“Dad,” Sam said again.
“Put up nanny cams,” Mark said, grinning, getting into it. His grin faded when he realized neither Sam nor Tanner was smiling. “Too far?”
Sam gave Tanner a look that said I’ll trade you a teen for a dad. “You’ve got this,” he said.
Tanner exhaled. “You think so?”
“Just remember what you were like at fifteen.”
He’d been an ass. “Not helping.”
Sam clapped him on the shoulder. “We’ve got your back.” Then he headed to the warehouse to work on the boat he was building.
“Hey,” Tanner called after him. “How are you going to have my back holed up in the shop?”
“Call me if you need me.”
“But you don’t answer your phone,” Tanner said.
Sam vanished. Tanner sighed and eyed Mark, who was still grinning.
“Now maybe you guys will see that this daddy shit ain’t all it’s cracked up to be,” Mark said.
“This isn’t funny,” Tanner said.
“A little bit it is.” Mark had recently come back into Sam’s life. He was good at handling the office crap that none of them wanted to do, and even better at annoying Sam. But Tanner got that it was important for Mark and Sam to spend some time together—as long as it was supervised. No need to tempt fate and risk Sam going to jail for murder one.
Tanner drew a deep breath and headed to the dock. Thirty minutes later a car pulled into the lot and Tanner walked up to the warehouse to meet it.
Elisa didn’t stay to chat when Troy got out of her car with two duffel bags.
The teen eyed Tanner, not looking super thrilled. Then he eyed the sign hanging off the warehouse door that said: NINJAS & PIRATES & LASERS & SHIT—STAY OUT.
He blinked. “You’ve got lasers?”
“Sam doesn’t like company in there when he’s building a boat,” Tanner said. “The sign is supposed to scare people off. He changes it every week or so.”
Troy looked disappointed. “Mom said I’m going to stay with you for the rest of the week and that I had to give you an hour of work every day before school.” Eyes hooded, his ’tude dialed to Sullen Teen, his face was closed off.
Tanner knew it matched his own face, from the square jaw to the hard set of his mouth, to his dark hide-everything gaze. “Glad you showed,” Tanner said.
Troy hunched into his jacket. “I don’t think she wants me at the house right now.”
“That’s what happens when you’re a shithead.”
“Maybe it’s because of her boyfriend, Dale.”
It was Dan, and they both knew it. But if that was true, that they didn’t want Troy around, Tanner was going to be seriously pissed off at Elisa. The problem was that he had no real faith in either Troy’s or Elisa’s version of the truth. They were both acting Troy’s age.
“I want you here,” Tanner said, and when Troy looked up, vulnerability and uncertainty flashing across his face, Tanner’s heart squeezed as he nodded reaffirmation.
But the kid was good and he masked his emotions real fast—something else he’d gotten from dear old dad—giving a casual shrug like he didn’t give a damn, staring down at his shoes as if they held the secrets to life. “You gotta say that.”
“No, actually, I don’t,” Tanner told him. “I never say anything I don’t want to. I’ve always wanted you with me.”
Troy didn’t respond to that other than to make a noise that suggested Tanner might be full of shit.
Yeah. He got that. Hell, he’d been there, right there in Troy’s shoes, so he didn’t bother to try to convince the kid. Words couldn’t do that anyway, only actions could. “You lost your job at the arcade and you got in trouble at school again,” Tanner said. “Yeah?”
Troy shrugged.
“If nothing else, a Riggs always owns up to their own shit. Got me?”
Troy hesitated. “I get you.”
“And?”
Troy stared at him for a long beat and Tanner held his gaze, hoping Troy was going to step up.
Troy blew out a breath. “And I got fired,” he admitted. “And in trouble at school.”
Tanner nodded. “You’ve got a job here. You’ll make more money than you did at the arcade, but your responsibilities will be more important. You on board with that?”
Troy was showing some interest now. “You’re going to pay me?”
“Yeah, we’re going to pay you, though you’re going to work your ass off for it. Yes or no?”
Troy blinked. “I get a choice?”
“I’m not into slave labor, Troy.”