CHAPTER FOUR
Rawlings’ Auto Repairs was a brisk ten-minute walk from the coffee shop. Burke strode through the light rain, welcoming the kiss of gentle mist against his hot skin. By the time he arrived at the garage his hair was damp, his blood had cooled, and he was half an hour late.
Derek Tate was an easygoing guy. Derek didn’t give a damn what time his employees showed up, so long as they got the job done and Derek didn’t have to deal with angry customers. Still, Burke liked to be punctual. He liked routine. He hadn’t been late once since he started working at the garage two years ago.
He walked through the open bay doors and headed for the back room.
“Sleep in this morning, did ya?” Dani said as he passed her. She was leaning over the popped hood of a small yellow VW, her thick black braid dangling over her shoulder.
Burke grunted and continued on.
“Derek’s looking for you.”
Burke turned back to Dani. “Why?”
“Didn’t ask.”
“Right.” Dani was a gossip. There was no way she hadn’t asked.
She spun a nut and pulled the radiator hose clear. “You got me. I asked. He wouldn’t say.”
“Where is he? Office?” Burke started that way.
“Nope.” Dani gestured vaguely at the inspection pit. “Derek!” she yelled. “Burke showed up! Finally!”
Derek came over to join them. “Hey.”
“Hey,” Burke said. “Sorry. I was…uh…delayed at the coffee shop. Won’t happen again.”
“Don’t care,” Derek said cheerfully.
“Then what’s up?”
“You got a visitor.”
Burke frowned at him.
Derek snapped his fingers. “That was my exact response.”
Burke rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “A visitor? You mean a customer?”
“I don’t think this one’s a customer.”
Burke shook his head in question.
“I put him in the office to wait. I’m not sure how long he’s been here, but the kid was hanging around outside when I arrived.”
“Kid?” Burke straightened, turning to the office.
“Snotty little punk. Didn’t ‘care’ to give a name.”
Through the large office window that looked out onto the workshop, Burke saw a tall, rangy figure, with a shock of dark hair, and wide shoulders in a teenager’s would-be-casual slouch.
“Shit.” Burke went from standing to a run.
He ripped open the office door and the kid dropped the iPhone he’d been fiddling with and whirled around, hazel eyes widening.
Before Burke could speak, the kid held up both his hands in a calming gesture. “Don’t freak out.”
“What are you doing here? What’s wrong? Did something happen? Your mother—”
“Mom’s fine. Chill. Seriously. You look like you’re going to have a heart attack.”
He felt like he was going to have a heart attack.
“Everything okay?” Derek had followed him and now stood alongside Burke.
“It’s fine. It’s all fine,” the kid said.
“I was talking to Burke,” Derek said. “Burke? Take it you know the kid?”
“Yeah. Derek Tate, David. David Joshi-Burke. My son.”
David waved. “Hi.”
* * * *
“I’m sorry, Dad. I didn’t think me showing up here would scare you. You really panicked for a moment there, huh?” David lounged on Derek’s worn office couch. His casual attitude was a front. Burke had gotten him a can of Coke and David’s hand was wrapped around it so tight his knuckles were white. He sat in a deliberate sprawl, but one of his knees was bouncing, and his face was pale.
Burke didn’t think David was aware of any of this.
“How else am I supposed to react when my son shows up at my place of work when he should be at school? Three hours away?”
“I don’t know. Probably not by assuming that I’m here to tell you Mom is dead, though. I don’t think they make minors give death notifications.”
“You think you’re funny,” Burke said flatly.
“I know I’m funny,” David replied. “But I can read the room. Now is not the time. Listen, Dad. I’m sorry. I didn’t think for a second that you’d freak out.”
Burke was pacing. At this artless comment, he stopped and swiveled to face his son.
The soda can ticked as David’s fingers tightened around it and he rushed to add, “I mean, I knew you’d freak out. I guess I expected it would be because I’m here, not because you thought Mom had died in a car accident or something. That’s what you thought, isn’t it?”
Burke blew out a hard breath and nodded.
“Fuck. Sorry.”
“Don’t curse,” Burke said.
“I’m sixteen. I can fucking swear.”
“David.”
“Fuck, I’m sorry. Ah, shit.”
Burke hid his smile as David cut himself off, scowling, and took a manly swig of his soda. Pulling the chair out from behind Derek’s desk, Burke positioned it in front of David and sat down. He rested his forearms along his thighs, considering his son.
David had Burke’s eyes and height, and his mother’s rich tan skin and thick mahogany hair. Burke could swear David had grown another couple of inches since Burke had last seen him. Was that possible in two months? At this rate, he might even end up as tall as Burke. At least that would be offset by Michaela’s graceful bones and her aristocratic poise.
