The Sleepover Surveillance Committee
Dawson
Lockhart family dinners were a weekly ritual of smoking meat, laughter, and my brothers’ shit-talking one-upmanship.
It was just the six of us this week—Mom, Dad, and my three younger brothers, no strays my mom had hired and therefore adopted into our family.
Well, no human strays. Minnie was there, curled up in my mom’s lap, sound asleep.
As soon as the vet told me Minnie would need to be bottle-fed every two to three hours, I knew Mom was going to ‘volunteer’ to help out, and I would have no choice but to surrender the kitten.
Mom’s maternal instinct was too strong, especially when bottles were involved.
But hey, if it got her off my back from talking about grandkids, then it was worth it.
Rex, Ranger, Duchess, and Lady were all in their normal begging spots, at Mom’s feet.
They were getting extra bites since she had Minnie on her lap.
Banjo was on his perch on the top of the bookshelf with his catnip.
The dining room smelled like barbecue coals and unfinished business, and the old trestle table, refinished so many times it had practically lived a dozen lives, felt smaller than usual.
Dean was beside me. Damon and Dylan sat across from us.
Dad was at one end already deep into his second bourbon, Mom at the other working through an iced tea that held more lemon than the produce section at Fred Meyer.
We tore into our steaks with the hunger of men who’d spent eight hours wrangling animals and hauling fence posts, which was fine by me.
Chewing gave me something to do besides talk.
Conversation bounced around the table with the usual chaos, Damon and Dylan conducting their own running commentary in a coded language of insults and comebacks.
Dean fired off sports trivia in the hope that someone would finally admit he was right about the 1995 Rose Bowl, and I tried to disappear into my food.
Dad’s phone buzzed on the table, he excused himself to take the call and no one batted an eye.
Chuck Lockhart was all business all the time.
His idea of work-life balance was that he lived to work.
Within a few minutes, he was back and focused entirely on slicing his steak into perfectly symmetrical cubes.
It was Mom who finally steered the ship into rougher water. She fixed her gaze on me with those intense mossy green eyes, the ones you couldn’t look away from without feeling like you’d failed a test you didn’t know existed. “Dawson, honey, have you heard anything more about Buddy?”
I swallowed hard, the hunk of ribeye momentarily stuck in my throat. “Yeah. He’s been moved out of ICU. They’ve got him in a regular room now.”
Mom let out a little sigh, relief laced with skepticism. “That’s good. Really good. So you’ve been to see him then?”
The question hovered over the table like a wasp. I felt everyone’s attention shift in my direction, even Damon and Dylan, whose mouths were stuffed with potatoes.
I cleared my throat. “He just got moved out of ICU so he can see visitors today.” I emphasized the timeline, as if that had contributed to me not going to see him. It hadn’t.
She pursed her lips with a look I’d seen a thousand times, the one that meant she wanted to believe me but suspected there was more to the story. “Good, so you can go see him tomorrow. You two always had a special bond.”
I nodded, keeping my eyes on the plate. “I’ll try to stop by next week.”
I lied. Nobody called me on it, not even Dad, who was usually the first to call bullshit on his sons.
His phone buzzed again. Standing abruptly, he excused himself, muttering something about a call he’d been waiting for.
He left his bourbon behind this time, which told me the call was either important or unwelcome.
The truth of why I wasn’t going to visit Buddy was a tangled mess, the kind you could chase down a hundred different backroads and still not ever find your way clear.
I’d avoided visiting him in the hospital for several reasons.
One, because I couldn’t stand the idea of seeing him laid up and helpless, tubes and beeping machines replacing his old cackling laugh and the smell of Copenhagen chew and bacon grease that always seemed to cling to him.
I’d grown up with the myth of Buddy Shepard, the guy who could outshoot, outdrink, and outwork any man in three counties.
But seeing your hero immortalized in a hospital gown, with their spitfire dimmed to a flicker, was not a thing I was built for.
Of course, that wasn’t the only reason. There was the matter of the letters.
