71. Chapter 71
“You’d better not be naked.”
Graham slid his feet a few inches to the left to make room for Jase’s massive form. This was, quite likely, the same tent they’d used as boys, and their dad hadn’t taken into account how much they’d grown in twenty-some years.
“Calm your tits, I’ve got shorts on,” Graham said. “You’re one to talk, walking around the house with your balls hanging out.”
Jase zipped the door closed and said, “It was laundry day.”
“Sure.” Graham stretched out on his sleeping bag and something hard dug into his back. Had they pitched the tent on a rock? “You got anything to drink?”
“Just the water. It was the only thing on the list.”
The instructions were specific that they were only allowed items they camped with when they were kids: water bottles, two flashlights, a board game, a bag of potato chips, and their sleeping bags and pillows.
There was a bag of chips taking up room in the corner with the water they probably wouldn’t drink.
Graham reached under his sleeping bag and found the silver flash he’d hidden there. So, not a rock, then.
Jase stopped fluffing his pillow and asked, “What’s this?”
Graham took a drink and screwed the cap back on. “I’m about ninety-nine percent certain we snuck some of dad’s booze last time.”
“If we did, we probably would’ve made it the whole night, so dad didn’t know we were liquored up,” Jase said. “Screw it.”
He swiped the flask from Graham and drank.
“You think he doesn’t expect us to sneak some bourbon in? He left enough of it lying around,” Graham said.
“You’re probably right.”
“Damn right I’m right.” He accepted the flask back from Jase and took another sip. “We’ve never followed all his rules. What makes him think we’ll follow them to the letter now?”
“Millions of dollars is a hell of an incentive.”
“More than the belt he always threatened.”
“And never actually used.”
“Yep.” Graham sipped again and folded his arms behind his head. “One night.”
“A bitch of a night for it, too,” Jase complained.
“I’ve got to say, I’m impressed. I didn’t know it was in you.”
“What?”
“The show you put on. Go figure—you declare your love for one woman, and it makes all the other ones want you even more. How does that even work?”
Jase reached for the flask. “Just lucky, I guess.”
They were quiet for a while, the night sounds outside the tent taking over. It was no wonder they’d pussed out as kids with all the chirps and howls and scratching on the other side of the thin nylon walls.
“Will you listen to those frogs?” Graham murmured.
“You ever think about kids?” Jase asked out of nowhere.
“Kids?” Graham asked.
“Yeah. Are you having any?”
He’d barely snagged the fiancée. Kids? Graham sat up, already sticky with sweat and sore from the ground, and reached behind them to unzip the tent’s only window. The flap fell in Jase’s face.
“Watch it,” he said, batting it away.
“It’s hot as balls in here,” Graham said.
“So, are you thinking one or two? Or does Helen want a whole brood?”
“What? No.” He stopped dicking with the flap and unscrewed the flask for a nip of the bourbon that would heat his already simmering blood. It also might soften the edges of the gaping hole Jase unearthed in his future. “I don’t know, all right? We’ve never talked about it.”
“I’m no expert on relationships,” Jase said after a pause.
Graham snorted. “Clearly.”
“Aren’t kids the kind of thing people figure out before they get hitched? Kind of a big thing?”
“None of this was exactly planned. I guess it slipped our minds.”
“What about the first time around?”
Graham pulled his knees up and let his arms dangle over them. “We never even talked about getting married,” he admitted. “If we did, it was never serious.”
Jase sipped and dropped the flask that would be empty soon on the floor between them. “Chloe wants to know if I’m going to be a dad.”
“Isn’t that why you’re taking a test?”
“No.” Jase shook his head. “The test is to tell me if it’s my kid. If it is mine, she wants to know if I’m going to be there. How…a dad would be.”
“As opposed to, what?”
“A bankroll.”
“Ah.” Graham nodded. “What’d you say?”
“I don’t know. I never thought about kids—never thought it would come up.”
“I’m surprised it hasn’t.” Graham smirked.
“Denise had a kid.”
“Dad’s nurse?” Graham asked with a drink.
“A boy. He was…cool.”
“What does Lindsey think about you being a dad?”
“She just started talking to me again,” he huffed. “You think I want to ask her how she feels about it? No, thank you.”
Graham shrugged. “You might not be terrible at it. You know, if you stuck around.”
“If I moved to California, you mean?”
“Sure. Why not?”
“Lindsey’s here.”
“That matters to you now?”
“I didn’t just go on display tonight because it doesn’t matter. It matters.”
“You just don’t know how much?”
Jase swiped the flask back from Graham and said darkly, “We’re going to need more bourbon.”