“Can we go inside, Mom?” Matt asked.
“Sure. I’ve got the key.”
Jason held back, not eager to go in. He was thinking about not having a cell phone to call Brian and his buddies. This really stunk. If they’d stayed in Boise, his mom would have likely got him a phone, since he was driving. Well, that was before he’d totaled his truck. Eventually he would have gotten a flip phone. Now he had nothing.
“Jason, aren’t you coming in?” she asked.
She stood on the porch, sunlight shining off her brown hair with red shades that were natural. She had full lips and brown eyes. The boys at school called her hot, and it pissed him off ’cause she was his mom. Awkward hearing a couple of the football players say his mom was someone they’d like to make out with. He was glad he didn’t have an ugly mom. But still. He’d once hit a kid at an assembly for saying something about her.
His mom was forty-five. Jason always thought she was beautiful, even when he was a little kid. The other kids always commented he had one of the prettiest moms.
Now she looked sad a lot.
Sun played across her face and she looked tired. He knew Gary had caused a lot of the tired stuff. But so did he. Jason took the blame for being a screwup as a son. He felt bad.
Life sucked.
“Yeah, Mom. Sure.”
He didn’t want to give her a ration of crap anymore. He was going to try and be nicer to his mom. But looking at this place where they had to live, he thought about firing up a joint and forgetting where he was.
Drew Tolman could drive left-handed even though he batted right-handed. It was one of those skills he’d perfected when he’d first gotten his driver’s license—keeping his right arm free. In those days he’d always had a soft shoulder or breast to lay his palm on.
Bad Company’s signature song blared from the Hummer’s CD deck as Drew headed toward Opal’s for breakfast. Hot air pumped through the space-age-looking heating and air vents, yet he kept the window rolled down. He hated to be closed in.
He drank coffee from an insulated cup, tapping his fingers on the leather steering wheel to the beat of the music.
An L.A. Dodgers ball cap rode backward on his head. His jaw hadn’t been shaved for the past forty-eight hours, though he’d run his razor up his neck. Neck stubble was an annoyance. He felt comfortable in a pair of athletic sweats and a thick pullover shirt that had holes in the hem. It was his Sunday look, even though today was Tuesday.
The default ring on his cell chimed and he snagged it, and just like he did each time, he made a mental note to change that stupid ringer.
“Tolman.”
“Hey, babe.”
“Hey, Jacquie.”
“Are you at Opal’s?”
“Heading there now.”
“I’m in between clients. I’ll meet you.”
The line disconnected. Drew tossed the cell onto the black leather seat, the charger still plugged into it.
When Jacquie said she’d do something, she acted and it was a done deal. She was one of Red Duck’s top producing real estate agents, and had been his on again-off again girlfriend for three years.
Right now, they were on again.
Jacquie Santini was an ethnic mix of Native American and Italian. Thin enough to fit sideways in a gym locker, she was five foot ten, with a thick mane of black hair that fell down her back and brushed the swell of her butt. What had gotten his attention when he first met her were her brown-black eyes and the dark brows above. They had this definitive arch to them as if she was raising them in a no-bullshit expression.
Appearancewise, she was more plastic than a Visa card, but she refused to have her boobs done since her nipples were her most sensitive body part and she didn’t want to risk losing sensation for a pair of DD silicones. Her breasts weren’t all that big, but he was okay with that. She loved sex, loved having sex with him. That worked.
When they broke up for short spans of time, it was because he usually did something to make her mad. Which he was known to do, and hell, it didn’t take much. All he had to do was say something that set her off, and she was done. Yet somehow when they got around to talking it through, the talking part was mostly a facade and it was all about making up in bed.
He’d questioned himself why he’d kept her around for so long. He wasn’t in love with her anymore. He had been at one time. He loved her now, but he wasn’t in love with her. She was comfortable and they had good times. Both were from larger cities on the West Coast, he from L.A. and she from the Bay area.
Lately she’d been pushing to move in together. He’d been putting her off, changing the subject, but Jacquie could only be held off for so long before she knocked the hell out of his bachelorhood with an emotional curve ball. She’d start bawling.
Jacquie didn’t cry very much, but when she did she might as well take a hunting knife to him. God, he hated when she cried. But it wasn’t enough to make him change his mind and let her move in, or worse yet, get married.
Not now, not with Mackenzie being without her mother.
His seventeen-year-old daughter hated his guts, and he didn’t blame her. Up until six months ago, at her mother’s funeral, he’d only seen Mackenzie a few times in her life.
He’d been back to Florida this past February for the Dodgers spring training camp—a combination business and personal trip, one he’d hoped would begin to change Mackenzie’s mind about him. She’d let him take
