“I’m happy for you guys. All of you.” Luke glances over at me. “But it looks like Zack and I are the only sane ones left.”
Gabe chuckles. I punch his arm, hard now since I know he’s fully healed and can take it.
“Actually I’m not,” I admit with a smile.
Josie chooses that moment to come up behind me and wrap her arms around my waist.
“Hey, sweetheart.”
“Hey. What are you guys talking about over here?”
She’s blossomed over the past month, more secure in our love than ever now that we’re not hiding from everyone. It’s been an adjustment, living together so soon. All our years of bickering means we know each other’s weak spots. We used to use that information
to annoy each other but now we use the knowledge to avoid hurting each other. Being the steward of someone’s heart is a responsibility that we both take seriously.
Luke laughs. “Oh it’s like that, huh?”
Josie kisses me on the ear before going back to the other girls. Luke makes kissy faces at me as soon as she’s gone which make us all laugh. I flip the row of steaks on the grill before sitting next to Tank. He has a tense expression on his face as he looks out over the yard.
“What are you thinking about?”
He tips his head in the girls’ direction. “That we’re some damn lucky guys.”
I snort out a laugh. “That we are.”
“And that in a weird way Max is responsible for all of this. He brought us all together, as fucked up as it was, but he’ll never even know he did it.”
Max left the country again right after I saw him that day. He hasn’t called, written or tried to communicate with any of us since. The only connection we have to him are the wire transfers that showed up in all of our accounts over the past few weeks. A total of a billion dollars each.
“When he told me he was going to distribute his estate early, I never actually thought he’d do it.”
Tank groans. “He’s a crazy old bastard. Now he has me feeling guilty for not going to see him again.”
Gabe is quiet, picking at the label on his beer bottle. “I kind of wish I’d seen him one last time, too. It’s hard to miss what you never had but I was sort of getting used to the idea of having a father.”
Luke doesn’t say anything. Independently wealthy since he started writing software as a young teen, he was the only one of us who could afford to ignore Max’s initial offer. The rest of us needed the money for some reason or another but Luke never went to see him. Not even once. He was convinced that Max was trouble from the start and as it turns out, he was totally right.
But he has to be feeling some kind of loss right now anyway.
“He came back that time just because I asked him to but he’s not going to be the one to reach out again. In his mind, leaving us alone was the greatest gift he ever gave us so if you want to see him, you have to make the first move.”
Luke makes a face. “I don’t have anything to say to him.”
“I didn’t think I did either, until I was there. But I was mad at him for a lot of years and there were a lot of things that I wanted to get off my chest.”
“I wouldn’t even know where to start.” Luke looks glum.
“I told him all the reasons I was pissed off growing up. To Max’s credit, he let me say what I needed to say even though it had to be hard to hear. I think you should talk to him. Not because he just dropped a bunch of money on us either but for you. He’s not going to be around forever and once that opportunity is gone, there’s no going back.”
“I hear you, man. I’ll think about it.” Luke promises.
Tank leans forward. “I heard about the wing of the hospital you and Gabe are building. That’s awesome.”
“Thanks. We’ve been consulting with experts on pediatrics and neonatology for information on what’s needed. It’s a lot of work but it’s more than worth it.”
Gabe and I share a smile. He knows that I got the idea while trying to impress Josie’s parents but he was happy to help me make it a reality. He was right there with me as I suffered through the horror of substandard medical care as a child so it’s a personal cause for him as well. We want it done right so the kids in our town will have access to some of the best medical care on the East Coast.
“If you want, my lawyer can send over what he’s been doing for us. Finn and I have been funding a lot of cancer research lately. Our mom is in remission after a long battle but I don’t think either of us will ever feel safe until there’s a cure for cancer. Hopefully we’ll see it in our lifetime.”