Chapter 4
Chapter
Four
Pres spentSunday morning at the construction site, inspecting some work his sub-contractors had done. Luckily, they were building this one from scratch so there were no live-in owners to work around. The Clancys wanted a modern ranch house, with everything built in and future proofed. But their taste for luxury ran a little deeper than their bank balance, so every penny he spent was scrutinized and questioned.
“We’ve cut back as far as we can,” he was telling Mr. Clancy who’d clearly been sent by his wife to check out the progress of the build. “If we need to reduce the budget anymore I can give you a list of things we can remove from the plan, but you said you want everything.”
And they wanted it now.
He understood it. The Clancys were living with Mr. Clancy’s parents, and that kind of living arrangement rarely suited anybody. Put grown adults of different generations together and there were bound to be problems.
Hell, even his own family had its moments, and they were a close knit tribe.
“Just try not to overrun anymore.” Mr. Clancy said, pressing his lips together. He knew that the budget overrun came from them changing their minds about which rooms they wanted where, and which bricks and windows and kitchen features they preferred.
“I’ll do my best,” Presley promised. His phone vibrated in his pocket. “I have to go, but we’ll be here first thing tomorrow to get back at it.” He was due to meet his family at his parents’ house. It was Sunday which meant family dinner. A ritual that meant even more to his mom since Jade died.
“Thanks.” Mr. Clancy nodded. “We really appreciate your hard work, even if Kate loses it sometimes.”
“It’s understandable. It’s your home, you want it perfect.”
They exchanged glances, and that was it. He needed to get home and fast.
His parents had taken Delilah to church that morning the same way they did every Sunday. Most of the Hartson family spent their Sunday mornings there, and between his dad’s siblings and spouses, plus their mostly grown-up children, there were a lot of them.
Nowadays, his extended family took up half the pews.
But church just wasn’t his thing. It hadn’t been growing up, but he’d still trudged along with his parents when he had to. He’d gotten married in a church, had his kid christened in a church and then he’d been to his wife’s funeral in a church.
But it was hard to believe in God when he had a little girl without a mom, so he avoided it when he could.
By the time he made it back to his parents’ house, their cars were all in the driveway. He parked his truck behind Marley’s convertible, climbing out and checking himself in the mirror.
No dirt or dust. Thank God. His mom didn’t ask for a lot but she preferred he didn’t trudge the construction site into her house on a Sunday.
He walked around to the back of the house, the way he always did. He’d grown up in this house. Spent half of his childhood playing football in the yard with his brothers. Spent the other half in the recording studio at the back of the property, just before the tree line began. First listening to his dad play or produce another band.
Then learning to play himself.
For years playing the guitar was all he wanted to do. Messing around with Marley in the studio, and later with Hendrix as well, had been his idea of heaven. Sure, they’d had to go to school, then college, and finally get a day job.
His parents were well off, but there was no way Pres was going to mooch off them. So he’d started his own company and Marley had joined him. They’d both always been active, hating the idea of sitting behind a desk and taking orders from somebody else. It had been natural for him to want to be the boss, and Marley to work with him when he wasn’t at the fire station.
They’d started small. Taking on renovations within their capabilities. Always getting in and dirty while also being project managers. Over the years, their business and their reputation had grown.
Now they were the number one ranked construction company in the surrounding counties.
The glass doors that lined the wall of his parents’ kitchen were open, and Presley strolled inside. Delilah was sitting at the counter, furiously coloring away in a book, while his mom was chatting to her, helping his dad make the Sunday pot roast they always preferred.
“Hey.” He kissed his daughter’s head. She looked up at him grinning. “How was church?” he asked her.
“We learned about another Delilah,” she said, her blue crayon between her fingers. “She was very naughty.”
He lifted a brow at his mom. She shrugged.
“Good thing you’re a good girl then.” He looked over at his twin. Marley was peeling potatoes, his thick club of a hand cradling the vegetable in one hand, the other niftily slicing away the skin.
