“Holy cow! How big was that fish if it yanked your butt in the lake?” the boy had asked with genuine excitement. As if the Loch Ness monster itself had been responsible for my tumble off the little wooden dock.
“Uh, pretty big, I think,” I’d lied. “Did I lose it?”
Bright green eyes and messy brown hair had framed a face full of freckles. “Must have. Your pole’s gone and everything. You okay?”
You okay?
He’d ended up asking me that a million times over the next ten years.
After I’d broken my arm on a skateboard wipeout. “Shit, man, you okay?”
After I’d gotten back that horrible grade in Señor Miller’s Spanish class. “Fuck, dude, you okay?”
After my first horse died. After my grandmother died. After my grandfather made me shoot a buck. Every single goddamned moment of my childhood from that point on was Otto Wilde by my side making sure I was okay.
After we both lost our virginity to Carrie-Anne Clapper at the same time, but locked eyes on each other instead of the poor girl throughout every single moment of it. After both of us realized that we would have been a thousand times happier had Carrie-Anne not even been there that night.
Seth, you okay? Are we okay?
Fuck no.
I hadn’t been okay in ten goddamned years.
“You just gonna stand there all day or what?”
My head snapped up to see our receptionist-slash-dispatcher sitting at the desk eying me over her bright red reading glasses. They hung from a purple-and-turquoise beaded chain and perched on the end of her nose when she was on the clock and matched her artificially red hair that had been teased up into some kind of beehive hairdo since about 1910.
“Sorry, Luanne. Guess I was zoning out there for a minute,” I admitted, trying to shake off distracting thoughts of Otto Wilde. “What do you have for me this afternoon? Anything?”
“You’re talking to the youth club at three, but that’s about it. Oh, did you hear about Saint and Otto Wilde quitting the navy? They’re back on the ranch with their grandads for the time being, but I heard Saint wanted them to go to Dallas and find jobs. Says there’s a firehouse that’s trying to get Otto to come work for them since that’s what he did in the navy. Not sure what Saint plans to do.”
“I thought he worked on submarines?” I asked without thinking. I’d kept my ears peeled for any molecule of news about Otto over the years, and when I’d learned he was stationed on a sub, I’d panicked. He fucking hated small spaces.
“Yeah, fires are a big deal on those death tubes. But maybe that’s why they train their firefighters so well. Anyway, supposedly the Hobie fire chief is desperate to get him on board when Nathan retires this spring. Don’t know if Otto’d be willing to wait around that long though. I’d sure hate to lose him to a Dallas station. Surely Doc and them want him to stay in Hobie, right?”
“Yeah. I’m sure they do. What about Otto’s parents? Aren’t Bill and Shelby still living overseas?”
“Singapore, I believe. They seem awfully happy to stay there, but I don’t understand how they can stand to be so far away from those kids this long.”
I let her prattle on with gossip about some of the other Wilde kids. Hudson lived in Dallas; West was newly settled with a partner and a baby here in town. Some of Otto’s sisters lived in Dallas too, but I was pretty sure a couple of brothers and his youngest sister were still in Hobie. It was hard to keep track since I’d only been back a few weeks myself.
“Hey, Lu, any idea where Otto’s staying? He at the ranch, you think?” I asked. “Or his parents’ house maybe?”
She put her pencil eraser against her chin while she thought. “Bill and Shelby’s house has been buttoned up for years. In fact, I think at one point they were going to sell off that corner of the Wilde ranch land. Don’t know what ever happened to it, but you might ask your dad about that. I’d imagine Otto’s at the ranch with his grandads. Why you ask?”
I pulled out my phone to check the time. “Oh, no reason. I just might drop by later and say hey.”
She studied me for a minute before her face widened in a grin. “You two were thick as thieves, weren’t you? I’d forgotten all about that. Wasn’t it you two who got caught skinny-dipping in the lake on Easter morning one time?”
I felt my face heat. “Yes, ma’am. But please don’t remind me.”
Luanne’s laughter was hearty and familiar. “Sheriff Walker, even the baby Jesus was laughing that morning. Nothing like seeing two preteen hineys hotfooting it across the docks in the early morning sunrise to make you grateful the Good Lord died for our sins.”