Page 38 of Justice for Daesha

It was the perfect day. They made sandwiches and walked to the back of the property where, to his delight, he found she had a little clearing and a picnic table outside the fence. There was another little pond back there, and the ducks seemed to spend most of their time there, according to her, coming to the house only when they were interested in having some grain thrown out for them. They ate, laughed, and talked for most of the afternoon.

As they walked hand in hand back to the house, Amos couldn’t help rolling his eyes at hearing his phone ring. The ring tone was MarvinGaye’s “What’s Happening, Brother?” That could only mean one person. “What?”

“Whoa! What the hell? What kind of greeting is that?” Jack’s voice bellowed from the speaker along with a laugh.

“Whaddya want?”

“Uh, to talk to you, obviously, or I wouldn’t have called, now would I?”

Amos rolled his eyes again and let out a sigh. “Jack, there’s got to be a reason why you called me.”

“Yeah. I wondered if you and Daesha would like to come over tonight. Aleta thought that would be nice, and so did I.”

“Can’t.”

“Wow. Thanks for giving it some thought.”

“No, no,” Amos said and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “It’s not like that. She sings in a band, and?”

“She sings in a band? How cool is that? I had no idea. Aleta talked to her about the wedding songs. I don’t really know her.”

“Yeah, well, she does, and they’re playing tonight, so we have to be there.”

There was silence, or at least Amos thought it was, but then he could hear whispering. “I just asked Aleta. Could we go?”

“I don’t see why not. It’s a bar downtown, so you’d be welcome to come.”

“We really want to. And we can eat there,” Jack said decisively.

“They don’t have food.”

“Oh. Well, can we meet beforehand and eat?”

“She doesn’t eat a big meal before she gets on stage. She gets hot, and she has to move around a lot, and it could make her sick.” By the time he finished, Daesha was watching him and smiling.

“What if we met somewhere like that place that does burgers and mussels? It’s downtown. She could get a little salad or soup or something, and we’d get done and get out in plenty of time for her to get to the bar.”

Amos asked and Daesha nodded, still grinning. “She says yes.”

“What time?”

“Um, she has to be there by seven fifteen, so that’s six fifteen, so five forty-five? To make sure we have plenty of time?”

“Yes! Okay. We’ll see you at the burger place at five forty-five and we can all go to the bar together. I’m stoked! This’ll be a lot of fun! Can’t wait! Okay. Trying to tone it down now. Deep breath, Jack. I’m good. See you tonight, brother.” Before Amos could say anything else, Jack hung up.

“Well, he about pissed his pants,” Amos said, slipping the phone back into his hip pocket.

“I take it they’re coming and we’re meeting them for food before?”

“Yeah. Is that okay?”

“Spending time with your brother and his wife? Ofcoursethat’s okay. I want to.” She took his hand again, then lifted it and kissed his knuckles. “Now, the parents? Yeah. That’s another story altogether.”

* * *

Amos breathed a sigh of relief.Jack had been on his best behavior at the restaurant, so he hoped that lasted throughout the night at the bar. He had to wonder if being with Aleta was making his younger brother a little more “human”. There were times he was sure Jack had been raised by wolves.

While Daesha and the guys got set up, the three Fletchers walked down the street and back, past the baseball bat factory and museum and the art and history museum. By the time they got back, all the band members were on stage, and they were tuning guitars and laying out their playlist. Daesha had warned him that it would be different. They’d prepared all eighties and nineties tunes, which was what they’d originally planned to play the night before, but the first song had gone so well that they decided to go with the other rock songs and forget about the pop stuff. She’d said they’d be doing RickJames, Prince, and MichaelJackson songs, plus Madonna, CyndiLauper, and a lot of others he remembered well. She also promised him they’d throw in some DefLeppard and Poison too just to test the waters.

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