Page 24 of Mr. Frosty Pants
“Screw you.”
She crowed, laughing even harder.
Joel waited patiently in silence, trying to figure out if she was right. Did he have a chance of getting laid? With Casey Stevens of all people? Maybe thiswasa dream after all and he’d wake up any minute now.
After Becca stopped laughing, she asked, more seriously, “Honestly, though, didn’t he turn out handsome?”
“God, yes.” He knew she kept up with Casey on social media. She must have seen all the pictures with Theo and knew exactly how gorgeous Casey was. She just wanted to hear him say it.
“Is he still into art?”
“He’s still…” He couldn’t find the words.
“Oooh, he’s still your shiny, isn’t he?”
Joel grunted. “Whatever that means.”
Becca teased, “One day you’ll be a grown-up boy and learn to express your emotions without insults or deflection.”
“And on that day, we’ll also achieve world peace.”
She laughed again. “Can’t wait. Hey, as much as I’d like to continue talking with you, the clock is ticking. I have to get back to work and, well, Daddy Asshole awaits.”
Joel glanced toward the miserable-looking building ahead of him and sighed. “You’re a bitch. But I love you.”
“Love you too, Joely.” She disconnected her end of the line.
Joel smiled at the little nickname she’d blessed him with. She’d started calling him that after she’d returned home from Nashville once the dream of a record deal fell through. She was a fantastic drummer, and RJ was a great guitarist, but their songs together had only been so-so.
RJ had chosen to stay behind and start up a career as a touring and studio guitarist, but Becca had had enough of people trying to change her for the sake of a brand. She’d hightailed it home to start cosmetology school. Though she still drummed with some local groups for fun and extra cash, she’d otherwise let music fall by the wayside.
Joel was grateful to have her in his life. She made everything brighter just by being herself.
The nursing home smelled like horror, cleanser, and a spritz of death. It always gave him the creepy-crawlies whenever he came to visit. Merry Hills Towers wasn’t the best nursing home in town, not even close. Joel wished he could afford better for his father, but at this point, his father was a Medicaid patient.
They’d had to sell off everything, and Joel had been forced to buy Vreeland’s with his savings to get his pop’s net worth down low enough to finally get the government support they needed. Hell, even bringing him an Egg McMuffin every day was potentially suspect to auditors, but the nurses turned a blind eye to small violations like that.
“You’re late,” Katie, his pop’s morning nurse, whispered. Her brunette hair was pinned up tight, and her bright-red, Taylor Swift-esque lipstick shone like a beacon under the fluorescent lights. “He’s pissed.”
“I figured.” Joel rolled his eyes as rushed past with the cold breakfast.
She winked at him and smiled encouragingly. He smiled back. The nurses always treated him with extreme sympathy, not because his father was on the verge of death like so many in this place, but because, Joel assumed, they felt bad for him growing up with such an asshole as his only parent.
In that way, the stroke had been a relief. For the first time ever, everyone finally saw the real Charlie Vreeland. The one Joel had grown up with. The one who raged. The one who punched him hard enough to see stars when, at twelve, he’d said something about Casey being a cute kid.
Before the stroke, everyone knew Charlie as the sweet old man who ran Vreeland’s Home and Garden. Funny, charming to the old ladies, and good with children too. The stroke had robbed Joel’s pop of the ability to put on that show. For that, and that alone, Joel was grateful to the stroke. Relieved. Validated. Because, yeah, Charlie Vreeland was an asshole.
Joel was very late, and Pop’s room was empty. That meant they’d already taken him down for his physical therapy and he wouldn’t be back up for—Joel looked at the clock—twenty minutes.
Pop’s room on the fifth floor had a view of cars zooming past on Papermill Drive. The tan walls were sparsely decorated with photos Joel had torn from an old album and hung around the room with putty stuck to the back.
There were pictures from his pop’s time in ’Nam and a wedding photo of both of his parents. His mom, Jennifer, looked so young and happy. Her curly black hair had been tamed to straightness for the day, and her dark-brown eyes glinted with joy. She wore a strapless white gown with beading down the front and a veil that made her look like a princess. Joel wished he remembered more about her. He only had a few precious memories, and sometimes he worried he’d made those up.
And his father? Well, he looked like an old man marrying his daughter. Fifty-eight to his mother’s twenty-six, he was already balding, but he had a handsome grin and a possessive arm around Jennifer’s shoulders. His knuckles were white with the force of his grip, and Joel sometimes wondered if he’d ever hit her too.
He hoped the violence was just for him. Somehow it made Joel feel better to think his mother never knew how mean Pop could be.
In the end, he supposed it didn’t matter. His mom was long dead, and soon enough his pop would be as well. Inexplicably, given how much of an asshole Charlie was, Joel still kind of hoped Jennifer would be waiting for him on the other side. Becca had asked him not long ago if he even loved his pop, and Joel guessedthatwas love, holding that hope for him. It was the only kind of love Joel gave the man who raised him. Unless you counted the Egg McMuffin. And he did.
