After the Climb Page 6

  Because he hadn’t thought of that.

  She would.

  Genny absolutely would take a minute.

  And he’d have had to talk fast, shout, beg, plead, crawl to get her to listen.

  That was who Corey was to them.

  The both of them.

  “This guy was your guy. Both of your guy,” Harv spoke Duncan’s thoughts. “Neither of you could have any clue he’d purposely, with evil intent, and premeditation, inflict that kind of damage on you.”

  Jesus.

  “Country fried scramble,” the waitress stated, dumping a plate covered in food in front of Harv, who moved back from the table to receive it. “Green chile and cheese omelet.” And Duncan had his food. “Be back ’round for a top up. Anything else?”

  “No, Shirl,” Harvey replied.

  “Thanks, honey,” Duncan said.

  She winked at him, shot Harv a sassy smile and said, “Don’t mention it.”

  Then she sashayed away.

  Duncan went for his cutlery.

  So did Harvey.

  They started eating.

  Harv was the one who took them back to it.

  “You know, I’ve met the man, and truth is, a man like that is no man at all.”

  Duncan lifted his eyes from his food to give them to his friend.

  “Sorry?”

  Again, it was like he didn’t talk.

  “And you are not the man you were back then,” he kept at it.

  Duncan had a sense he knew what this was about, and it was no longer about Corey.

  “Harv—”

  “Your father was a jackass, Bowie.”

  Yep, that was what he’d sensed.

  Harvey raised one of his big mitts and waved it before he carried on talking. “Sorry, but you know it’s true way more than me. He fucked with your head. And Szabo was a genius and proved at his end that came in a variety of ways. He fucked with it too. You’re beyond that now, and she should know the man you became, despite those two.”

  “My weakness destroyed us,” Duncan pointed out.

  “Brother, you were twenty-somethin’ years old. You barely knew your ass from a hole in the ground.”

  “That still happened.”

  “You know, I had a dad who was proud of me from the minute Ma pushed me out. And he made no bones about it. And growin’ up, that was everything to me, Bowie, everything.”

  Duncan said nothing, pleased as fuck Harv had that.

  And to that day, fifty-four years old, missing it like a lost limb that he did not.

  Harvey kept going.

  “I know moms alone can raise good sons. But there’s somethin’ about a boy and his father. When I met him, that dude, your dad, was past it, looked a million years old, and could barely get around, and he was still swinging his dick like anyone gave a shit how big it was. You are respected and successful, you know it, he knew it, and he still treated you like you were a bum. Nothin’ woulda been good enough for him, Bowie. You told me you didn’t wanna play football, but you did it anyway, because he wanted you to. You made All-State, he gave you shit because he was a plumber, but you didn’t get a full ride to his dad’s alma mater. That is not a father, man. That’s a jackal whose only sustenance to keep himself feelin’ steady is feeding on his young.”

  “I got two boys, Harv, I know this.”

  “Well, shouldn’t she know it too?”

  Duncan ate a forkful of egg, chiles and cheese and didn’t answer.

  But that also got in there.

  “Now tell me if I got this wrong,” Harvey kept at him.

  But Duncan had had enough.

  “Listen, Harv—”

  “She’s her, pretty, talented, wants to make it big in Hollywood as an actress, and you’re the man your father convinced you that you were. How relieved were you when you had a valid reason to cut her loose?”

  Duncan’s throat closed.

  What he was feeling inside must have showed on his face, because Harvey nodded once, decisively.

  “Just what I thought,” Harvey muttered, and shoved eggs, biscuits, gravy and country fried steak in his mouth.

  But Duncan was thrown.

  Because this was something he’d never told anybody.

  He’d barely admitted it to himself.

  But as obliterated as he was, thinking Genny had done that to him, as time went on, he could not deny he’d felt relief.

  Not at losing her, never that. He wasn’t even certain he’d breathed the same again after she was gone.

  Until yesterday, when she stood at the foot of his steps.

