A Father's Love

Chapter 43

Saturday morning, Luke let Shelby watch her cartoons before coming downstairs and pitch in for a bit. Her cartoon block usually ended right around the time the breakfast rush ended, so it would be the perfect time for the kid before the place got busy with the lunch rush.

While Luke was ringing up a customer's order, he heard the door open, bringing in Rachel. She tried to greet him, welcoming him back, but he couldn't help sound distant towards her. Instead, Luke finished with the customer, giving him his change, and told the guy to have a nice day. Even when the customer left, Luke didn't say much to the mother of his child as he made his rounds, topping off refills to those who wanted it.

Finally, she called him out on it, asking why he was giving her the cold shoulder.

Facing Rachel, he told her, "Look, I got work to do." Luke pointed upstairs using the coffee pot, "Shelby is upstairs. Knock yourself out." A family of four walked in at that moment. Thankful for an excuse to walk away, Luke headed over to tend to them, welcoming the family with a cheerful disposition, and offered them a table. Since there were kids, he went and fetched two kids' menus, along with a packet of crayons. Shelby had talked her dad into the coloring menus after suggesting a year ago.

Guessing Rachel must have gone upstairs, Luke took the family's drink order, giving them a few moments to decide what to order while he went to grab them, their drinks. Once they ordered and Luke gave the order to Caesar to prepare, that was when Rachel returned, looking heartbroken. She informed him Shelby was upset with her.

"Well, I will call you when Shelby is ready to speak to you again," he told her calmly.

A sigh escaped before Rachel started to leave. She stopped to at least order a coffee to go. While pouring her some coffee, Rachel tried to make small talk.

"So, are you going to Sookie and Jackson's wedding in a couple weeks?"

"Can't. You?" he asked, grabbing a lid from underneath the counter.

"Uh, yeah. Yeah," she nodded, looking around at the floor. Rachel looked up to add, "Sookie hired me to do the photography. My first wedding since opening my studio."

"Good." Once making sure the lid was on, Luke passed the paper cup to her. "Have a nice day," he told her as if Rachel was just another customer.

"Thanks. You too." Without another word, Rachel left. So Shelby was upset with her mom. He thought she might be.

Shelby went back to school on Monday, but her heart still wasn't into it. Ethan and Alan assured Luke they were trying to help her feel better while Toby questioned why she was sad all the time and didn't see it as a big deal and wanted to just play. When neither of the kids would play, Toby ended up walking away, thus ending the friendship.

"Well, then Toby wasn't a good friend in the first place if he just walked away," Luke pointed out to her on the way home. "This shows Ethan and Alan really are your friends if they're willing to be by your side even when you don't feel like playing."

She nodded at nothing as she muttered, "Yeah."

The boys even came over the following Saturday and helped Shelby put together an entire city with everything she had. With the added space, the kids had more room to work with. They built houses and buildings out of Legos and used the wooden train tracks as streets, keeping them busy all afternoon.

Luke eventually came up, checking to see how they were doing. "You doing alright up here?"

"Yeah," all three kids replied, barely glancing up from their work.