Chapter Four
Soda Cups
Colton
Lay low.
Those are the only two words from Travis’s long, mildly dramatic spiel that truly penetrated my brain. He said a whole lot of other things too— is your brain the size of a freaking pea?, sponsors aren’t gonna like this, disqualification from the Finals— but not even his insults stuck like those two syllables. Because while the phrase tends to emit images of bumming around and catching up on your favorite author’s newest book, reality is vastly different.
My reality? A career in limbo, and if I say or do one wrong thing in the public eye, it’ll tip. Not favorably, either.
Those two words are why I’m sitting in this red Adirondack chair on my dad’s back deck. I should be in Fort Worth getting ready for the Stockyards Showcase—running drills, shooting promo content for sponsors, talking it up for the cameras.
But no.
All because I went and lost my temper like I’ve never done before.
I scrub my hands over my scruffy jaw and tip my head back against the chair. The lake reflects blue under a cloudless cerulean sky, a jagged shoreline kisses the hem of Dad’s backyard, and a gentle breeze keeps the warm day comfortable.
I don’t have anything to do or anywhere to be, so the most logical option is to sit here and sulk. Is it healthy? Probably not. But if Gran can’t pull me out of my mood with food, nothing else will work. Besides, I genuinely don’t know if Travis would approve of me walking downtown if I wanted to.
I told him I’d post a public apology statement, and he instructed me to log out of all social media profiles. The only reason my phone wasn’t crushed under the hooves of a fifteen-hundred pound bull Friday is because I promised I wouldn’t go online. Even if part of me wants to just so I can know what’s being said about me. Travis read a few headlines aloud the morning after everything. Rodeo’s Golden Boy Not So Golden Anymore? was my favorite.
The best part? The picture of a golden retriever with a red slash over it right next to my most recent headshot. Travis didn’t think my suggestion of making it my widespread profile picture was funny.
Behind me, the sliding door clicks along its track. I don’t turn around. I’ll find out soon enough who it is. And to be completely honest, if it’s Gran and those blueberry muffins again, I might have to take one. Ticked as I am, a guy can only resist sugar for so long.
“Uncle Coat!” Jolene. “Are you so excited like I am?”
I look over in time to see my niece flop onto the chair beside mine. Her blonde hair bounces in twin pigtails, tiny pink bows tied around each one, and her lightweight fleece jacket flaps open over a Moana t-shirt. Before her, I never thought I’d be able to recite nearly every word of multiple Disney movies. Now I’m like a walking soundtrack—I can and I will break into song at the drop of a hat.
“Kinda hard to be excited if I don’t know what to be excited for, don’tcha think?”
Jolene props her elbows on the arm of her chair, chin on her palms. “Guess, then!”
“Guess, you say?” I shift to face her fully. If there’s one person I’ll always give my undivided attention to, it’s Jolene. “All right, let me see here. You…lost a tooth and the tooth fairy is coming tonight?”
“Nope,” Jolene says, shaking her head.
I purse my lips like I’m contemplating deeply. “You…cast a spell on your dad and now, when he talks, bubbles come out of his ears. Pink glittery ones.”
“ No ,” Jolene laughs, twisting herself sideways in that way kids do. “That’s not possible, silly.”
“Hey, now. What did I tell you when you said you couldn’t get the hang of jump rope?”
Jolene flashes a sheepish smile. “That I can do anything I set my mind to, if I listen to what’s in here and in here.” She taps her heart, then her head, and her grin becomes lopsided. “ And if Daddy would like it.”
Chuckling, I reach over to tweak her nose. “You got it.”
“But you still have to guess,” she says, far too seriously for her age. “I’ll give you a hint—it’s here.”
“Hmm. Blueberry muffins?”
“ No , silly!” she exclaims. And then, because she’s too excited to contain it any longer, she says, “We’re gonna put the dock in! And Grandpa said someone’s comin’ to put a hoist thingie in too!”
She bounces on her knees with all the cheerfulness of a child. I try for her sake to keep my expression from slipping, but… what? Dad hires someone to put his dock in—and beyond that, he doesn’t have a boat. Enough money to buy one, or two, or five, sure, but it’s been years since we went out on the water. I have no idea why he’d install a hoist.
Or, again, why someone else isn’t installing both .
“We are?” I ask. It seems like the most logical—and, frankly, honest—response.
Jolene’s head bobs in a nod. “Uh-huh. Are you excited? ‘Cause I am. Grandpa said we get to go to the marina after it’s all done, and that he’s gonna get a boat! Do you think he’ll let me drive? I’m very responsible. I watered all of Sydney’s plants for her yesterday. She wanted to let me have two muffins at the coffee shop, but Daddy said I couldn’t and then they kissed.”
Well, the marina thing answers one question.
“Sounds like fun,” I say lightly to mask my apprehension. “And you might be able to drive the boat when it’s parked at the dock.”
