Page 7 of By The Book
“You’re here. Might as well stay.”
Oh, that was a welcome, wasn’t it? “I told you we were coming to visit, Dad.”
“And then you cancelled.”
“Something came up but I said we’d come soon.”
“I saw on the news where your company fired people. You one of them?”
She inhaled and ran a hand through her shoulder-length hair, wishing the world wasn’t as connected as it was nowadays. “Yeah, I am. They sold out and made cutbacks. I got a small severance.”
Her father pursed his lips and made a grumbling noise.
“Been a year since Scott’s death, too.”
Did her father have to be so in tune witheverything?
“Military housing money dried up, didn’t it? That’s some bad timing,” he continued, even though she hadn’t answered.
“I’m just here to regroup while I get my resume in order and put in some applications.” She’d wanted to talk to her dad about selling her house but now wasn’t the time. Especially not when he was in one of his anti-Scott moods. “Tommy and I both needed a break, and we hadn’t been back to visit for a-a while, so I thought we’d come to the beach…and visit.”
Her father watched her as she smoothed the bedsheet before moving to the opposite side.
“Boy’s grown a full foot since last I saw him.”
Glad for the change in topic, she nodded. “Tommy’s a bottomless pit, too. I actually caught him eating sardines straight from the tin one day because I hadn’t gone to the grocery store.”
“That’s disgusting.”
She laughed, knowing full well her father’s take on them. “I couldn’t agree more.” There, something they agreed on. Sardines were Scott’s thing, though, and he’d loved them on pizza, as did Tommy. To her it was the most unappetizing thing ever, but to each his own.
“How’d he do in school this year? Still making good grades?” her father asked.
Finished with that side, she grabbed the flat sheet and began again. “Um, not entirely. He struggled this year, which isn’t surprising given the circumstances. Tommy couldn’t seem to find his groove. But he managed to move on with his class.”Barely.
“It was that bad?”
If she wanted her father’s help with Tommy during their stay, she knew she had to be honest with him. Too bad it couldn’t have waited until after her beach walk and a little decompression time. “Yeah, it was.” She ducked her head and made a show of palming the sheet perfectly smooth and tucking it quarter-bouncing tight.
“Maybe I can talk to the boy while you’re here. See if I can talk some sense into him.”
Talk some sense into him? She swallowed hard and nodded, hoping that was her father’s way of being sympathetic rather than controlling. “He needs a good male role model,” she said. “I think he misses that, you know? It’s tough for a kid his age to only have his mom.”
Awkward silence filled the room, and her father shuffled his feet in that way he always did when he was uncomfortable or his mind was on other things.
“Dad, I took it for granted that the apartment would be free and I shouldn’t have. Thanks. For letting us stay with you.”
“You think I’d kick you out? My own daughter and grandson?”
Hearing the rising tone in his voice, she hurried to deflate the tension. “No, of course not. I just meant… We’ve stayed in the apartment ever since Scott and I got married. Not in the house. I…don’t want to intrude.”
“This is your room. Always has been. You’re the one who left it. By choice, I might add.”
A trembling began deep inside of her when faced with the anger her father had toward her decision to marry so young. One would think, sometime over the years since, tensions would have eased, but they hadn’t. “You and Denz seem to have formed a fast friendship over that shark.”
“I suppose. Your mama always said men were strange that way, bonded over unusual things like war and fights and fishing,” he said.
“Dad, I don’t want to sound paranoid, but what do you know about him? I mean, that’s obviously a bullet wound in his shoulder, so yeah, he’s been shot, but are yousurethat story about being a bodyguard is legit?”
