Barefoot in the Sun by Roxanne St. Claire Page A

son. “Which means—”
    “I know what that means.” Evan slipped under Oliver’s arm.
    “From your Latin class?”
    “Nah. Video games. So, she’s gone for good? Because she was about to teach me a card game.” He let out a sigh and mumbled, “Damn it.”
    “ Evan. ”
    “You just said it.”
    “I’m thirty-nine years old. And don’t tell me; she wanted you to play Egyptian Rat Screws?”
    His whole face lit. “Yeah! How’d you know?”
    Because he knew her. They’d turned her favorite fast-and-furious card game into Strip Egyptian Rat Screws with a bottle of tequila and a bag of limes one night.
    “It must be fun,” Evan said.
    That night was. “How do you know?”
    “ ’Cause you’re smiling, Dad. And that hardly ever happens.”
    He led Evan into his office. “All right, Evan. I’m in the middle of my workday.”
    “You’re always in the middle of your workday.”
    “Save the guilt trips for your mother.” Who chose to unload Evan at the office the day before she left for a month in the south of France. “We don’t have a choice today. No sitters, no nanny, no day off for me.”
    “Well, that blonde lady could have hung out with me. ’Cept she said it’s no fun at a cancer ward.”
    “Sounds like something that blonde lady would say.” With that sexy, smart-ass mouth that would now haunt him for the rest of the day.
    “She likes to swear, too.”
    “Nice of her to share that with you.”
    “I thought so.”
    He laughed softly. “Evan, do you want to play computer games or something, because I have to…” Sit here and think about Zoe. And her mouth. “Write up some reports.”
    Evan sighed, his narrow chest sinking. “No, Dad, I don’t want to play computer games. And I don’t want to sit in the break room. And I don’t want to swim by myself at the Shitz-Carlton—”
    “Evan.” Damn, why did he have to have an eight-year-old going on sixteen? He didn’t even want to think about sixteen. If he couldn’t connect to the kid now, God only knew how bad it would be in eight more years.
    “I hate it here.”
    “A fact you have made undeniably clear, son.”
    “Don’t call me son.” He pivoted and headed to the door.
    “Evan!”
    He stopped, and, for a split second, Oliver half feared he was about to get flipped off by a third-grader. But Evan didn’t move; he kept his back to Oliver.
    Oliver dug for the right words and came up with nothing. Why was it easier to talk to a cancer patient than his own preadolescent child?
    “Look,” Oliver said, thrashing around his brain for the right words to show some balance of compassion and discipline. “I know you’re not happy about your mom and me splitting up.”
    Evan still didn’t move, unless Oliver counted the rise and fall of his shoulders.
    “And I know you’d rather be in Chicago where you have friends.”
    “And Grandma.”
    “And your grandmother. But you can’t be there this summer, Evan. I live here and work here, and your mother’s going to Europe tomorrow, so you’ve got to make the best of this today.” And every day for the rest of the summer.
    Slowly, Evan turned. “Can I just sit on the sofa while you work, Dad? I hate the break room.”
    Shit. What could he say to that? A few weeks ago, when Adele had announced she’d be coming to Naples with Evan and then leaving him while she traveled, Oliver had been happy—and scared. Maybe because his own father had been so distant and busy, Oliver wasn’t ever sure how to handle a kid. Adele hadn’t been much of a mom, either, making liberal use of nannies and her own mother, who could probably lay claim to really raising the boy.
    But this was his chance to bond . However the hell that was done. “Sure. Please turn the sound off your game…thing.”
    “I’m not even going to turn it on,” he promised. “I’m reading something.”
    As Oliver came around his desk, he frowned, instantly sensing something was different. Evan’s picture had been