Page 63 of Before We Say Goodbye
“If you think it, then it will be true.”
“Please don’t spit this New Age mumbo jumbo at me. The only reason we’re here is because I pushed when I had nothing left.”
“If I remember correctly, the reason we’re here is because I pushed you to come see the place, to believe we could have it.”
“Yeah, with the help of your boyfriend. At least I know I’m messed up. Sometimes I think you forget that you’re human too. You’ve never been the same since you found out about Jed, always feeling like you have to make up for leaving. Why not, for a minute, focus on yourself? Why do you have to fix everyone around you? Why can’t you stay in your own lane for a ...?” He pulled back the reins.
She cut him with angry eyes, and he knew he’d gone too far.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to say that. You’re ... you’re the rock in this family. Despite all you’ve been through.”
“No. I’m done here.” She turned and marched away, her bare feet padding on sacred soil.
Otis grabbed the shovel and smacked it against the post till the handle splintered in two. He huffed and puffed for about five minutes before he realized that he was in the wrong in all ways. He had no right to speak to her so.
Returning to the house, he saw his boys tossing the ball and picked up the pace. Burying his frustration, he attempted to appear light and airy. “Hit your old man with a long one.”
Breaking into a grin, Cam reeled back and tossed a beautiful ball to his father. He now played wide receiver for a flag-football team in Santa Rosa, and he’d asked if he could attend school in town so that he could join the seventh- and eighth-grade football team. It was only a matter of time till Rebecca gave in.
After twenty minutes of football with his boys, Otis had come back down to earth, his anger settled, and he was about to climb the steps to apologize to Bec when the familiar sound of Lloyd’s Ferrari came purring through the Glen Ellen hills.
Otis’s fists clenched. He had hoped Lloyd would return to San Francisco without a word spoken about last night.
The boys had taken a liking to Lloyd, for multiple reasons, and they raced over to welcome Sir Shitbag. Dressed in shiny leather shoes, gray suit pants, and a tailored blue shirt, Lloyd sprang out of his fancy car with a white bag for each of the boys. It was either doughnuts or candy. Was it any wonder the boys liked him? He bribed them with sugar. Then, of course, Lloyd took the ball and sent it long to Mike. Mike and Camden stared with eyebrows high at Lloyd’s extraordinary spiral.
“How do you do that?” Cam asked with enthusiasm that crushed Otis’s heart.
“All in the legs and waist, kiddo.” Lloyd retrieved the ball from Mike and twisted back and forth, showing the motion.
“You’re the best I’ve ever seen,” Mike said with admiration that should be reserved for superheroes, running up to him, staring at him as if he were Joe Montana, the quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, whose poster occupied a spot on Camden’s wall.
The front door swung open, and Rebecca descended the steps and joined Otis. “What’s he doing here?”
Otis shrugged his shoulders.
Lloyd broke away from the boys and approached. “Good morning, guys. Thought I’d stop by on my way back to the city.” He kissed Bec on the cheek, and Otis was pretty sure he took a big sniff of her, too, taking all of her in. He still barely tried to hide his infatuation with her.
Otis almost didn’t shake his hand but accepted after letting Lloyd wait for a few seconds, his arm suspended in the air.
“What happened last night?” Lloyd asked. “I thought you might join us, but you disappeared?”
Otis’s shoulders tightened.
Bec swiveled her head to Otis. “You didn’t tell me Lloyd was at Carmine’s too.”
A dog knows when he’s destined for the doghouse, but he must try to evade his owner’s wrath first. “I don’t always report when Lloyd’s in town.”
Whether Lloyd detected the issue, he didn’t attempt to bail Otis out. “We were at Hamilton’s with Sam Ledbetter—I was there with Paul—and Otis showed up.”
“At Carmine’s?”
“No, at—”
Otis jumped in before he got in even more trouble. “I stopped by Hamilton’s. Just for a drink.”
Rebecca’s eyebrows curled. “By yourself?”
Otis squirmed. “Carmine wasn’t home and ...” He let his words trail away. What could he possibly say now?
