The Mistake (Off-Campus Book 2)

June

I’m thirty-three days into my torture stint at Logan and Sons when I have my first run-in with my father. I’ve been waiting for it, in some sick way even looking forward to it, but for the most part, Dad has left me alone since I moved back home.

He hasn’t asked me about school or hockey. Hasn’t given me the usual guilt trips about how I don’t care enough to visit. All he’s done is complain about his leg pain and thrust beers in my direction while pleading, “Have a brewsky with your old man, Johnny.”

Right. Like that’ll ever happen.

I appreciate that he hasn’t been on my case, though. Truth is, I’m too exhausted to fight with him right now. I’ve been following the rigid off-season training program the coaches designed for us, which means getting up at the crack of dawn to work out, toiling in the garage until eight p.m., working out again before bed, and then crashing for the night and doing it all over again the next day.

Once a week I go to Munsen’s crappy arena to work on shooting and skating drills with Vic, one of our assistant coaches who drives over from Briar to make sure I stay sharp. I love him for it, and I look forward to the ice time, but unfortunately, today’s not a rink day.

The customer I’m dealing with at the moment is the foreman of the sole construction crew in town. His name’s Bernie, and he’s a decent guy—well, if you overlook his constant attempts to persuade me to join Munsen’s summer hockey league, which I have no desire to do.

Bernie showed up five minutes ago with a two-inch nail jammed in the front tire of his pickup, gave me the usual spiel about how I need to join the league, and now we’re discussing the options for his repairs.

“Look, I can easily patch you up,” I tell him. “I’ll pull the nail out, plug it up, and fill up the tire. Which is definitely the cheaper and quicker option. But your tires aren’t in the greatest shape, Bern. When was the last time you replaced them?”

He rubs his bushy salt-and-pepper beard. “Five years ago? Maybe six?”

I kneel next to the left front tire and give it another quick examination. “The tread on all four tires is starting to wear. You’re not down to one sixteenth of an inch yet, but it’s getting damn close. A few more months and they might not be safe to drive on anymore.”

“Aw, kid, I don’t have the money to replace them right now. Besides, the crew’s working a big job over in Brockton.” He gives the hood a hearty thump. “I need this baby with me every day this week. Just do the patch for now.”

“You sure? Because you’ll have to come back again when the tread is gone. I recommend doing it now.”

He dismisses the suggestion by waving one meaty hand. “We’ll do it next time.”

I nod without argument. First rule of service? The customer’s always right. Besides, it’s not like his tires are going to explode in the next few hours. It’ll still be a long while before the tread is completely worn.

“All right. I’ll do it now. It should only take about ten minutes, but I’ve gotta finish the alignment on this Jetta first. So more like thirty. You wanna wait in the office?”

“Naw, I’ll walk around and smoke. I have some phone calls to make.” He glares at me. “And for the love of God, we need you on the ice Thursday nights, kid. Think about it, okay?”

I nod again, but we both know what my answer will be. Every year, the Munsen Miners extend an invitation, and every year I turn them down. Honestly, it’s too depressing to even consider. It’s just a reminder that next year I’ll be going from a Division I team to the Munsen Miners. Yup, I’ll be the star player of an amateur league, on a team that’s named after an activity this town isn’t even known for. There are no mines in Munsen and never have been.

Less than a minute after Bernie wanders outside, my father emerges from the office and limps over to me. His hands are blessedly devoid of any alcoholic containers. At least he has better sense than to drink in front of our customers.

“The fuck was that?” he demands.

So much for shielding the customers—he’s slurring like crazy and swaying on his cane, and suddenly I’m glad he’s been holed up in the office all day, out of sight.

I stifle a sigh. “What are you talking about?”

“Where was the upsell?” His cheeks are flushed in outrage, and even though I’ve been back home for more than a month, I’m still startled by how gaunt he looks. It’s as if all the skin from his face, arms and torso decided to move to his gut, forming an incredibly unflattering beer belly that protrudes beneath his threadbare T-shirt. Other than the paunch, he’s skinny as a rail, and it makes me sad to see him this way.

I’ve seen pictures of him when he was younger, and I can’t deny he used to be handsome. And I have memories of him when he was sober. When he was quick to smile, always armed with a joke or a laugh. I miss that man. Christ, I really fucking miss him sometimes.

“A thirty-buck patch job instead of four new tires?” he fumes. “Whatha hell is wrong with you?”

I struggle to control my temper. “I recommended new tires. He didn’t want them.”