“You not at the station today?” Pres asked him.
“Nope. Got today off. Decided to grace you all with my presence.” He flashed a perfect set of white teeth.
“We’re honored,” their mom drawled. “Now get on with the peeling. I need those potatoes.”
“On it, ma’am.” Marley touched his fingers to his head in a salute, narrowly avoiding grazing his head with the peeler.
Their mom rolled her eyes and went back to basting the meat.
“Daddy, why don’t you come to church with us?” Delilah asked. “The other daddies are there.”
He felt his chest tighten. “I have to work, honey.”
Not that he was looking, but he felt the warmth of his parents’ stares on his face. They knew why he couldn’t go. Why he didn’t believe in goodness right now.
But he didn’t want his kid to know that.
“Another time,” he promised. Code word for never.
Delilah nodded as though she understood. “Miss Cassie was there.”
And yeah, that band around his chest tightened even more. “That’s nice.”
“She’s so nice, isn’t she?”
“Who’s nice?” Marley asked.
“Delilah’s new dance teacher,” his mom said. “I stopped by to say hi after service. And yes, she’s very nice.”
“She and Daddy argued last week,” Delilah added, and Pres rolled his eyes. Great. As if he needed reminding of that.
Hendrix spluttered out a laugh. Pres shot his younger brother a death stare.
“You arguing with nice women, bro?” Hendrix asked. “This is why you’re perennially single. You’re meant to be nice to them.”
“Presley doesn’t remember how to be nice.” Now Marley was joining in. Though the tone of his voice told Pres he was teasing. “That’s why everybody at work calls him the Rottweiler.”
“They don’t call me the Rottweiler.” Pres frowned. “Do they?”
Marley shrugged, looking amused.
“Stop changing the subject,” Hendrix said. “I want to hear about Delilah’s new dance teacher. What’s her name? Is she pretty? Why did nobody introduce me to her?”
“Because you’re a neanderthal,” Marley said, grabbing Hendrix in a head lock. “We’re trying to save the female population of Hartson’s Creek from their worst fate.”
“Shut the hell up.” Hendrix struggled in his brother’s grasp. “I’m a catch.”
“The kind you should put in a cage,” their mom said, rolling her eyes at their mock-fighting. “Now stop fighting. Before I send you both home with no dinner.”
Funny how quickly they stepped apart at that threat. A wry smile pulled at Pres’ lips. Sometimes his brothers behaved like they were younger than Delilah, who was pointedly ignoring them, deciding her coloring book was more interesting than her uncles beating each other up.
“Seriously though,” Hendrix said, reaching over his dad’s shoulder to grab a carrot stick. “Hook me up.”
“Leave her alone.” Pres gave him a pointed glance. “She’s Delilah’s teacher.”
Delilah looked up at her name being said. “Are you talking about me?”
“Ignore us, sweetheart.” Marley shot her a wink. “Just uncles behaving badly.”
“You should go to church,” she said, shaking her head the same way his mom did. Sometimes the similarity between them was striking. “I bet there’s a bad Marley and a bad Hendrix in the bible, too. Much worse than the bad Delilah.”
Hendrix snorted. Marley shook his head, a smile playing on his lips.
“Yes, they should go to church,” his mom said, sending her two younger sons a pointed look. “All three of you should.” She lifted a brow at Pres. “Maybe then you’d learn some manners.
“All I’m saying is I think it’s time,” Marley said to Pres later that day, lifting his bottle of beer to his mouth. “It doesn’t have to be a big thing, but I miss making music with you. I miss us having fun at gigs together.”
Dinner was over, the table had been cleared, and the three brothers had washed the dishes and cleaned up the kitchen while their parents and Delilah sat with their heads almost touching over a jigsaw puzzle.
Pres’ daughter was now snoozing, all curled up in his mom’s favorite easy chair, her little lips half open as she softly breathed out. The rest of them were watching the sports channel – the sound turned down so that it didn’t wake Delilah.
