Page 114 of Whiskey Chase
My parents were standing on my doorstep. I wasn’t mentally prepared for this. From now on, I was never answering my door again. Bad things always happened.
“Hello, son,” my father said gruffly.
“Well. Aren’t you going to invite us in?” my mother demanded, and she stepped past me into the house. “I swear a few weeks in this place, and he’s forgotten his manners. A beard, answering the door half naked. I don’t know what they put in the water here.” Her litany of complaints faded when she rounded the corner into the kitchen.
“You look good,” my dad said, pulling me in for a one-armed hug and clapping me on the back. I realized the last time he’d seen me was the day after I’d decked Hayden Ralston on the legislative floor. I’d been drunk and hollow. And Thomas McCallister had sent me packing. I’d been a liability, something to sweep under the rug.
“Is she here?” my mother shouted from the kitchen. “Your little friend?”
“You mean, Scarlett?” I called back dryly.
“Scar—aaaaah!” My mother’s shrill shout of panic had my father and me jogging down the hallway to see what threat she was facing down.
Jonah—poor, disheveled, sleep-deprived Jonah—was staring stupefied at the blonde woman who was flapping her arms like a bird. “Who are you?” she demanded.
“Mom, this is Jonah,” I said, rubbing my eyes. “Jonah, these are my parents, Thomas and Geneva McCallister.”
“Nice to meet you,” Jonah said with a yawn. He was wearing only pajama bottoms.
My mother’s wild eyes flashed back and forth between the two of us. “Are you two...” she glanced around the kitchen as if she were about to impart a secret. “Seeingeach other?” she asked.
I looked at Jonah’s bare chest. He cracked a crooked smile.
“What is with this house and turning people gay?” my dad wondered. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that,” he added quickly. The McCallisters were liberal to the bone but always had one eye on what constituents would think.
“I think we can spin this in the appropriate way, and it might even be a bonus come election time,” my mother mused still staring at Jonah’s chest.
“Jonah is Scarlett’s brother. He’s staying here.”
My parents looked vaguely disappointed.
“I’m going to go back to bed,” Jonah announced and disappeared in the direction of the stairs.
He left, and I was again alone with my parents. I started up the coffeemaker. Caffeine was required for most conversations with them. “What are you two doing here so early?” I asked.
“We wanted to give you the good news in person,” my mother chirped.
“What’s that?”
“Hayden Ralston was arrested last night for soliciting a prostitute. Anunderageprostitute.” She was breathless with glee and clapped her hands together.
“While we don’t want to celebrate the misfortune of another, we are happy that the attention has shifted from you and your situation,” my father interjected diplomatically.
My mother grabbed my hands. “You realize what this means, don’t you? You can come back. There’s no reason for you to stay here another minute.”
Everything in my brain came to a screeching halt.
“I don’t know about you two, but I certainly wouldn’t mind some breakfast,” my father said, patting his flat stomach.
I rubbed a hand over my beard. “Let me get dressed, and we’ll go to Moonshine.”
My mother’s nose wrinkled. “Honestly, I don’t know what my mother sees in this place.”
The problem was, I did.
* * *
Clarabell fussedover my parents at the diner and talked them into a couple of specials. She didn’t even laugh when my mother tried to order a cappuccino. While Mom chatted about a day sail they’d taken on the bay, I tried to listen to the conversations around us. As far as I could tell, no one was talking about the Bodines or Callie.
