CHAPTER 7
Billy
When I did finally pull up to the house and turn off my truck I noticed that my long-cut had not worked. Jimmy still wasn’t there. I sat in the cab for a moment, just looking at the house.
“Hank’s house,” I said to myself.
That still felt strange rolling off my tongue. This was the house I’d grown up in with Hank and Jimmy. When Hank had told us to come over to “the house,” there had been no need to specify which house. This was it. The house.
And it was Hank’s now. Which, don’t get me wrong, I had no resentment about. I’d left the day of my eighteenth birthday, not able to stand one more second under the same roof with our alcoholic, verbally—and sometimes physically—abusive father. Hank had moved back home within a week of my departure to look after not only Pop but also Jimmy, who was only twelve at the time.
He’d earned this house, there was no doubt about that. It was just strange, that was all, to know that when I walked through that familiar front door, it would be Hank that greeted me, and not my bourbon-soaked old man, sitting in his chair and cursing at the television.
A heavy weight constricted my chest and it was like a dark cloud settled around me.
It had been three days since I got the call that I’d known was coming for years. The one where Hank said the words that I’d known one day I’d inevitably hear. “Pop is gone.”
He’d gone into Pop’s room and hadn’t been able to wake him up. The cause of death hadn’t officially been determined, but we all knew the truth. Pop had drank himself to death. He’d been told for years by the doc that if he didn’t put the bottle down his body was going to give out on him, and it finally had. He used to joke that he’d be well-preserved because of the amount of alcohol in his system. I tried to tell him it didn’t work like that and he needed to take what the doctors said seriously. But since he was always halfway to shitfaced if not already there, he was never in any condition to listen to reason.
Besides, this was what he’d wanted. Since the day Mama died he’d had one foot in the grave. He hadn’t lived these past twenty years. Hell, he’d barely survived.
Damn. If I didn’t stop thinking about this shit, I was going to start acting like Hank, and he was one melancholy bastard. I needed to snap the fuck out of it and get out of the truck.
Nodding my head decisively, I took my own advice and opened the door, planting my feet firmly in the dirt, then marching up to the porch.
The old homestead was a nice place. I’d give my father that much. He’d bought it when my mother was still alive and somehow managed to hang onto it through all these years. It was secluded, surrounded by expanses of tree-heavy land on three sides, with the fourth backing up to a small cove.
It wasn’t “oceanfront” by any stretch. The cove was pretty far inland on the delta system that stretched from the coastline, about a half a mile east. But, still. It gave a real pretty view, and it had been a fun place to splash around when I was a kid.
Without any warning, I saw a scene, clear as day, of me showing Reagan the cove. I’m holding her hand as she steps up and over the rocks. She giggles as she almost slips, I catch her but then end up falling down myself.
I pictured holding her in my arms as we watched the fireflies light up the night sky. I saw myself brushing a strand of hair off her face, illuminated by moonlight, and softly pressing my lips to hers before whispering how beautiful she was.
Shit.
There really was something wrong with me. I’d had plenty of fantasies about women I’d just met, but they were all firmly in the porno category, this was a fucking rom-com.
Stumbling over rocks. Kissing under moonlight. I needed to get my head checked out.
I stepped up onto the porch, ready to put the lady lawyer out of my mind, and automatically turned the knob. It didn’t budge. I tried my key and found that it no longer worked. I sighed and lifted my hand to knock. Hank had maintained for years that when the house was his, the open door policy was getting revoked. Apparently, he hadn’t been bluffing.
A few seconds later the door flew open and Hank appeared, gesturing me inside with a small inclination of his head.
“Thanks for the invite, Hank. I thought you were kidding when you said you were changing the locks.”
“I wasn’t.”
I dropped onto the couch in the front room and positioned myself directly in front of the fan, enjoying the breeze caused by its rusty steel blades. Nowadays, it would be considered dangerous, but we’d had it since I was rollin’ around in Pampers.
“Where’s Jimmy?” Hank grunted.
I shrugged.
His eyes narrowed in question, indicating I needed to provide him with more information. Hank was a man of few words, but his expressions were chatty.
“Probably out hooking again, can’t keep that kid off the corner,” I answered, living up to my smart-ass reputation.
Hank gave a small shake of his head. He obviously wasn’t amused by my antics but that was no surprise. He rarely was.