it. Anywhere your sister is, to me is the best place.”
Teyler and Miles had had a rocky few days once Colleen’s brother had strolled back into town, but now they were on better ground, could even be called friendly.
When Miles first arrived, he and Teyler verbally went at it then ended up rolling around on the back deck while Colleen laughed. The sight of her middle-aged older brother thinking he had to stand up to protect her virtuous status was nothing short of comical. Seeing Teyler let her brother land a few hits and grunt through them was even better. When he told her she was going to owe him big for it, she smiled even wider. Owing Teyler meant nothing short of hours of pleasure for her.
Now, the two men sit in companionable comfort and shoot the shit about the renovations in Falls Village and the home Colleen was soon moving into with Teyler.
“When can you guys move in?” Miles asks.
Teyler shrugs then takes a pull of his beer. “Not soon enough. I was hoping for before Callan and Jordan’s wedding, but it doesn’t seem likely. It’s going to be a shitshow to move in after and we’ve wasted enough of our lives apart.”
Miles places his beer down and furrows a brow at Teyler. “I’m afraid to ask what Black is involved in. It seems like anything that kid touches is a disaster.”
Teyler laughs because Miles isn’t wrong. “Tell me about it. I still don’t for a fucking second believe his bullshit story that he volunteered his castle for the movie set. The man hates people, it doesn’t make sense.”
Miles perks up his ears at the mention of a castle because it will always make him think of Claire Ingram and the many nights she’d snuck him into the castle owned by her family like she was Rapunzel and he was her knight in shining armor.
Claire Ingram is Tommy’s cousin and spent the summer before she began college in Falls Village where her wealthy family lived at the time. Miles had been twenty-two back then and only home after finishing school to check on Colleen and Taylor before he left again to begin his first corporate position in Boston. Their romance had been taboo and forbidden, him five years older and her not yet eighteen, so their time spent together was a secret no one but them knows of to this day.
“Did you hear me, man?” Teyler asks.
“What? Ah…no, sorry. I was thinking about how the amount of people the movie will bring here will be good for business, for my sister. I’ve tried to help her over the years, but…”
Teyler interrupts and finishes his sentence for him. “She’s stubborn.”
The two laugh over what an understatement that is.
Teyler eyes Miles sideways because he doesn’t buy his story for a second. Miles Hamilton is hiding something, but as Colleen calls them in for an early dinner, Teyler pushes it aside and figures the man will tell him when and if he feels like it. Unlike Colleen and her female friends, Teyler and his male counterparts don’t need to analyze everything to death.
The siblings, Teyler, and Taylor sit down for a picnic feast indoors to avoid the bugs outside. Over the meal they reminisce about Dorothy and listen to Taylor’s plans for the house once her mother moves in with her father. Colleen hasn’t changed much since Dorothy died.