“Hey, Cajun. How’s Bell doin’?”
Jesus, he’d got his phone ringer turned off, and he’d missed about ten zillion phone calls, easy. Coke shook his head, heading into the kitchen to feed the dogs while he chatted. What was worse was he didn’t even really miss it. He’d found the thing plugged in, though, in the guest room, and decided to call Beau Lafitte.
“He’s better every day. Stubborn. Tired.”
“I bet. How’re you holding up? Y’all gonna have your turkey dinner there?” Thanksgiving. Right. Coke needed to find out what all he was supposed to do. He needed to call Nattie, too, find out what to send the kids from Santa…
“Shit. The family is all ready to do us up.” Beau snorted, and Coke had to grin.
“You think he’ll be home come Christmas?”
“I sure as shit hope so. How are you, cher?”
“Real good, real good. Me and Dillon, we’re just taking it easy.”
Dillon’d got him a bunch of pillows, and this bed was as good as his.
“Good. You needed some rest.”
“Yeah, it was a long finals.” And he was getting older every day.
“Tell me about it. That last ride was harsh.” Beau chuckled.
“No shit on that, Cajun. No shit on that.”
“Anyway, Balta is planning on deep-frying a turkey in the hospital parking lot.”
“Good Lord and butter.” He hooted, tickled bone-deep. “I’d like to see that, I surely would.” Except that he didn’t want to miss Thanksgiving here, with Dillon.
“You got snow and all.” Beau sighed, and the sound was a touch sad, but Coke reckoned the man had the right to be down. Hospitals wore on folks. “We might here, too, but I ain’t got outside in days.”
“Is… Is he gonna be okay? For real?” He should have moved faster, got in there, helped save Sam as well as Beau.
“He is. I promise, cher. I have never lied to you, huh?”
“No. No, you ain’t. If you need me to call Bonner’s daddy about a truck, I can.”
“That would be good, Coke. I just don’t have it in me to look right now.”
“I’ll handle it. You know I will.” He sighed, rubbed the back of his neck. “Okay, cowboy. I gotta make some phone calls.”
Jason. Nattie. Bonner.
“Okay, cher. You take care. Give clown-boy a noogie for Sammy.”
“I will, you.” He hung up and made himself another pot of coffee, feeling like there was a weight on his shoulders. He really needed to call folks. He did.
“Hey, babe. What’s up?”
He blinked over, surprised, realized he was rubbing the back of his neck. “Talking to Beau. Sammy’s doing better.”
“Yeah? They having Thanksgiving at the hospital?” Dillon came over to help out.
“Yeah. You want some coffee? I missed, like, ten thousand phone calls.”
“I do, and I know. None of them were urgent.” Dillon started massaging his shoulders.
This groan tore out of him, damn near hurting, really. He hated the fucking phone, which surprised him to think it, but there it was.
