“Hey, Kash, pass the salt. I swear, this woman is trying to keep my sodium intake down or something. You’d think she could at least figure out how to make it edible.”
I passed the salt, then took a bite. It was glorious, subtle and interesting and made my mouth water. I groaned in appreciation and grinned at Sandy.
“This is great,” I told her.
Daisy looked at me then, her eyes wide and frightened. I shot her a questioning look, but she only looked back down at her plate. The whole table had fallen silent.
David broke the silence with a loud, grating laugh. “You don’t have to lie to butter her up, son. She’s just happy that someone can stomach her cooking.”
The dude was an ass. But that’s the kind of thing that happens to people who hit the bottle a little too hard. They shoot the shit with their drinking pals and forget that the behavior they have in the bar should be left in the goddamn bar. But dangerous, not even a little bit.
Sandy offered a weak smile, then quickly looked back down at her plate. Daisy sent a warning at me with her eyes.
I shrugged and took another bite. “No lie here,” I said. “This is great. Best food I’ve eaten in years.”
David tensed and leveled a flat gaze in my direction. His ears reddened. I pretended I didn’t notice, and just kept shoveling food in my mouth, stopping to savor it every few bites.
After a moment, David nodded slowly. “Guess it has to be better than prison food,” he said.
I adamantly agreed. Daisy swallowed hard and put her fork down to take a drink. David was onto his second beer while I’d barely made it through a third of my first one. I was in no rush. He seemed to be in enough of a rush for the two of us.
“So…tell me, Kash, what is it you’ve been up to since you’ve been back in town?”
“Mostly working,” I said. “Roadkill Crew until they laid me off. So right now, it’s just cleaning up the motel, fixing everything that’s broken in it, one mess at a time. That’s just room and board though, so I’ve been applying all over trying to get something else.”
His eyes twinkled humorously. “I notice you skipped right over what you’ve been doing with my daughter,” he said.
I glanced at Daisy. I didn’t know how much she’d told him, or if this was their whole confession dinner or something. It would have helped me out a lot if she would say literally anything—hell, if she would look at me, I could probably figure out how to handle this. I nudged her foot under the table, and quick as a whip, she snatched it back out of my reach. Okay, cool, no help there.
“I was surprised when she invited me over for dinner,” I said, honestly enough.
“Were you? Why? Is it so abnormal to eat with your girlfriend’s family these days? I guess it’s not Scope or Tweeter or whatever it is you kids are into now. But everybody’s gotta eat. Might as well eat with your girl whenever you get the chance.” He winked at Daisy, who flattened her lips at him in what might have been a smile had it not looked so stiff. She was growing more tense by the minute.
I chewed a large mouthful as I carefully curated a few select truths.
“I haven’t had a lot of time for socializing,” I said finally. “Been busy putting my life back together. I’d like to be someone Daisy would be proud to be seen with, if she decides she’d like to be seen with me.”
Tension unwound from Daisy’s shoulders little by little. Keep playing it safe, then. Got it.
David opened his third beer and swallowed half of it in a single mouthful. I sipped at mine. I had a feeling I would want to keep my head on straight.
“Yeah, it’s got to be a bitch trying to straighten up your life after a murder conviction,” David said. His sympathetic tone was tainted with acid, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
I nodded slowly. “On that note, I would like to thank all of you for inviting me into your home this evening. I appreciate the trust.”
David gestured sloppily as he finished off that beer and opened another one, crowding the table with discarded bottles. Sandy smiled at me while Daisy slid a wary look at her dad.
Not him, me! Look at me, Daisy. Help me understand what’s happening here. Why are you being so weird?
But my thoughts, loud as they were in my own head, didn’t make it to hers. She looked back down at her plate.
“Don’t take this wrong, son, but it ain’t about trust,” David said. “You’re hanging around my kid. Last time you did that, my kid ended up dead. You know what they say. Keep your friends close, and your loose cannons closer.”
His grin came about three seconds too late to be convincing. He was dead serious. I grinned back at him, playing dumb.
“Hey, at least you didn’t say enemies,” I said lightly.
“There’s still time.”
I took a bite and chewed slowly.
“Well,” I said. “Honestly, I hope it doesn’t ever come to that. I wouldn’t want to be your enemy, and I certainly wouldn’t want to be Daisy’s. You guys are the closest thing to family that I still have.”
With beer number five in hand, David snorted. He was wobbling a little on his chair now. That combined with the tinge of red on the tip of his nose made me certain the alcohol was starting to get to him. “Just don’t go trying to make us blood family, boy. I’m too damn young to