  But they’d been gearing up to move. Possibly to New York, but she preferred the idea of LA, because of the weather, and there were more opportunities there that interested her.

  She’d been the lead in all the high school plays. The drama teacher adored her, said she had something, said she had what it was going to take, and encouraged her at every opportunity.

  She’d gone to college, double majoring in drama and education, in case acting didn’t work out, she could teach and have a fallback position.

  But she had dreams, goals, and a plan.

  And they were on the cusp of executing that plan.

  But Duncan could not deny he had concerns about it.

  Because he could get a job doing anything, if it was manual labor.

  But she was going to be someone.

  And he’d had his own plan, and at that time, it seemed a more distant dream to reach than Genny’s dream of making a career of being an actor.

  And that was when Corey struck.

  Fucking hell, that guy had known precisely what he was doing.

  Further, from that very night he slept without her for the first time in over a year, to what he had to admit was now, it had haunted him, like the ghost of a shackle cuffed to his ankle, one he had no hope of losing, that what had actually happened was what Harvey just said.

  He’d jumped right on what Corey told him so he could set Genny free.

  Free of the burden of him.

  Free so she could be all she was supposed to be.

  “Am I gettin’ in there?” Harvey asked with mouth full.

  “You’re an asshole,” Duncan replied, and shoved more food in.

  “In this instance, I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  Duncan’s phone vibrated in his breast pocket.

  He reached in, pulled it out and saw it was a text from Chloe.

  She had his number because she’d confiscated his phone, demanded his passcode, and she was Genny’s girl.

  For the life of him, he could not refuse her.

  He didn’t and she’d texted herself from his phone

  So now he was open game.

  He sighed before he read the text,

  Plan in place. Noon thirty, El Gato. Our partner in crime knows what to do.

  “Shit,” he murmured.

  “What?” Harvey asked.

  “Chloe, she’s full steam ahead.”

  “And?”

  “She wants me at El Gato at twelve thirty.”

  “I could use some beef pinchos,” Harvey declared before shoving more food in his mouth.

  Duncan stared at him a beat before he stated, “If I go, you are not going with me.”

  “I totally am,” Harvey declared in return.

  “Bud—”

  “And you’re going.”

  “Har—”

  Harvey put his hands, still holding fork and knife, to the table and gave Duncan his full attention.

  “Jesus, Bowie, you know I’m gonna tell Beth all this shit and you know she’s all romantic and you know she loves you like a brother and you know she’s gonna lose her shit if she finds out I didn’t get your ass to El Gato at twelve thirty. And last, you know she’s gonna ride my ass if you balk and keep ridin’ it until I get your shit together. So throw a man a bone, please. I don’t need her nattering in my ear, and you don’t need Beth wading into this situation.”


  One thing in all of this Duncan did know.

  That was the truth.

  With less bullshittery, Harv asked quietly, “Seriously, my man, what will it hurt?”

  “It might hurt her,” Duncan said.

  “I see this as a concern,” Harvey allowed.

  “I think Corey and I have done enough, don’t you?” Duncan asked.

  “Corey, yes. You…”

  Harvey looked him straight in the eye.

  And lowered the hammer.

  “Not even close.”

  Doing what he did to Genny.

  Walking away from her.

  Not reaching out for twenty-eight years, if only to reestablish some connection after all they’d been to each other.

  What Harvey said was another thing in all of this Duncan knew.

  His friend was right.

  Chapter Five

  The Lunch

  Imogen

  “Are you high?”

  Heddy’s voice was rising.

  “Keep it down,” I hissed, not a fan of any scene, but definitely not one that involved me.

  Already, I’d noticed one person not-quite-surreptitiously holding their phone pointed our way.

  One thing in this life I knew for certain.

  The advent of phones with cameras sucked.

  “He told…the man…you loved…the man… you grew up with…as your best friend…the man…who you gave…your virginity to…the man…”

  She was stuttering all William-Shatner-like, I could tell it pained her, it was paining me too, thus I had to stop her.

