“No, uh…Colt did, actually.”
“I thought he was just giving Jonas chores to do at the ranch?”
“They’re kind of friends now. Normally I’d say a grown man being friends with a ten-year-old requires a call to the police, but it’s sweet. Jonas has been way happier and lessteenager-ylately…until this morning, anyway.”
Pretending to be sidetracked with a snagged fingernail, I glance down at my lap and twiddle my fingers, thinking about the three of us eating pizza together last night. Looping, meandering, easy conversation full of unfettered laughter that lasted until well past Jonas’s usual bedtime. And after Colt left, I fell into bed weightless and sated.
“Who would’ve guessed Colt is the kid-whisperer?” Blair responds.
“Is Colt your new boyfriend?” Mom spins in her seat to ask.
“No!” I shake my head excessively, like a toddler refusing medicine, exacerbating the dull throbbing in my skull.
Blair looks over her shoulder at me. “That was an aggressive response.”
“Focus on the road, would you?” I gesture at the narrow, two-lane highway through the windshield, punctuating the oncoming traffic. “Jonas has invited him for dinner a couple times, so I don’t know what that makes us. Friendly, I guess.”
“Your father and I were friendly once,” Mom reminisces. “For four years before he finally made a move.”
“There’s something really sweet about being friends first,” Blair agrees, launching into her and Denny’s love story.
And now they’re talking among themselves, which is fine. It gives me the space to discreetly slide the Kindle from my bag on the seat next to mine. I’m hungry for a spicy romance to make the drive go by faster, wanting to lose myself in the love story—and the hot sex—I’ve been missing in my real life. With this book, in particular, there’s a thrill in reading about a single mom finding a sexy man to give her orgasms and attention and love. Not that I feel even a single sliver of hope about something similar happening to me. Reading romance is basically masochism.
My eyes don’t leave the small screen, despite every curve and bump and change in speed, but I read the same page twenty times. Unable to focus enough to absorb the words. And eventually, I give up.
The cool window cradles my pulsating temple the rest of the way to Sheridan, and Blair has to wake me when we arrive at the estate sale from the newspaper ad. A sprawling rancher on the outskirts of town, with people milling about and random household goods scattered across the yard.
“Are we looking for something in particular?” I ask Mom through a yawn so intense it makes tears dot the inner corners of my eyes.
Apparently I’m not cut out for relaxing, because somehow I’m more tired after yesterday than I would be following a full weekend of housework, errands, and carting Jonas around town.
She smiles, heading straight for a rack of vintage dresses on the front lawn. “It’s one of thoseknow it when you find ittype of shopping trips.”
Despite the early hour, it’s muggy and blistering hot, so I bypass the dresses and large furniture items outside, praying the house has air conditioning. A tall, older gentleman holds the front door open a little too preemptively, so I jog to get there quickly.
The homeowners are definitely old—quite possibly dead—based on the decor choices and amount of fine china. We’vefinallyreached a point where Jonas can mostly be trusted with glassware and ceramic dishes rather than the cheap plastic withPAW Patrolcharacters on it, but porcelain is a long way off.
Two elderly ladies are close to throwing hands over a tea set, and I narrowly squeeze past them, risking my life for a sage Le Creuset Dutch oven I spot nestled between pots on a kitchen shelf.
Fifty dollars?!At that price, it’s basically stealing.
I tuck the heavy pot under my arm like a football player, carefully watching the tea ladies, lest they turn their attention to me and decide to team up. I’m not opposed to throwing hands for this baby, but ending up in jail over cast-iron cookware isn’t the good example I’m supposed to be setting for Jonas.
As I continue through the den, the pads of my fingers skim along a piano, pressing briefly on a key and making a middle-aged couple flinch. I bite back a smile, carrying on down a narrow hallway. Already the pot is getting heavy and awkward to carry, but I refuse to let it out of my sight until I’m home. Can’t even trust my mom or sister with it.
Meandering between endless gaudy rooms, I come across a smaller bedroom with nothing in it but clothes, though these don’t appear to be fancy or delicate like the dresses Mom was eyeing outside. I thumb the cotton and polyester,smoothing fabrics between my fingers.Disneyland’88, one tattered sweatshirt reads. A T-shirt proudly conveyingRia Creek Golf Tournamentis missing the year, but based on the font and color choices, I’d guess it’s from the 1990s.
The sharp squeal of metal clothing hangers on a metal rod makes my eye twitch, but I’m a glutton for glimpses into how strangers, whether dead or alive, lived their lives up to this point. It’s so much like flipping through a scrapbook, and I can’t help but think about somebody—with a much dirtier mind than the old biddies here—sifting through my pins after I die.
Then I see the holy grail. It’s a need. It’s a must-have.
Colt is going todiewhen he sees it.
Among wholesome shirts depicting family vacations, charity golf tournaments, and an annual crab boil hangs a brand-new,with tagsshirt from the 1990 Wells Canyon rodeo. To be honest, I think it’s a woman’s shirt. Front and center is a raccoon wearing a cowboy hat:Hootin’ and Hollerin’.
Hootin’ and hollerin’, indeed. I hold it up to let dappled sunlight illuminate the heather gray shirt.
It would be weird to give him a T-shirt, though.
