Dear Old Dad

LAYTON

Familiar nausea spread from the pit of my stomach. It couldn’t be. Before I signed off on any of my designs, I double checked every inch of the building.

Fuck, not even double checked. I triple checked. And then I checked one last time just in case. The city trusted me to add something permanent to its face. It was a responsibility I took seriously. “You’re kidding. They were perfect.”

Craig shook his head glumly. “They’re angled just shy of ninety degrees. Go check them.”

I did just that. Hurrying to the corner to my left, the one closest to me, I wished I had some of my own tools with me to check, but I was going to have to trust my own two eyes for now. If I needed to, I could always come back later with the proper equipment.

Dropping down into a crouch, I squinted at the corner just as I heard bellowing laughter from Craig. “I’m fucking with you, man. Shit, you should have seen the look on your face. It was epic.”

“Epic was that prank we pulled on Dave when we told him about the water main on the office park project last year. This was lame.”

Craig’s eyes crinkled with the memory of the water main prank. “That was a good one, but honestly man, I just had to do something to loosen you up.”

“And you thought telling me I fucked up the design was it?” I raised an eyebrow. “Clearly, you don’t know me as well as you think you do.”

Shrugging his shoulders, he had the good sense to look genuinely sorry. “I was in a pinch. I had to think fast. It’s not like I had a lot of time to come up with that one. Seriously bro, how are you doing?”

“With the prank?” I rolled my eyes. “I’ll be fine. My design was perfect. No harm, no foul.”

Craig shot me a look. “That’s not what I was talking about and you know it.”

I inhaled deeply, the crisp air burning my lungs before I sighed. “I’m okay, it’s just been a rough couple of weeks.”

“You lost your dad, Layton. That’s more than just a rough couple of weeks.” He was right, it had been much worse than rough. It still was. “First Christmas and New Year’s without him. First couple of days of a year he’ll never see. That sucks, dude. You can be honest with me.”

“It does suck.” I agreed, but I didn’t give him more. I didn’t really want to talk about it. “My dad passed, no one can deny it sucks balls, but I’ll live. There’s nothing else to say about it.”

My father was Jeffrey Bridges. The Jeff Bridges, the guy who started Brilliant Aviation and became a multi-billionaire for his trouble. An aeronautical engineer, he designed planes for some of the biggest names in the industry, and even for the military at times.

He was a well-respected man, as evidenced by the fact that his funeral a couple of weeks ago had been attended by several hundred people. A few people had approached me in the week before, asking if they might say a few words at the service.

As his only living relative, organizing the massive event had been up to me. I figured that he would have liked being remembered by his friends and colleagues, so I said yes to those who requested the chance to talk.

The man they talked about was fierce, passionate, intelligent, and had been responsible for several of the biggest breakthroughs aviation had seen in a long time. What few people knew was that while the man might have been a hell of an engineer, he hadn’t been much of a father.

I was an only child and my mom passed when I was young. Dad believed in a ‘less is more’ approach as his personal parenting style and hired a slew of nannies to raise me. He spent more than half of his time down in Texas, not that I had ever been there with him.

While he was gone, I finished school, went on to college and became an architect. I did well enough for myself that I never had to ask him for anything. Not that he cared, or even noticed.

It didn’t seem to matter what I did, he was never proud of me. I stopped trying to earn his pride and respect at a young age, opting instead to just keep my head down and work hard.

Many people couldn’t understand why I did, since I had a trust fund large enough to sustain several small countries for a couple of years at least. I also stood to inherit a fortune now that Dad was gone, but I’d never wanted his money.

As if Craig could read my thoughts, he piped up, “Fine, you don‘t have to talk about it, but if you ever need someone to help you spend your inheritance, I’m available.”

Craig was one of the few people in my life who honestly didn’t care about who my dad was or how much I would be worth now that he was gone. Even now, humor cracked in his voice when he spoke.

I told him, “Yeah, yeah. I’ll remember that. Speaking of which, I’ve been summoned to see my dad’s lawyer tomorrow.”

“That’s going to be fun.” Craig commiserated. “Okay, well if you don’t want to talk, want me to buy you a cup of coffee before we do a walk around on the site?”

“Yeah, that sounds good,” I told him, appreciating that he wasn’t pushing me to talk about Dad any longer. We walked to a coffee shop down the block from the site and each ordered a mega cup.

Craig pulled out his wallet and slapped a couple of bills down on the counter. “I guess this will be the last time I have to pay for coffee.”

He winked, chuckling as he spoke. I lifted my middle finger and showed it to him, jokingly replying. “Don’t worry, big guy. I‘ll still let you pay for coffee after tomorrow.”