  “Yes, that man,” I confirmed. “And yes, he told him what I told you he told him.”

  And sitting on the patio of El Gato Azul, I was seeing that Corey’s final fuck-you was going to have long-lasting effects.

  I was also debating whether or not I’d tell Trisha and Scott that evening.

  Scott would blow his stack.

  Trisha would lose her mind.

  They would both be hurt if I didn’t share, because I knew they were already more than their usual keen for this visit, seeing as they were worried about me due to the fact Corey committed suicide.

  But I was done living Corey’s latest betrayal.

  I’d had long enough of that, thank you very much.

  Even if, until recently, I didn’t know it was happening.

  “And that man barricaded you into his office with his body saying you needed to talk things out, and you left?”

  “Heddy, what he wanted to talk out was a long time, a career, a husband, and three kids ago,” I pointed out.

  “Ohmigod,” she breathed. “Again, are you high?”

  I sat back in my metal chair on the crowded patio and sighed, all while reaching to my rosé wine in order to take a fortifying sip.

  “You know, I’ve seen him around, and I will preface this next by saying, when it happened, I had utterly no clue that he was yours, but I’ve seen him and I’ve had some very lustful thoughts,” Heddy declared.

  I wished this did not affect me.

  But even way back when, Duncan being a fifteen on a scale of one to ten and the amount of female attention he got because of it always stuck in my craw.

  And as ridiculous and nonsensical as that feeling was to have now, I was having that feeling.

  I did not share this with my friend Heddy.

  At least I thought I didn’t.

  But she hooted and then stated, “You’re jealous.”

  “I am not jealous, and he is not mine,” I retorted and finally took my sip of wine.

  “Okay, I’m a tertiary character on a huge-ass television show, my character has a short, but heartbreaking story arc as the friend Bonnie makes at the hospital while Devon is fighting cancer. The friend who bites it, because…duh, she’s got cancer. My career tanks because I tell one director to shove it because I was tired of people telling me my ass was fat, even though my ass is fat. I get the hell out of that demon industry, only to have that super-famous chick I made friends with on the set have superhuman dedication to keeping friends. Therefore, she kept me as a friend, no matter the time or distance. I then find myself fated to live in the same town her ex-boyfriend, first-love, keeper of the gift of her cherry lives. I lust after him and share that. She gives me the look of death. And he’s not yours?”

  Obviously, after my crying episode last night, and too much alone time over croissants and coffee at the bistro table in my suite, by the time I’d made it to the restaurant, I was ready to unload.

  Something I did.

  So much of it, we’d managed to order wine, but not any food.

  And it was something I wished right then I did not do.

  “Your ass is not fat,” I snapped.

  Heddy grinned largely. “Babe, this is demonstration of your superhuman dedication to keeping friends, that in all of that, not only do you pick the thing to address that would make me feel better, you do it subtly dropping the hint I should let this Duncan Holloway thing go. PS. I’m not letting this Duncan Holloway thing go.”

  “I don’t have superhuman dedication to friendship, Heddy. My best friend in all the world accused me of cheating on him. He then disappeared from my life. After that, I became famous and learned very quickly the wealth of ways people can, will and do use you or screw you over because you’re famous. So I put a fair amount of effort into keeping the good ones.”

  She looked remorseful, but just said, “Babe.”

  I picked up the menu, tipped my gaze to it and requested, “Can we just select our tapas and stop discussing this?”

  When it dawned on me she didn’t answer, I looked her way and saw her attention was to the doorway out to the patio.

  She must have felt my gaze, because she belatedly answered, “I’m thinking yes on both, since it’d be rude to discuss someone when they’re sitting right there and it’s time for us all to have some lunch.” She then raised her hand, waved, and called loudly, “Yoo hoo!”

  My skin tightened, my eyes flew to the doorway and yes.

  Snaking through the many tables was a big, handsome bear of a man.