Buddy had always been a larger-than-life instigator, but I never expected him to play God with someone else’s life—especially not mine and his granddaughter’s.
I still remember the day I’d gone to the farm to beg him to tell me where she was.
It was only a week after she left. He told me to write to her, and he’d make sure that she got the letters.
But he never did. The betrayal stung like a hornet’s nest upended in your lap. The knowledge that she’d spent years thinking I’d just shut her out, that I’d ghosted her without a word, killed me.
So no, I hadn’t visited Buddy. I was scared of what I would say if I did. I knew it didn’t matter what he’d done. I could tell myself I wouldn’t bring it up, but he knew me well, and I had no poker face to speak of, which was a recipe for disaster. So, I was keeping my distance. For now.
“Sadie’s got everything under control,” I told my mom, picking up my fork and nudging a chunk of potato through the gravy like it was some piece on a chessboard. “She’s always been better at wrangling him than I ever was.”
Dean arched an eyebrow. “She get him to eat that protein mush they’re feeding him? Last I heard, he was chucking applesauce at the wall and threatening to take the whole staff hostage unless they smuggled in a cheeseburger.”
Dad, who’d just settled back into his chair with a fresh pour of bourbon, barked a laugh. “That old bastard’s not going soft yet. Give it another week, he’ll have the whole cardiac wing eating out of his hand.”
Mom looked at me, skeptical and hopeful in that way she did when she was trying to will good news into existence. “Even still, you need to go see him. He didn’t have a son, and he was always fond of you.”
Was he? I would say his actions said otherwise, not that I would bring that up here.
I nodded, but the wordless agreement was nothing more than a truce, a promise to consider her request. I changed the topic the only way I knew how, by tossing the conversational grenade over to Dean.
“Hey, you hear from Gen about that bachelor auction?”
Dean nodded, I could see he was about as happy to be paraded as a piece of meat as I was. “Yeah, since the Valentine brothers are all married or engaged, it seems we are now the most eligible men of Valentine Bay.”
“Please, we always were,” Damon said, rolling his eyes in his trademark slow-motion way that was half ironic, half deadly serious. “Gen’s already asked me to be the headliner. She knows I’ll be the obvious crowd favorite.”
“Obvious to who?” Dylan chimed in, snorting into his iced tea. “Only thing you’re headlining is the Most Arrests at a Small-Town fundraiser. You’re only famous because every sheriff’s deputy in three counties knows your cell number.”
“Jealousy isn’t a good look on you, Dyl. Besides, it was one time. I got arrested one time at a fundraiser.” Damon held his pointer finger in the air, demonstrating the number one. “The charges were dropped and I was a minor so it’s not on my record.”
Damon got arrested by Deputy Miller for underage drinking when he caught him with a wine cooler. But what he really got in trouble for was getting caught messing around with Alexa Miller, Deputy Miller’s daughter.
“And if I remembered correctly, the last date you had brought her Mommy and Daddy for backup,” Damon shot back referring to last year when Dylan was talked into going on a blind date and ended up on a double date with a girl and her parents at a $1000 a plate charity gala.
The youngest Lockhart brothers’ one-upmanship could power a small city for a week, but tonight it worked as a kind of white-noise distraction that kept the focus off me. I took another bite, chewed slowly, and let the background bantering work its magic.
Mom cut in, her voice soft but insistent. “Speaking of dates, Dawson, how’s things with Angie?”
I sighed, the question landing with the weight of a sandbag. “We’re not seeing each other anymore.” I tried to keep my tone neutral, but there was an undercurrent of relief I couldn’t hide.
Mom’s whole face lit up. “Really? Oh, honey, that’s—well, I’m just glad you’re focusing on yourself a little. You deserve someone who puts you first.”
Dad grunted. “Himself? Hasn’t he been shacking up with Sadie again? That’s what you said, Sel.”
A fork clattered to the table as every head swiveled in my direction. Mom reached over and smacked Dad on the shoulder. “Chuck!”