“Now we’re clear that everyone’s alive and well—” he couldn’t help it, he waited for David’s eye roll and nod of confirmation before he continued, “—do you feel like explaining why you’re here?”
As David opened his mouth, Burke’s phone vibrated to life in his pocket. Burke glanced at the display.
“It’s Mom, isn’t it?” David said. He scooted to the edge of the couch and made a feeble swipe for the phone. “Don’t answer. Let me talk to you first.”
“Does that sound like the responsible adult choice?” Burke said. “Wait. Look who I’m talking to.”
“Now who’s funny?”
“Me.” Burke lifted the phone to his ear. “Michaela. He’s here.” He pulled the phone away an inch and Michaela’s outrage filled the office. David bit his lip and sank back into the couch.
“Michaela,” Burke said, trying to get a word in. “Michaela.” She didn’t stop. “Mike.”
That stopped her. “Damn it, Burke, I’ve told you a gajillion times, don’t call me that.”
He smiled.
“And don’t smile at me,” Michaela snapped. “I know you’re doing it. I can hear it.”
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“Oh, David didn’t tell you yet? I thought he’d have rolled out the poor li’l ole me speech already.”
“He was working up to it. Want to call me back?”
“No.”
“Are you on your way?”
“No.” This was said defensively. “Unlike some irresponsible brats, I can’t play hooky when I feel like it.” She sighed. “I can’t leave the office. The school called me half an hour ago. I’ve been calling David since then and the little shit won’t answer his phone. Tell him he is in big trouble, would you?”
Burke cut a glance at David’s tense expression. “He knows.”
David spread his arms out along the back of the couch and tried to look nonchalant.
Burke got to his feet and turned away before his amusement showed. “So he’s running away from school?”
“No!” David said behind him. “I love school, I—”
Burke held up a hand and David snapped his mouth shut with an audible click.
“I wish,” Michaela said. “He’s running away from me. Acting out.”
“What did you do? Take his iPod away?”
“iPod? What is this, 2008? No one uses iPods anymore. Ugh. I didn’t want to tell you this way.”
“Tell me what?”
“We’re moving.”
Again? Burke’s muscles tightened. “Fifth time, Mike,” he growled.
It was the fifth time she’d done this to him. And every time Michaela had moved herself and David around the country as she scaled the corporate mountain, Burke had been faced with the same choice: uproot his own life and follow, or never see his son.
Because Michaela had sole custody. Michaela was rich as hell. She needed nothing from Burke, which in Michaela’s mind translated to she could do whatever she wanted.
“Where now?” Burke demanded.
“England.”
He closed his eyes. “I’ll call you back.”
“Burke, don’t hang up on me. I’m sorry, but you have to understand—”
“I will call you back.” Burke disconnected and turned to David.
His son was watching him with wide eyes. “Don’t make me go, Dad,” he whispered.
“Come on.” Burke led the way out of the office, David trailing behind him, and located Derek. “Derek, I gotta take a personal day.”
“I figured.” Derek waved him away. “Let me know if you need anything.”
Burke nodded and took David through the workshop out the back to where his RV was parked.
David stopped and stared at the silver behemoth.
Burke opened the door. “You coming in or not?”
“What is this?”
“Home sweet home.”
David stopped on the steps, putting him eye level with Burke. “You’re kidding.”
“In.”
David flounced into the RV before he could register Burke’s high color.
Yes, Burke lived in an RV.
Was this what he wanted from life, living in an RV in the back lot of his boss’ garage?
No.
However, after following Michaela and David to New England, to New York and then to L.A. and, most recently, Seattle, never managing to stay in one place long enough to make it worth getting a foot on the property ladder, Burke had given in and bought a home that could move with him.
Living the dream.
“Are you going on vacation?” David had sat in the driver’s seat and was sliding his hands around the steering wheel as if taking sharp bends. “Is someone having a midlife crisis?”
Burke could almost hear the zoom noises David used to make when he was a little boy, driving his toy cars over the living room floor, the back of the couch, off-roading over Burke’s sprawled-flat body.
He couldn’t believe his boy was sixteen.
“Can I take it for a drive?” David said.
“You’d have to have a license for that.”
“I got my license already.”
“A real one, David, not a learner’s permit.”
“I got it.”
“You…? When?”
David must have heard the hurt Burke was trying not to show. “Uh, couple of months ago. I know you wanted to teach me, but it was easier to do it at school like everyone else.”
“Sure.” Burke stood there for a moment, then went to the sink and poured himself a glass of water. He sat at the tiny kitchenette table.
“So,” David said, forcing the brightness. “Are we going on vacation?”
“I live here.”
“All the time?”
Burke sighed. “Yeah.” Your father’s a winner, huh?
“Dad. I had no idea you lived in an RV.”
