“I’m a quarter mile from the highway.”
“I’m still at the school. I haven’t even talked to Autumn yet.” She was laughing with a group of parents and little kids. Mark hovered nearby with his own group.
She glanced at me. I lifted my chin, and she gave me a little wave. A little girl blatantly stared at me with big eyes. I gave her a wave too. The way Autumn smiled in response lit up the gymnasium more than any of the lights could.
“Do you think you can get me in the next fifteen minutes? I’m usually really early, but someone else will have to set up. This way, I’ll only miss a few minutes at the beginning.”
I did quick calculations. Picking him up, bringing him to town, going back for the pickup and towing it after dark—it’d be a late night. Autumn would have to work in the morning. I wouldn’t be able to keep her up.
It’d be best to drop her off at home so I could be Dad’s errand bitch.
He had no regard for me, my life, or my time. He’d managed to cost me two workdays fixing fence for no reason. “I can give you a ride home. I don’t know what is so important to you at eight at night that both Autumn and I have to?—”
“I really need to go tonight. The urge has been...” He sighed. “It’s my AA meeting, Giddy. Alcoholics Anonymous.”
Autumn
Hank hobbled into the Lutheran church, his shoulders stooped and his head down. Streetlights and the dashboard lit Gideon’s face. His jaw was carved from graniteand the green of his eyes was uncharacteristically dark as he watched his dad disappear into the church.
I’d seen the exact moment Gideon’s expression had gone stark. He’d been talking on the phone, his brows drawing closer together, and then the lightness I’d caught when he laughed during the skit was gone. He was the guy I’d met in the elevator in Las Vegas.
“How long has he been in AA?” The meetings were in a local church and I’d seen the signs posted, but they were such a constant, I didn’t ever think about them or who might attend them. To me, Hank was just a friendly face around town. The stories about his drinking were from so long ago that sometimes it felt like Gideon was talking about a different Hank James.
Gideon’s jaw turned impossibly harder. “I don’t know.”
“It’s a good thing though. Right?”
He finally tore his eyes away from the brick building. “He said he’s been having a hard time. That this week has been really hard.” He scratched his jaw, the scrape of his fingers loud against his whiskers. “Yesterday, he quit early to go to town. I didn’t figure it out. He went to town for ameeting.” He worked his jaw. “Two days with me, two meetings.”
I put my hand on his forearm. He was tense there too. “He’s taking care of himself. He has measures in place. He’ll be okay.”
“I never really believed he was sober.”
I pressed my lips together. He said it like a confession, raw and ragged.
“I didn’t believe him. In fact, I was goddamn upset at the idea that he might have gotten sober well after I was gone.” He snapped his mouth shut like he was afraid tokeep going. “Why now? Why not when I was a kid? Why not when he had to sell off the cattle? The equipment? All of that could’ve gone toward his damn retirement.”
“I don’t know, Gideon, but from what I’ve seen, alcoholism and addiction make the rules long before the person ever does.”
He glued me in place with his hooded gaze. “How do you know that?”
“I hear a lot from the kids and their parents. And yeah, when I was new, I got so distraught when a kid made a comment about a parent being in jail for drugs. About five years ago, a mom caught me after school. We talked for almost two hours about her experience with addiction and recovery. For some reason, she needed someone to hear it, and I was that person. She said her addiction makes all the sense in the world, but it doesn’t make sense at all.”
The hard muscle under my hand finally relaxed.
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “He said the meeting would take about forty-five minutes to an hour. Want to steer the pickup while we tow it?”
“You think this is going to tow his pickup?”
“Is there twenty-four-hour towing in Bourbon Canyon?”
“I’ll just call Teller.”
His arrogant lips were flattened in a line. “I’m not calling Teller.”
“Tenor?” At his silence, I thought for a moment. He wouldn’t let me call Tate either. “Myles just bought a pickup, but he and Wynter were going to Denver for the weekend. There’s Jonah Dunn, Summer’s husband. Do you remember him?”
He thought for a moment, his eyes getting that faraway look that happened when he delved into the past. Jonah would be a little younger than him.