  And behind him was Duncan.

  Good God.

  Too late, I reached for Heddy’s raised arm, but even if the damage was done, and Duncan and his friend, as well as everyone else, were looking our way, Heddy leaned so far to the side, her chair almost toppled over, and she kept calling out while waving.

  “Yes. Here. We know them. And we have two extra seats! Save a table! They can sit with us!”

  “I swear to God, Heddy,” I hissed under my breath.

  But to no avail.

  “Yo!” the big man boomed, smiling so wide, my face hurt, and adjusting their course to head our way.

  Duncan, studying me closely, followed.

  Someonekillmesomeonekillmesomeonekillme.

  #SecondWorstDayEver

  Okay, maybe third, after Duncan dumped me, then yesterday.

  What was I thinking?

  Fourth.

  Because the day I found out Tom was cheating on me absolutely vied for the top spot.

  Nope, fifth.

  Seeing as the day we told our children our marriage was over was totally up there.

  “Hiyeeee!” Heddy said brightly as they made the table.

  “God. Jesus. Will you look at this,” the big man with Duncan said, staring down at me.

  Then he moved, and with an ugly metallic scraping sound, my chair was back, and I was hauled out of it and into two arms that had closed around me in a tight hug.

  What was happening?

  He jostled me rather mightily before he loosened his hold enough to pull back and look down at me.

  “Whaddaya know, you’re Genny, Bowie’s girl,” he decreed.

  I didn’t know what to make of any of this, but the crazy thing about it was, I mostly didn’t know what to make of that.

  I’d been Imogen Swan for so long, I forgot what it felt like to be just Genny at all.


  Bowie’s girl or not.

  “I—”

  He let me go, but only partially. He took my hand and pumped it, vigorously.

  “Harvey. Harvey Evans. Friends call me Harv. Bowie’s my boy,” he introduced himself.

  “Harv, man, you think you might wanna not tear her arm off?” Duncan suggested.

  He let me go. “Right. Sorry.” He turned to Heddy. “Yo. I’m Harv.”

  She stuck an enthusiastic hand his way. “Heddy. Long suffering friend to this tall gorgeous drink of water.” She jerked her head my way.

  “Heddy—” I tried.

  “Sit down, sit, sit, sit.” Done shaking Harv’s hand, Heddy was gesturing magnanimously to the table.

  Harv did not hesitate to make motions to take a chair.

  Duncan did.

  “Hi, you’re Duncan, right?” Heddy called. “I’m Heddy. And I’m so glad to meet you. Sit!”

  She practically shouted the last word.

  I was acutely aware all eyes were on us.

  I sat and stated somewhat urgently, “Yes, please. Sit. Just sit.”

  I felt Duncan’s attention as he shifted his body to do as I asked, but then I heard, “No. You. There by Gen. You by me, Harv.”

  Oh God.

  Since Heddy and I were sitting kitty-corner, her words meant, at the small square table it was going to be boy, boy, girl, girl, with Duncan at my side.

  And his knee far too close to mine.

  His explosive temper didn’t terrify me.

  But that did.

  “Is this okay, Genny?” I heard him ask softly.

  I was busy rescuing my napkin that had fallen out of my lap and onto the stone floor amidst my enforced bear hug.

  I smoothed it in place and muttered, “Yes, yes. Please just sit,” without looking at him.

  “Sit, bud,” he ordered low to his friend.

  “Right,” Harvey mumbled.

  Heddy leaned deep into the table and whispered conspiratorially, “She gets attention. It’s not like she isn’t used to it, it just, you know, can be oppressive if there’s too much of it. Dig?”

  I aimed my gaze at her. “I can speak for myself, Heddy.”

  She leaned back and shot big eyes at me. “All right. Chill out, mama.”

  Someonekillmesomeonekillmesomeonekillme.

  Duncan’s knee brushed mine as he scooted in.

  Frissons of electricity shot from there, up my thigh, straight between my legs.