“Yeah, I decided—”
“This is so cool. I’d have come to visit you here rather than have you come visit me in Seattle if I’d known.”
“Cool?”
“Different. Alternative. I like it.”
David liked it because David lived in an enormous penthouse apartment with marble floors and a concierge and an elevator bigger than Burke’s living room. The RV was probably like a clubhouse to David, and he was still young enough—at least in small, ever-diminishing pockets of time—to find that exciting.
“Glad you approve,” Burke said.
David leaped out of the driver’s seat and strode over to sit across from Burke. “I approve. When can I move in?”
Burke blinked at his son.
David gave him a big smile.
Burke narrowed his eyes. “Think it’s time I call your mother back. Unless you want to have your say first?”
“I already said it. Please don’t make me go to England. Please, Dad.” His voice broke on the second please.
“Why don’t you look around, fix yourself a sandwich or something, while I call Michaela?”
“Okay. Yeah. Good. I’m starving. I was on the road at, like, five.”
Burke nearly dropped his phone. “You drove here?”
David hummed. “I want to say no.”
“David.”
“Yes, I drove, all right? Man, was it not fun.”
“It wasn’t your mother’s Lexus was it?”
“Do I look stupid to you?”
“Yes!”
“I’m not stupid enough to drive her Lexus. While I do have my license I am not, you know, great at driving. Plus, baby face. I’d so get pulled over in a Lexus. No, I borrowed my buddy’s Prius.”
Burke shook his head in disbelief.
“Right?” David cackled. “No one ever pulls over a Prius.”
While David ambled off to check out the back of the RV, Burke dialed Michaela. He decided to make the call outside.
Banging down the steps, he slammed the door behind him, and waited while the phone rang and rang. “Are you aware David drove himself here?” he said as soon as she answered.
“For god’s sake. I thought he took a cab.”
From Seattle. Burke made a deliberate effort to loosen tight shoulders, and rolled his neck. “England, Mike?”
She sighed. “I know. But I can’t pass this one up.”
She never could.
“It’s the opportunity of a lifetime. You must realize that? I’ll be working out of the London office for the next five years at least. I want this, Burke. It’ll be good for me. It’s been hell working with Jeff since the divorce, I’m sure you can imagine.”
Not really. Burke didn’t know the man well, but Jeff Joyner had always seemed like a decent guy. He’d been a good stepfather to David. It would be awkward, though, working in the same office after their marriage had disintegrated. And while Jeff wasn’t Michaela’s boss, he was higher up in the organization. Michaela was alpha all the way. Burke couldn’t see her accepting the shift of their power dynamic without some friction.
“This couldn’t have come at a better time,” she was saying.
“What about David?”
“It’ll be amazing for him, too. Most kids would be thrilled at the chance, I don’t know why he’s being so difficult about it.”
“Because he’s got less than two years of high school left, and most likely doesn’t want to change schools again, let alone countries?”
“Unfortunately for David, he has to change schools. That’s a given. As for changing countries, that isn’t decided yet.”
“Are you saying that you’ll consider letting him come live with me?”
“Honestly? I can’t fathom him choosing a boring little town in Washington over London and the apartment in Kensington that comes with the job, but I’m not completely self-obsessed, despite what anyone says. It’ll be David’s choice.”
“And if he chooses me,” Burke said, “you’re okay with that?”
The door behind him crashed open and David shouted, “I choose Dad!”
Burke couldn’t help it, he broke into a huge smile as he turned to face his son. David grinned back.
“Okay?” Michaela said. “No. Devastated but accepting? Yes.”
“What about school?” Burke asked.
“I refuse to reward the brat by paying double his school fees to let him board there. If he chooses you he’ll have to live in Amberson, and he’ll have to go to school in Amberson.”
“Emerson.”
“Right.”
They talked for another few minutes, hashing out a tentative plan. By the time Burke hung up, he was both daunted and excited about finally getting the chance to play a bigger part in his son’s life.
He and Michaela had never lived together, not even during the pregnancy or the first few months of David’s life. Michaela hadn’t required anything from Burke, neither his presence nor his money. She came from a wealthy family, had a high-paying job, and had laughed whenever he brought up the topic of child support.
David had found Burke’s music system and hooked up his iPhone. Imagine Dragons was playing at full volume when Burke went back inside the RV, rattling his teeth.
Burke didn’t know the first thing about music. He was terminally uncool when it came to music, fashion, popular culture. Like he gave a shit. He liked what he liked. He recognized this song because he’d heard it on the radio often. He liked it fine.
Just not this loud.
He mimed to David to turn the volume down. When it was quiet enough, he asked, wonderingly, “How did you make a mess already? You’ve been here twenty minutes, tops.”
“It’s a gift.”