He winced, rubbing his arm. “What? Just this mornin’, you came in hollerin’ that he came over after midnight and didn’t leave until four in the mornin’. Hell, even Grace at Main Street Eats mentioned it when I saw her while I was picking up lunch.”
Shit. Valentine Bay gossip pipeline was faster than fiber optic. If Grace knew, then that meant at least half of Valentine Bay did. I didn’t care for myself, but I was worried it would make Sadie take a step back, I was trying not to put pressure on her since I didn’t have a leg to stand on.
I wanted to believe that folks would mind their own business, but if my mom’s reaction was anything to go by, that would not be the case. She looked almost giddy, like she’d been rooting for this since the day Sadie left town. I didn’t want her to get ahead of herself.
“You and Sadie, is it serious?” she asked, patting a slumbering Minnie on her tiny backside.
I didn’t know what to say. I barely knew what it was myself. The only thing I did know was that every time I saw her, it was like waking up from a coma and remembering your own name. “We’re figuring it out,” I said, my voice quieter than I meant it to be.
Dean smirked. “She’s definitely putting you through your paces. Saw her driving Herbie. Damon said you got it running for her again after you spent hours fixing up Buddy’s place.”
“She got Herbie?” Damon questioned. “I thought I saw her running this morning.”
I shrugged. “She ran to the farm and drove it back.”
Damon grinned. “You left before sunrise, and she had enough energy to go for a run.” He shook his head slowly and tsked three times. “You are giving the Lockhart men a bad name, if I spent the night with he—”
“Do not finish that sentence.” I shot him a death glare.
And just like that, the conversation pivoted.
Damon was a shit stirrer, but he didn’t have a death wish.
He hopped on the auction topic, still trying to wind me up but not to the point that I was homicidal.
“Do you think Angie will bid on me? You know, now that she got the warm-up brother out of the way, she’ll be ready for the main event. ”
Dean, the more serious of the brothers, shook his head. “I think she’s dating that guy from the Chamber of Commerce. The one with the gelled hair who wears vests and rides a Harley.”
She was. We weren’t exclusive.
“I think she’ll bid just to mess with Dawson’s head,” Dylan predicted, his tone conspiratorial. “And then she’ll make you carry her purse for the rest of the night.”
“Joke’s on her,” I said, deadpan. “He can’t even carry his own wallet, much less a purse.”
Dad set down his glass with a clink, shooting me a look of rough sympathy.
He was always a few beats behind in any conversation we were having.
Usually, one to two topic lag time. “You know, it takes guts to admit you’re wrong.
Or to admit you got your heart stomped. But it takes real guts to get back up and try again, son. ”
Right, so he was still talking about Sadie despite us moving on.
There was a pause, the kind that might have turned sentimental or confrontational if not for Damon, who never let a moment go un-heckled. “So are you going to ask Sadie to marry you on the auction stage or at the closing fireworks for the biggest crowd?”
I wanted to marry Sadie, and I would do anything to make that happen, but asking her in front of the entire town when she hated any attention being drawn to her was the absolute worst idea in the world.
I glared at him. “I’d rather eat a live rattlesnake.”
Damon grinned. “I’m sure she can have that arranged, you know, for your penance.”
Even Mom laughed at that, her emerald eyes crinkling at the corners. It was the sound of home, the kind of laughter that made every other misery seem small. I wished I could bottle it for the days when everything felt like a fight.
As the plates emptied and the stories grew taller—Damon’s latest rodeo mishap, Dylan’s failed attempt to build a trebuchet out of scrap metal, Dean’s newest coaching disaster at the high school—the rough edges of the day started to smooth out.
We were a noisy bunch, sometimes too loud for our own good, but it was better than the silence that waited outside these walls.
We started to clear the table when Damon asked, “Okay, so just to save Mom having to live tweet with updates are you having another sleepover with Sadie tonight or taking the night off?”
Muffled and scattered laughter came from Dylan and Dean as I firmly stated, “This family needs to set some healthy boundaries.”
There was a three second pause before my brothers dissolved into fits of laughter. I wasn’t joking, but that fact only made them laugh harder.