Brent looked at his father with an anger he could barely contain. “You don’t care, do you? You don’t care that everybody in this town hates you?”
“Everybody in this town fears me,” Charles said. “There’s a difference.”
Brent was shaking his head. “No, sir,” he said. “No, it’s not. There’s no difference at all. And then for a man like you to tell me to dump Kerstin and find myself a woman of substance? Yeah, right. Find yourself a heart, Pop. Find yourself a heart!”
Brent said this, and then angrily left his father’s bedroom just as Tony was walking in. Brent, in fact, brushed against Tony as he walked past him so fast, that Tony tilted sideways. Tony looked across the room at his father. Conventional wisdom was that his father was the asshole of assholes in Jericho County. But unlike the county, Tony never bought it. Tony knew better than that. “You okay, Pop?” he asked as he walked toward him.
Charles grabbed his tie pin, and slipped it onto his tie. His oldest boy just told him he had no heart. He had no heart, he said. “I’m fine,” he replied.
“Don’t listen to Brent,” Tony said as he turned his father toward him, and began to straighten his tie. He knew his father was still reeling. He knew his father hated that his oldest son felt that way about him. “Brent’s always blowing smoke. He says you have no heart,” Tony said as he placed his hand on his father’s chest. “But if you have no heart, then why is it hammering?”
Charles placed his hand on top of his son’s hand. To the world, Tony was known for his beauty and his wit. Just a gorgeous boy from birth, and with the funniest tongue. But he was so much more to Charles. He was smart, and sharp, and he understood his old man better than any child Charles had. But that didn’t mean they were close.
Charles moved past his son, walked out of the closet, and headed for the nightstand beside his bed.
Tony was disappointed. He wanted to connect better with his father. But his father had to want it too. Yet every time the opportunity rose up, his father clamped it back down. He followed him out of the closet, looking at the open suitcase on the bed. “I thought you didn’t have to be in New York until tomorrow,” he said. “You’re headed there now?”
Charles began putting on his Rolex. He had decided to go a day early to New York, just for the change of pace. Nothing more elaborate than that. But then he looked at that Rolex again, at not just the time, but the date. June 5th. It had been a possibility for the past week, but every time he thought about it, he dismissed it. What good would come of it, she had asked. And it was a question he still couldn’t answer. But he made up his mind right here and right now. “Boston,” he said to Tony. “I’m going to Boston first.”
“Boston? Why Boston? Another investment opportunity?”
“Something like that,” replied Charles.
Tony knew when his father was shutting him out. He was so accustomed to it that it was as clear to him as if his father had sounded a cymbal. “Well alrighty then,” he said. “I’ll leave you to it.” And he left.
As soon as he did, Charles stopped all movement, took in a deep breath, and then exhaled. He was going to Boston, not to attend some drab meeting, but to look up Jenay again. Ever since he met her at Donnie’s reception, and saw her again a week ago, he’d been thinking about her. Even dreamed about her yet again! Not just that face, and those lips, and that brown body that sizzled against his skin. He dreamed about her. About her laughter, and her almost slue-feet, and the way he nearly died when he thought harm had come to her.
He wasn’t a sentimental man. He wasn’t a man who believed in love at first sight on any level. He had women that pleasured him whenever he needed that kind of release, and all it would take was a phone call to get it. But he wanted to see Jenay again. He wanted to feel that alive, electric way she made him feel when he was around her. He was going to see her again. His mind was made up.
And he knew it was complicated. He knew this sudden need to see her might very well have less to do with her, and more to do with excising his own inner demons. Maybe it was as simple and as complex as Brent’s harsh summation about how he had no heart. Maybe, coming from his beloved son, it was too harsh a theory to bear. Maybe it was a theory he suddenly had this great need to disprove.
CHAPTER TEN
Jenay was finally ready. Her hair, her makeup, the white pencil dress she wore that fit her like a second skin. She was ready for this graduation with an excitement she never thought, just a year ago, she’d be able to muster.