“You don’t recommend. You push it on them. You shove it down their fuckin’ throats.”

I sneak a worried peek in Bernie’s direction, but fortunately he’s all the way at the front of the driveway, sucking on a cigarette as he talks into his phone. Jesus. What if he’d been in earshot? Would my father have been able to restrain himself from saying this kind of shit in front of a loyal customer? I honestly don’t know.

It’s only one-thirty in the afternoon and he’s staggering on his feet as if he’s consumed the entire stock of a liquor store. “Why don’t you go back to the house?” I say softly. “You’re stumbling a little. Do your legs hurt?”

“I’m not hurt. I’m pissed!”

He says it like “pithed.” Awesome. He’s so drunk he’s lisping now.

“Whatcha even doing here if you’re gonna throw money away like it grows on trees? You tell ’em the tires are unsafe. You don’t stand around and talk about your fuckin’ hockey team!”

“We weren’t talking about hockey, Dad.”

“Bullshit. I heard ya.” The man who used to come to all my ninth-grade hockey games and sit behind the home bench cheering his lungs out…he now smirks at me. “Think you’re a big hockey star, doncha, Johnny? But naah, you ain’t. If you’re so good, why didn’t anyone draft you?”

My chest tightens.

“Dad…” The quiet warning comes from Jeff, who wipes his grease-covered hands with a rag and marches up to us.

“Stay outta this, Jeffy! I’m talking to your big brother.” Dad blinks. “L’il brother, I mean. He’s the younger one, right?”

Jeff and I exchange a look. Shit. He’s really out of it.

Usually one of us monitors him throughout the day, but we’ve been swamped since the second we opened up shop this morning. I hadn’t been too worried because Dad was in the office, but now I curse myself for forgetting an important rule in the alcoholic handbook: always have booze on hand.

He must keep a stash hidden in the office. Same way he hid his alcohol when he and Mom were still together. One time when I was twelve, the toilet was running so I went upstairs to fix it, and when I lifted the lid, I found a mickey of vodka floating around in the tank.

Just another day in the Logan household.

“You look tired,” Jeff says, firmly grasping our father’s arm. “Why don’t you go back to the house and take a nap?”

He blinks again, confusion eclipsing the anger. For a moment, he looks like a lost little boy, and suddenly I feel like bawling. It’s times like these when I want to grab his shoulders and shake him, beg him to make me understand why he drinks. My mom says it’s genetic, and I know Dad’s side of the family has a history of depression as well as alcoholism. And fuck, maybe that’s it. Maybe those really are the reasons he can’t stop drinking. But a part of me still can’t fully accept that. He had a good childhood, damn it. He had a wife who loved him, two sons who did whatever they could to please him. Why couldn’t that be enough for him?

I know he’s an addict. I know he’s sick. It’s just so hard to put myself in that mind frame, in that place where a bottle of booze is the most important thing in your life, so much so that you’re willing to throw away everything else for it.

“I guess I’m a l’il tired,” Dad mumbles, his blue eyes still cloudy with confusion. “I’ll, ah…go to sleep now.”

My brother and I watch as he hobbles off, and then Jeff turns to me with a sad look. “Don’t listen to him. You are good.”

“Yeah, sure.” I clench my jaw and stalk back to the lift, where the sporty Jetta I’ve been working on awaits me. “I need to finish up.”

“John, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about—”

“Forget it,” I mutter. “I already have.”

I close up later than usual. Much later than usual, because when eight o’clock rolled around, I couldn’t stomach the thought of going to the house for dinner. Jeff popped in around nine to bring me some leftover meatloaf, and quietly informed me that Dad had “sobered up a bit.” Which is laughable, because even if he quit cold turkey this very second, there’s so much alcohol flowing through his veins that it would take days for it to exit his system.

Now it’s ten-fifteen, and I’m hoping Dad will be asleep when I walk through that door. No, I’m praying. I don’t have the energy to deal with him right now.

I leave the shop through the side door, stopping to drop the keys of the Jetta into the little mailbox nailed to the wall. Its owner, a cute brunette who teaches at Munsen Elementary, is supposed to pick up the car tonight, and I already parked it outside for her in the designated area.

I double-check the padlock on the garage door, then turn toward the path to the house just as headlights slice through the trees and a taxi speeds up the driveway. An older man sits behind the wheel, eyeing me warily as the back door of the cab opens and Tori Howard hops out, her high-heeled boots raising a cloud of dust when they meet the dirt.

