Page 102 of Rent Free

I patted my dad’s shoulder saying, “He’s not mine, no. He’s the man I’m seeing’s son.”

“The man you’re seeing?” His bushy eyebrows rose.

“Uhh,” I hesitated, but Tarrant spoke over me. “She’s seeing a police officer for Dallas Police Department.”

“Dangerous profession,” he mused. “Do you love him?”

“She’s still in Dallas, where Sage is, because of him,” Everest admitted.

I scrunched my nose at him, causing him to chuckle.

Everyone took a seat, and the five of us talked while Forest explored my father’s room.

Since sometimes my father didn’t know where he was, it was painted a lot like his old bedroom at our original home—a home we’d sold after Mom passed away.

Forest was fiddling with a couple of golf balls Dad had in a cup in the corner right next to a putter and a small putting green.

I turned back to Coke and grinned. “How’s your wife?”

“Cora’s doing well. She’s on vacation at the beach with the kids right now, so I’m here getting a few odds and ends done,” he admitted.

“Why didn’t you go with them?” Dad demanded.

Coke shrugged. “The kids wanted to bring their friends, and Cora’s there with family. Not that I wouldn’t have gone—had I been invited mind you—but I had a lot of stuff to do here, and it’ll go a whole hell of a lot faster if the house isn’t occupied when I do it.”

Dad chuckled. “I feel that in my soul. There was the time that I decided that both bathrooms needed to be done at once. Except I didn’t much think about what would happen if they all needed to go at the same time. And so we had five people going in one bathroom at once in my shop. I have never heard so much fighting as I did that summer.”

“That’s because your sons took two-hour shi—uhh—poops,” I grumbled. “And I had to go, and they were like ‘it’s like a marker’ and ‘I can’t stop’ and ‘sorry but poop is still actively coming out of my butt.’”

Dad and Coke burst out laughing.

Everest and Tarrant shrugged, still as apologetic now as they were then.

“Goal!” Forest giggled.

We all looked to see him throw a second golf ball toward the hole.

This one missed entirely and skidded across the floor.

“He’s cute,” Coke said. “I miss my babies being that small.”

Forest swung the club, missed the ball completely, and took out a water bottle on the coffee table near my dad.

Dad caught the golf club before he could take him out with it, then said, “Go back over there and swing, son. I like my kneecaps where they are.”

Forest listened to him, and for the next two hours we talked, and acted like Dad wouldn’t disappear tomorrow.

I ain’t never flirted. I just talk. It’s not my fault that everything I say is smoother than the cream cheese on your bagel.

—Text from Gable to Atlas

ATLAS

I drove to Kilgore after I got off shift at two.

If I timed it right, Pepper and her brothers and their families would be out to eat, giving me enough time to run by the home that their father was in and introduce myself.

I hoped that he was still lucid when I got there.

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