“It won’t work,” Pres pointed out. “Having a kid is hardly compatible with touring.”
It wasn’t the first time Marley had suggested they get the band together again. And yeah, Pres got it. He missed playing in front of crowds. Sure, he still played a tune on the guitar when the mood struck, but it was a far cry from the gigs they used to throw back when times were different.
When he wasn’t a single dad.
“I’m not talking about touring,” Marley said, his eyes catching Pres’. When they were kids it was like looking in a mirror. But Marley didn’t have the shadows beneath his eyes that Pres had.
He was lighter. Happy go lucky. Pres loved that for him.
“We can play locally,” Marley continued. “There are enough places within driving distance. It doesn’t have to be a big deal.”
“What am I gonna do, put Delilah in the backseat and tell her to stay there until I come back?” Pres glanced over at her. She hadn’t moved at the sound of her name. She really was fast asleep.
“We could watch her,” his dad’s deep voice intoned. “You know we love her staying with us. And the chances are it’ll be on a weekend night, so no school the next day.”
“Even if she did have school we could take her,” his mom added, her smile soft as she looked over at her granddaughter. “You know she’d love being here with us.”
Yeah, she would. Delilah was always asking to spend more time with her grandparents. This house was her second home, after all. But it didn’t stop him from feeling guilty. Like he should be able to cope with having a kid but he wasn’t.
“See?” Marley said, grinning. “Problem solved.”
“So you think Alex and Diana will come back?” Pres asked, playing for time because he hated letting his brother down.
Marley grimaced. “They split up. Diana left town. But Alex would be up for it. I know he would. He hated it when we took the break.”
Alex was their bass guitarist, and his girlfriend Diana had played keyboard. Her voice had added a nice tone to the vocals, too.
“We can’t play without a keyboardist,” Presley pointed out.
Marley shrugged, unfazed. “Then we’ll find one. I’ll put the word out. Put up some fliers. You don’t have to lift a finger. Come on, let’s try it. If you hate it, then we’ll stop. But it feels like it’s time…”
The way his brother said it made Presley feel like he was talking about more than playing in a band.
“Okay. We’ll try. But you have to take the lead.” He hated auditions. They were awkward and saying no wasn’t his thing. He did enough negotiations in his day job.
“Works for me.” Marley grinned. “You’re a poor judge of character, anyway.”
“Thanks.” Presley rolled his eyes at him, but Marley’s smile widened. The ying to his yang. The light to his darkness. The two of them had been inseparable since the day they were born.
He couldn’t help but notice how his mom was squeezing his dad’s hand. Or how she was mouthing ‘thank you’ to Marley when she thought he wasn’t looking.
This was clearly part of their ‘Operation: Get Pres out of the house for something other than work’ plan.
Maybe they were right. He owed it to them to at least try it. He might not have played much music in the past few years – at least not in public – but he’d written enough songs for them to fill a full set list without trying.
“Did somebody say my name?” Delilah muttered, one eye opening.
Presley bit down a smile. “About half an hour ago.”
She blinked, her other eye opening. “Why?”
It was funny how she hated being left out of anything. “We were talking about me and Uncle Marley playing some music together some time.”
“Can I play?” she asked.
“You can come watch us rehearse sometime,” he promised her. “But if we play in a bar you’d have to stay here with Granny and Gramps.”
“We could make pizza and watch movies,” his mom said. Delilah’s face immediately lit up. “And you could sleep over those nights.”
“Can I?” she asked, her gaze sliding back to her dad’s. “Can I stay over here and do that?”
So much for feeling guilty for abandoning her. Right now it felt like she was the one doing the abandoning. And she didn’t look guilty at all.
“Yeah, you can stay with them if we have a gig.”
“Yes!” She shot her hand into the air, clearly completely awake now. And happy as a clam that she got to spend even more time with her grandparents.
At least somebody was. And he was glad it was her.