“Yeah,” Joey said with a sigh. “But I finished pick-ups a little bit early, and I always have Sundays off, so the madness begins again on Monday.”
“It’s the final countdown, at least,” Adam said.
“Yeah, and you’re still going nuts with the Country Quad news, right?” Cash looked at him, as Adam managed the band, and that included all their social media.
“It’s been crazy,” Adam said with a laugh. “I’m not going to deny it, but things are starting to slow down a little bit now.”
“When are y’all starting to record?” Cash asked, because he didn’t want the questions coming his way.
“The boss wants a final set list by February one,” Adam said.
Cash snorted and grinned to match Adam’s smile. “Yeah, that Harry runs a really tight ship.”
“I get kind of a kick out of watching him boss his daddy around.” Adam laughed.
“Oh, I’d like to see that too,” Cash said.
“Speaking of fathers,” Joey said, under her breath. “Yours is incoming.”
Cash met her eyes and stuffed his mouth full of pizza just as his father arrived.
“Hey, you guys. What’s going on over here?”
“Absolutely nothing, Uncle Blaze,” Joey said, grinning at him.
Daddy surveyed all of them, and Cash stretched up to give him a hug, though he still had pizza in his mouth.
“Yeah, something tells me there’s trouble brewing.”
“No trouble,” Adam said. “We’re just talking about Country Quad is all.”
“They’re trouble,” Daddy said. “Is Lark feeling any better?”
Cash swallowed and looked around for the beverage station, which he’d missed. Joey seemed to be able to read his mind, and she said, “I’ll go get you something to drink. They’ve got tons of canned sodas and bottles of lemonade, or Grandma’s almond punch.”
Cash made a face because he’d never much liked his grandmother’s almond punch, though he would never say so out loud. “If they have that pomegranate lemonade, that’s what I want.”
“I’m pretty sure they’ve got it,” Adam said, and he lifted his own bottle of the raspberry variety to his lips.
Joey got up and left, and Cash looked at his father.
“I haven’t spoken to Lark since this morning,” he said. “When we left the house. I’m assuming she’s still alive and hopefully feeling better, but I don’t know.”
He didn’t live down the hall from her anymore, and he’d spent the afternoon in his apartment familiarizing himself withwhere his uncles had unpacked everything and moving things around to his liking.
“Well, I hope she’s feeling better,” Daddy said. “Faith said she’d take her some soup tomorrow.”
“That’s real nice,” Cash said. “I’ll talk to her.”
“Are you still going to go to that church up in Dog Valley?” Daddy asked.
“Boston and Cora do,” he said. “So yeah, I figure I’ll keep going there.”
Daddy nodded. “All right. Well, I see Harmony with yet another cookie, and that makes three for her already, which means we’re all going to be up tonight sick.” He walked away as Cash laughed, and he scooped the little girl into his arms and deftly took the cookie away from her.
“Here’s where the real party is,” Harry said, and he sat down next to Cash. “How you doing, brother? You get moved okay?”
“Went great,” Cash said.
