Chapter 3
three
. . .
Jameson
Z ander shuts down the excavator, or T-rex, as the crew lovingly calls it. A job that would have normally taken a week, took ten days because of the rain. Nothing is worse than digging out tons of earth from a pit of mud.
My brother opens the door of the cab and jumps down. I swear I can feel the earth shake whenever he hops down from the machine. Zander is the oldest, biggest and, as much as I hate to admit it, the toughest of the Wilde brothers. Zander was always Dad's favorite, at least until Nate, the youngest, was born.
His boots gather up layers of mud as he stomps toward me. He slaps my hardhat roughly, and I'm pissed at myself for not anticipating his smack because it's his stupid-ass tradition after a job's finished. My head is still ringing as he finishes the tradition with a slap on my back.
"Fuck, would you stop hitting me, you asshole."
Zander is only an inch taller than me, but, somehow, he manages to make that extra inch bigger and more menacing. His face is covered in streaks of dirt, and I don't need a mirror to know mine looks the same. We both stare at the massive hole in the ground. It's a basement for a future log cabin, a big one, at that. "Don't know about you but now that we've got the Grand Canyon finished, I'm going to need a night at the Gold Rush. I hate working in mud." Zander pulls a rag out of his pocket and wipes his face. It only spreads the dirt around more. "I'm going to hold a pitcher of beer in one hand and someone's perky ass in the other. Not sure whose yet." I sense that he's going through his mental black book. "I think I'll call Molly to see if she's up for some beer and ass grabbing and whatever comes naturally after it."
"Can't make it," I say. "Grab some perky ass for me."
"You've got to come. Harry told me those assholes from Bassett came in the other night. They were asking why there were no Wilde brothers in the bar. They told Harry they were in the mood for some head thumping." Zander laughs. "They were only sayin' it because we weren't there. Just wish I'd known. Like to have seen them crap their pants when we walked in. I told Harry next time they come in talkin' shit like that, he was obliged to call one of us so we could show up and set them straight. Come on. Send Rio to Dad's."
I shake my head. "Last time she went to Dad's she came back with a pierced eyebrow. He doesn't know how to say no. Next time she'll probably show up with a massive tramp stamp on her back. Not a good look for a twelve-year-old."
"What's that they say? Twelve is the new thirty."
I look over at him. "Some seriously stupid shit comes out of your mouth."
Zander shrugs. "Could swear I heard it somewhere. I need to hose off just to get in my truck." He holds up both grimy hands. They're big enough to wrap cleanly around a football. Zander was lined up to earn an easy ride to college due to his ability to shoot a football across a field like a torpedo, but he couldn't keep up his grades. None of us could. We all spent a lot more time in the principal's office than the counselor's office, but Dad didn't give a shit. He was too busy partying, fucking and keeping clear of the law to care whether we finished school or not. He always planned for Zander and me to take over his excavation business. And since his life of hard partying and non-stop women destroyed his health, the company was handed off to us when we were fresh out of high school. The excavation company had been mostly a front for my dad's other sketchy businesses, ones we never talked about, some that nearly got us all killed more than once. Zander and I made the company legit and it's been thriving ever since.
Ray honks as he and Jose drive off the worksite. We wave.
"So glad to be done with this project," Zander says. "Sure you don't want to come out? Seems like you've been holed up like a hermit for a long time. You know your dick will shrivel up and fall off if you don't put it to good use."
"Same mouth just more stupid shit." I wait as he kicks his massive boots against the wheel of his truck to crack off the caked-on mud. The three-ton pickup shimmies with each kick. "Dad said the twins got home yesterday from seeing their mom," I say after he finishes his assault on the truck. "Why don't you call them? They'll probably be up for some cold beer, and there's never a shortage of women when those two are in the bar."
Zander rolls his eyes. "Didn't you get those pics Colin sent last week? Never mind. Don't answer that. You never look at your damn phone. They did five different pub crawls while they were in Dublin." He laughed. "In one of the pics—Ronan's passed out cold in a bowl of stew. They're going to be too spoiled by all that Irish ale to slum it with American beer."
"I'm pretty sure that won't be the case but suit yourself." In truth I love the idea of going to the Gold Rush to down a few beers and meet some women, but those days are mostly behind me. Three years ago, my life changed drastically when I got a phone call and a voice from the past told me I was a father. Nicole and I dated right after high school. We were too busy fucking everywhere—the slide at the park, the back of the movie theater and even the bathroom in the back of the diner—to worry about protection. One day, Nicole told me she couldn't stand to stay another minute in boring Rockhurst. Said she was tired of the smell of the ocean and the people and everything about the place, me included, apparently. What she forgot to tell me was that she was leaving town pregnant. Then she got tired of being a mom. She told me she couldn't handle Rio, and she was convinced I could do a better job with her. My only role model for fatherhood was Finnegan Wilde, a man who told us to pour vodka on our sugary cereal when we were out of milk, a man who locked me and the twins, Colin and Ronan, out in the freezing snow for two hours while he entertained his latest love interest. And they were all love interests to him. Finn Wilde's fourth wife, Stevie, the closest person any of us had to a mother, left the ranch four years ago. She told Finn, "I hope you die sooner than later," so it wasn't exactly a tearful goodbye. Everyone loves my dad, but no one likes him.
They always left like that. My mom, Jamie, tried to take me with her but quickly decided I was too much to handle. Besides that, she knew that Finn had money, connections and several cutthroat lawyers in his pocket. A custody battle would have been futile. Even though it wasn't great for me, leaving her unruly kid behind was probably the best thing for her. She met a man named Harold, who just happened to be a multimillionaire. She's living the high-life on a three hundred-acre spread in Montana where she rides her finely bred horses all day and entertains snooty guests all evening. The only time she plays mom to me is when she tries to match me up with a daughter of one of her snob friends.
