Married to My Ex's Uncle novel · Chapter 28 of 32
Chapter 28: Home
Nils let go of her and walked across the lot.
Lukas took his hands out of his pockets.
"It isn't the second Sunday," Nils said.
"I'm off schedule," Lukas said. "It feels very wrong."
Nils hugged him.
He did it hard, with both arms, and thumped him on the back twice.
Lukas closed his eyes over Nils's shoulder.
"Thank you, Father," Nils said.
"Luke."
"Luke," Nils said, and let him go, and wiped his face with his sleeve.
They drove north with Nils in the middle of the bench seat and his window rolled all the way down.
He kept his hand out in the wind the whole way.
At a drive-in on Highway 57 he ordered a double cheeseburger and a chocolate shake.
He took one bite and had to stop.
He sat with the burger in his lap and looked out the windshield at a field of cows.
"Give me a minute," he said. "It's too good."
Greta gave him a minute.
Lukas looked out his own window and gave him two.
The yard was waiting.
The old mechanic was at the gate in his good tie again, and he hugged Nils so long the apprentice started counting out loud.
The apprentice shook Nils's hand.
"I've heard about you," he said.
"I've heard about you too," Nils said. "You steam-bent my frames."
The kid went red to the ears.
In the office, the whiteboard said WELCOME HOME NILS in red marker.
Under it, if you looked, was the ghost of $180,000.
A cherry pie from the couple in Ellison Bay sat on the desk with a fork already stuck in it.
Nils walked through both bays slowly, touching things.
The lift.
The old drill press.
Their father's sign over the door, faded, LINDAHL BOAT WORKS in his own lettering.
"You kept it alive," he said.
"Mostly," Greta said. "Some of it was customers. And a cherry pie."
In the afternoon they drove up to the boathouse.
The skiff sat right side up on the sawhorses now.
It was fully planked, faired, and primed white.
Nils stopped in the doorway.
He walked up to it.
He ran his hand along the laps, one by one, from bow to stern.
Then he crouched by the transom and looked at the knee.
"You turned it around," he said.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–16 of Married to My Ex's Uncle are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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