She laughs and scrambles off the chair when the door behind us slides open. “Daddy! Uncle Coat said I could drive Grandpa’s new boat when he gets it!”
“Uh, no, Uncle Coat did not say that,” I say, easing to my feet. My oldest brother has one brow raised in silent question, and I hold my hands up, palms out. “I said she could drive it while it’s at the dock . Big difference.”
Graham steps outside behind Jordan. “Is Collie being a bad influence again?”
I’m deeply grateful the comment goes over Jolene’s head. I will, however, be short-sheeting Graham’s bed for making the comment in the first place.
No.
Better yet, I’ll replace his milk with water and short-sheet his bed. Then I’ll lead him to believe it was Jordan. It can be payback for when he hid all of my t-shirts in his deep freezer last summer.
“Who’s ready to put this dock in?” Gran appears next, and I’m not sure which disturbs me more—her sequined shirt and safety goggles, or the drill in her hands. “The reward is a brand-new boat at your father’s expense, so let’s get this done!”
“Yeah, I’ll take this now. Nobody will be using a drill today.” Graham reaches for the drill when Gran presses the button and wiggles her brows. He glances at Jolene. “Your job, Jo-Bell, is to make sure GG stays well within the confines of the yard. Got it?”
Jolene wrinkles her nose. “But you already asked me to hand you nails.”
Graham snaps his fingers in an oh, shucks motion. “Shoot, you’re right.” He turns to Jordan. “You’re on babysitting duty, then, J-Lo.”
Jordan lifts an arm and flexes. “You’re saying you don’t want all this helping you?”
I shade my eyes and squint. “What’s all this? I just see a farmer’s tan and a disturbingly large freckle.”
“You wish you were funny,” Jordan retorts, “but you’re not.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” I drop my voice to a stage whisper. “Jojo is trying pretty hard to contain her laughter.”
Jolene giggles, but she slaps a hand over her mouth when she takes in her father’s arched brows. “No, I’m not!”
“Uh-huh, we’ll see about that.” Graham passes the drill off to Jordan before swinging Jolene into his arms sideways. “If you laugh, you’re going completely upside down like a monkey.”
“Ooh-ooh, ah-ah,” I tease.
“You be careful with her,” Gran scolds.
“Gran just wants a turn, too,” Jordan says.
Jolene bursts out laughing, and true to his word, Graham flips her upside down.
“Hey, party pe…ople?” Nash takes the deck stairs two at a time—because why come through the front door?—and his gaze toggles between us. “Is Dolly girl gonna try out for gymnastics or something?”
“No.” Jordan presses the drill into Nash’s hands and claps him on the shoulder. “But the last one here gets to babysit Gran. Good luck.”
Nash frowns down at the drill, then looks up questioningly. “What?”
“Don’t ask,” Graham and I say in unison.
To be completely honest, I kind of thought the whole we’re-gonna-put-the-dock-in thing was a charade to force me out of my funk.
It wasn’t.
We’re honest-to-God putting the dock in. Driving weathered white posts into the sandy lake floor, screwing the boards into place—the whole nine yards. And it is not going well. Probably because we’ve never done it before, and aside from Graham, we aren’t exactly handymen.
Dad is YouTubing tutorials while Jordan insists we’re installing the posts wrong. From her chair in the yard, Gran’s a backseat driver of the whole project, her hot pink sunglasses contrasting her coiffed white-blonde hair.
Knees in the damp grass, I lean back until my butt rests on my heels and lift the hem of my sweaty t-shirt to wipe my equally sweaty brow. We started an hour and a half ago, so you’d think we’d have at least half of it done.
Think again. We have two and a half posts in, and they might be installed incorrectly.
“I still think we need to drive them deeper into the ground,” Jordan says. He lifts his cap to scratch his head, then resettles it and studies the little progress we’ve made. “I mean, think about it this way: not only does it have to hold up through storms and people walking all over it, but it also has to sustain boats being tied to it.”
Graham frowns. “Isn’t that what the hoist is for?”
“Yeah, but you’re not gonna put it in the hoist if you just need to grab something real quick.” Jordan glances at our youngest brother. “Do Ember’s parents put their own docks in at the inn?”
“I think so. Why?”
Dad steps in when Jordan stares at Graham incredulously. “I think what your brother is trying to say is that we need help.”
“Here, here to that,” Gran calls, lifting her glass of ice water.
Nash coughs to hide his laugh. “I’d take offense to the insinuation, myself.”
Jordan points at me. “Don’t even think about saying it.”
“Saying what?” I feign complete nonchalance. “That I’d take—”
“Collie,” Jordan growls.
“—a post to it?” I finish, ducking out of the way when he tries to backhand me. “Get it? Because we’re driving posts into the ground?”
“If we didn’t get it,” Graham says dryly, pulling his phone out, “we’d all be as blond as Jordan.”
“Hey!” Indignation rings through Jordan’s voice.
Dad turns to Graham. “Would you mind calling Ember—or, I guess, her dad, to ask if he has any pointers? I’d be happy to pay him.”