Zander's truck sounds like thunder when he starts it up. He drives up next to me. "If you change your mind, you know where I'll be."
"In between Molly's thighs?"
Zander's deep laugh follows him out of the parking lot. Seconds later music is thrumming through his speakers, and his tires kick up gravel as he peels out of the lot. I haul myself up into the cab of my truck. I was lunch lackey this week, so my truck smells like fries and onions. My phone rings. Zander's right. I hate dragging a phone around night and day. There are many times when I want to chuck it into one of our dig sites. But now that I'm a parent, I never ignore a call. It's Dad and I'm tempted to let it go to voicemail. Instead, my thumb taps the screen.
"Hey, Dad. Just leaving work."
"Did you finally finish the Sawyer job?" His voice grows hoarser each day. It's from the coughing fits, a souvenir from years of drinking and toking on cigars and joints.
"Looking at the big hole right now."
"About fucking time. I could have done it faster digging with a teaspoon."
I smile thinking about that visual. "Gee, thanks, Jameson, for getting that done with such precision. Don't know what I'd do without you two boys." I even make my voice scratchy like his.
"Never said gee in my life, and the two of you make plenty of money. That's my thanks."
"And on that parental nugget of love—I'm going home to wash off the mud." Drops of rain hit the windshield. I lean down to get a better look at the sky past the visor. More rain-filled clouds have moved in.
"Wait, there's a reason for my call. Rio wants to invite some friends for a slumber party."
"Where? At your place? At the den of sin and debauchery?"
He chuckles and it ends with a dry cough. "You all grew up in this house."
"Exactly," I say. "No slumber party at your house."
"Why the hell not? Rio likes her Pops. Let her have a few friends over."
"First, let me remind you, you have no idea of the noise, giggles and havoc a group of preteen girls can cause. And second, there's way too much sex paraphernalia, booze and other shit laying around your place."
Dad's heavy scoff comes through the phone. "You exaggerate just like your mom."
"Oh really? I was in your kitchen the day before yesterday, looking for a bottle opener, and I found a bright purple vibrator."
Dad paused. "Huh, is that where that got to? Guess that makes sense. Jen and I were making out in the kitchen. Bent her right over the granite island?—"
"No, stop, please stop before I jump into that giant hole we dug to wait for the earth to swallow me up, so I never have to think about my old man having sex."
Another cough-laced laugh follows. This time it takes him a second to recuperate. The man isn't quite seventy, but he sounds as if he's lived a thousand years, and that's probably about right. Like dogs, my dad managed to stick seven human years into every single year of his life.
"Rio can't have a slumber party anyway. She has homework."
"Homework?" He says the word like it's dirty. "It's fucking summer. And you never did a page of homework in your life."
"I barely graduated. She's doing extra-credit summer projects to bring up some of the crappy grades she earned this year. It builds character, and hopefully, next year she won't fuck up so much after she spends this summer working on these projects."
"Boy oh boy, he's been a parent for three years, and he's a goddamn expert. I've been a parent for thirty-three years—at least I think Zander was my first—" he adds in quickly.
My turn to laugh. "You actually think the crap you've been doing for the last thirty-three years is parenting?"
"Ah, fuck off. And I'll let you tell your kid that instead of a slamming slumber party at Pops', she'll be writing an essay on—on whatever the hell it is they're learning these days. Talk to you later." He hangs up and the phone rings again. It's Rio.
I answer on one ring. "No slumber party. You've got a science paper to write."
"Dad," she says in that pleading tone that I find irritating and adorable.
"Daughter," I say dryly.
"Daad." She adds in an extra vowel to draw the whiney tone out.
"Daughter," I repeat.
She grunts and I can hear her foot stomp. "I hate it when you do that. It's Bella's last weekend before she gets big, ugly braces, and her life and kissing future as we know it ends. Olivia and I are going to buy her a big bag of sour gummi worms so she can enjoy her last night without train tracks in her mouth."
"You can still buy her candy. You just can't have a slumber party."
"You suck."
"I consider that a compliment. I'm on my way home. See you soon."
"Yay, bring out the marching band and parade."
"Love you," I say.
"If you loved me, I'd be getting my sleeping bag ready for a slumber party. Love ya back," she says dejectedly and hangs up.
I scroll through some of the texts on my phone. There's one from Weston Nash. Weston and I were best friends in high school. He's an officer in the army and stationed in Germany. West always swore he'd get far away from Rockhurst, and you can't get much farther than Germany. I open the photo he sent with the caption "glory days."
It takes me a second to find my breath. It's not the quick trip back to high school nostalgia that's stolen it. It's the face smiling up from the phone screen. Indiana is Weston's twin sister. She was dating Zach Dixon, the third leg in our friend triangle. Back then, I wondered if I was hanging out with Weston and Zach just to be near Indi. It became clear after Indi left for college that it was exactly why I clung so tightly to them as buddies. A best friend was the last thing I needed in my chaotic, fucked-up childhood, but I attached myself to Weston and Zach, and when Indi was around, I hovered in the background, like an angry shadow, like in the photo, not wanting to be around her and at the same time aching to be near her. She hated me with the "intensity of a thousand blazing suns." Her exact words and words that cut my soul in two like no knife could have ever done. I dated plenty of girls back then, but I only ever wanted Indiana Nash.
My phone rings again. It's Rio.
"Still a no," I say.
She grunts again. She really has aggravated grunts, groans and eye rolls down to an art. "Then I repeat my earlier comment that you do, indeed, suck." She hangs up.
I'm laughing as I pull off the worksite. It's going to be a long weekend filled with eye rolls.