Two empty soda cans, a banana peel, and the savaged remnants of a packet of cookies scattered on his kitchenette table. The throw pillows on the couch were askew. One of the curtains was half-drawn, for some weird reason, and the faucet in the sink dripped.
Burke put his hands on his hips and looked around.
“I can be tidy.” David sprang up from his sprawl in the driver’s seat where he was reading a graphic novel. A jumble of notebooks, pens, headphones and condoms spilled from his backpack onto the passenger seat.
Burke’s eyes widened.
Condoms?
“Better?” David yelled. He’d connected his headphones to the Bluetooth, piping the music into his skull instead of into the RV. He gave Burke a thumbs-up and a dimpled grin.
Condoms?
Burke looked around the RV again. “I’m gonna need a bigger boat.”
“What?” David shifted his headphones to free up an ear.
Burke lifted and lowered his arms, gesturing at the definitely not big enough for a teenage boy and his father RV. “Bigger boat,” he muttered.
“Hah. You’re quoting Jaws, right? Cool. Yeah. Love that film.”
Cool.
Also, condoms?
Burke reached out and plucked the headphones off David’s head, ignoring his son’s squawk. “Pack up your stuff, kid.”
David paled and clasped Burke’s wrist. “I can be tidy, Dad, I swear. Give me a chance.”
Burke frowned down at him, thinking. David stared back pleadingly. Burke made an irritated noise. “I’m taking you back to school, not kicking you out.”
David was still quivering. “I can be tidy, though.”
“Doubt it. Doesn’t matter. Tidy or not, you’re with me.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.” He ruffled David’s hair. “You still don’t get to miss school.”
David groaned and slumped back against the seat. “Not even one day? By the time I get back I’ll have, like, an hour of lessons left.”
“You sure you want to push this with me?”
“Good point.” David jumped up and whisked around, zipping up his backpack and rushing over to straighten the cushions and twitch the curtain back into place. He stopped and dithered in front of Burke.
Burke raised his brows.
David threw his arms around Burke’s waist, astonishing him, and bear-hugged him until he wheezed. “Thanks, Dad. You won’t regret it,” he mumbled into the front of Burke’s shirt before extracting himself and saying bravely, “I’m ready to face the firing squad. Let’s hit the road.”
Burke followed him down the steps. “Your mother’s angry, but it’s mostly worry. I’m almost sure she won’t have you shot.”
“Yeah, I know that. I was talking about returning the Prius. When I say I ‘borrowed’ it from a buddy…” He trailed off into delicate silence.
“You stole a car?”
“No! I totally borrowed it. Just, the buddy I borrowed it from, we’re more like acquaintances. And I didn’t so much ask him as, uh, leave him a note.” David scratched the side of his nose. “And I might have scraped the side panel. Tiny bit. City traffic, right? It’s a bitch.”
“Is this acquaintance going to press charges?” Burke demanded. “Will he have reported it stolen? The reason I want to know being that I’m the chump who has to drive the car back, and I don’t feel like getting arrested by Seattle PD today.”
David waved a dismissive hand. “Nah. He won’t want to piss Mom off.”
Burke stared at him.
“Oh,” David said, realizing more explanations were required. “He’s the night doorman.”
“You stole the night doorman’s Prius?”
“Borrowed. I’m taking it back. It’s not like I handed it off at the docks for a couple of thousand in cash and it’s in a shipping container halfway to China.” He paused a beat. “If I’d wanted to score some cash that way, I’d have boosted Ms. Jablonsky’s Maserati.”
“Do you have any sense of right and wrong at all?”
“Hey, you let Mom send me to private school. What did you expect?”
“Glad you brought up expectations,” Burke said.
“Uh-oh.”
“This is the last time you ‘borrow’ a car. Hear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now say it without the fake salute.”
David registered that Burke wasn’t amused. “I was desperate and I know what I did was stupid.”
“I believe you think you know, boy, but you don’t. You drove three hours in a stolen car while playing hooky from school, in an attempt to manipulate me so you get to stay in the country, and…you’re smiling.”
“Can’t help it. I’m happy.” David ducked his ear to a shoulder and sent Burke a cheeky look. “Worked, didn’t it?”
Burke had seen that look before, many times. When three-year-old David had fed his new pet, the DVD player, with toast and jelly. When five-year-old David had improvised with hand towels when he’d used up all Burke’s toilet paper. When twelve-year-old David had helped Burke out with laundry and, like the punchline of a bad joke, Burke had ended up with every white item he owned a vibrant pink.
At sixteen, David should know better. Being cute wasn’t enough to get him out of grand theft auto, and Burke intended to provide the strict parental guidance his son, infinitely more criminal-minded than Burke had heretofore suspected, needed. But right now?
“Get in the damn car,” he growled.