“Does that mean you’ll pay me, too?” Jolene clasps her hands under her chin, swiveling back and forth. Her jacket is tied around her waist and one of her pigtails is lopsided; if Dad can tell her no, more power to him. “Please? I want to get my ears pierced, and it costs fifteen dollars, and Daddy says I can if I earn enough money. Don’t you want to help the needy?”
I stifle a laugh behind my hand.
“I said it’s a possibility,” Jordan corrects. “And you are not needy, Jolene Marie .”
“Uh-oh,” Graham says, lifting his brows. “He brought out the middle name, too.”
“Tell you what, kiddo,” Dad says, leaning his weight into the handle of a shovel, its nose in the soft earth. “If you help your Uncle Colton get snacks and water for everyone, I’ll give you five dollars towards your goal.”
Jolene’s blue eyes get big. “Really?”
Dad nods. “Really.”
“Oh, my gosh, c’mon, Uncle Coat!” Jolene tugs on my hand impatiently, her sneakers digging into the grass. “We gotta get snacks! And you’re taller than me, so you can reach Daddy’s Oreos from the top shelf!”
This time, Jordan must decide it’s not worth the fight to object because he says nothing. He just points at his eyes, then Jolene’s, before he mouths I love you to her. Jolene does the same, but she says the words slightly under her breath instead of silently, and I realize they’re saying olive juice. Because of course, they are.
My chest aches a little as I let Jolene tug me across the yard. I won’t ever have that—the inside jokes laced with bone deep child/parent affection—because I’m not a father. I’m not cut out for fatherhood, but I think what ifs will always run through my head.
What if I could’ve been a good dad? What if I get to the end of my life and I’m lonely because I don’t have a family of my own?
What if Cheyenne and I had worked out?
I have no business thinking such thoughts, but I’m only a man. I can’t help it. Grieving the loss of a person who’s still alive is perhaps one of the deepest, most incomprehensible griefs of them all.
“Okay, you gotta get the Oreos. I’ll get the water.” Jolene drops my hand once we’ve stepped through the sliding glass door into Dad’s house.
I blink to adjust my eyes, and I frown when I watch Jolene pull herself up onto the counter. “Woah, kid. Let’s use plastic cups, okay?”
Jolene looks at the real glasses she started pulling from the cupboard. “But these are like the cups Aunt Ember uses for her garden party book clubs.”
“Everyone’s all sweaty from working today,” I say, but I don’t miss how she refers to my brother’s fiancée as aunt , “so maybe we should save the garden party theme for after the dock is done. Then Ember can help with it since she’s so good at them.”
“Ooh, then Uncle Graham can make lemonade for it,” she exclaims, stuffing the glasses back in the cupboard. “Good idea! I’ll get the Soda cups from the stack in Grandpa’s office.”
Before I can ask why there’s a stack of, presumably, Solo cups in my dad’s office, Jolene takes off down the hallway. She tosses an, “I’m not running, I’m speedwalking!” over her shoulder, and I laugh to myself as I weave around the island.
I have no idea which cupboard Jordan keeps his Oreos in. I’m not familiar with Dad’s kitchen anymore. I came over today for the solace of the lake, but when I’m in town, I stay at Graham’s. It’s quiet, Graham is also quiet, and I don’t run into reminders of my not-so-idyllic childhood everywhere I turn.
I’ve just opened the fourth cupboard—neat rows of spices on one shelf, pancake mix on the other—when the doorbell echoes from the entryway. My first thought is that it might be Hazel Palmer, my dad’s neighbor and childhood sweetheart turned stranger turned soon-to-be fiancé, but she doesn’t knock. I don’t know the woman well. I just know she softens Dad’s rough edges and that he loves her, so I try to be happy for them.
Easier said than done when the parallels in my life are a little too similar.
“I’ll get it!” Jolene hollers.
“You don’t know who it—” By the time I’ve made it around the corner, Jolene has already flung the front door wide open. I stare at the person standing on the front porch. “ Indi?”
“Aunt Indi!” Jolene exclaims, nearly levitating with excitement. Whether from Dad’s promise of money or the reappearance of her aunt after nearly five months, I’m not sure. “You’re back! Grandpa’s gonna get a new boat!”
My sister offers Jolene a light smile, but it doesn’t reach the corners of her pale blue eyes like it should. Her blonde hair rests just below her slender shoulders, held back by sleek-looking black sunglasses, and she wears light gray cotton shorts with a cropped red tank top. My mother’s gold locket still rests on her collarbone, and she has the same determined tilt of her jaw, but it isn’t until she steps slightly to the side that I see him.
The little boy standing slightly behind Indi with a stuffed bear in his arms, pale blond curls around his ears and freckles dotting the bridge of his nose, a brown stain in the material of his tiny blue sweatshirt.
“Yeah,” Indi says softly, resting a hand on the boy’s shoulder, “I’m back.”