She waves when she spots me, then gestures to the driver that it’s okay to go. A second later, she sways her curvy hips my way.

Tori is in her mid-twenties and absolutely gorgeous. She moved to Munsen a couple of years ago and brings her car to be serviced a few times a year, and believe me, that car is not the only thing she wants serviced. She hits on me every time I see her, but I haven’t taken her up on her very blatant offers because Jeff is usually around when she shows up and I don’t want him to think I’m sleeping with the customers.

But tonight it’s just the two of us, with no Jeff in sight.

A smile lifts the corners of her mouth as she approaches me. “Hey.”

“Hey.” I nod at the retreating taillights of the cab. “You should’ve told me you didn’t have a ride. Jeff or I could’ve picked you up.”

“Oh, really? I had no idea this was a full service joint,” she teases.

I shrug. “We aim to please.”

Her smile widens, and I realize how sleazy that light-hearted comment had sounded. I hadn’t been trying to flirt, but her eyes are gleaming seductively now.

I suddenly notice they’re almost the same shade of brown as Grace’s eyes. Except Grace never looked at me like she wanted to gobble me up and ask for seconds. There’d been something earnest about her gaze. There was heat, sure, but it wasn’t as calculated and overt as the way Tori is gazing at me right now.

And shit, I really need to quit thinking about Grace. I can’t even count how many times I’ve called her this summer, but her continued silence tells me everything I need to know. She doesn’t want to hear my apologies. She doesn’t want to see me again.

Yet I can’t fight the hope that maybe she’ll change her mind.

“You know, you get better looking every time I see you,” Tori drawls.

I doubt it. If anything, I just get more tired. And I’m pretty sure there’s a streak of oil on my cheek at the moment, but Tori doesn’t seem to mind.

She pouts. “What, you’re not going to return the compliment?”

I can’t help but grin. “Tori, you’re gorgeous and you know it. You don’t need me to tell you that.”

“No, but sometimes it’s nice to hear it.”

I’m not sure how I feel about the direction this conversation is going, so I change the subject. “You got my message, right? I explained everything we did to the car, but I can run through it with you again, if you want.”

“No need. It sounds like you were very thorough.” She slants her head. “So. Do you have big plans tonight?”

“Nope. Gonna take a shower and crash. It’s been a long day, and it’ll be an even longer one tomorrow.”

“A shower, huh? You know,” she says casually, “I just got a second showerhead installed in my shower.”—and there’s nothing casual about the end of that sentence—“I always see it in the movies, these incredible-looking showers with a million showerheads, and I was like, why can’t I have that? And then I realized, I absolutely can.” She grins. “So I called a plumber and he came by last week and installed it. I can’t even describe how amazing it is. Water spraying you front and back? It’s glorious.”

Annnnnd my dick is semi-hard now.

I’m not about to get all self-judgy, though, because one, I haven’t had sex in almost three months, and two, when a beautiful woman is talking about her shower, there’s something wrong with you if your brain doesn’t conjure up the image of her in that shower. Naked. With water spraying her—front and back.

“You should come over and check it out sometime,” she says, and her wink is about as subtle as a slap on the ass.

Hesitation rises in my chest. Any other time, I’d invite myself into her shower in a heartbeat. But I’m still holding on to hope that Grace might…might what? Text me? Accept my apology? Even if she does, that doesn’t mean she’ll want to go out with me. Hell, why would she? She wanted to fuck me and I rejected her.

As my silence drags, Tori lets out a sigh. “I’ve heard the rumors about you, Logan, and I’ve gotta say, I’m disappointed that they’re not true.”

I narrow my eyes. “What rumors?”

“You know, that you’re sex on a stick. Up for anything. Good in bed.” She gives me a sassy grin. “Or maybe all of it is true, and you’re just not into older women. But I’ll have you know, I polled some friends and they all concurred that a six-year age difference does not make me a cougar.”

A laugh pops out. “You’re definitely not a cougar, Tori.”

“Then I guess I’m not your type.”

My gaze wanders over the perky tits beneath her tight shirt and the shapely legs that go on forever. Not my type? Yeah right. She’s exactly the kind of woman I’m normally attracted to.

So what the hell is stopping me? Grace? Because after months of radio silence, maybe it’s time for me to finally take the hint.

“Naah, that’s not true,” I say nonchalantly. “You usually catch me when I’m distracted.”

“Hmmm. Well, are you distracted now?”

“Nope. In fact…” My gaze lingers on her chest again before meeting her eyes. “I could really go for a shower.”