Somethin' About That Boy

I nodded.

“Your mother. When she visited me in the hospital,” he said. “I saw that same fuckin’ fear on her face that I saw on Banner’s after you were hurt. He loves you, kid. He loves you a lot.”

I closed my eyes. “I love him, too.”

“Then don’t be stupid,” he told me bluntly.

I swallowed hard.

“Dad, it’s a year and a half at least. Maybe even two. This isn’t something that I can just say, ‘hey, let’s do this.’ What if in that time he changes his mind?” I asked.

“What if he doesn’t?”

With that parting comment, he got up off the couch. “I’m headed to bed. I have an early shift tomorrow.” He looked at me then. “Will you run to Walmart and get me some stuff? I know you’re restless now, and retail therapy makes you happy.”

I snorted. “You’re nuts.”

He winked. “Where do you think you get it from?” He laughed. “And I can afford retail therapy at Walmart. I can’t when you go to Dillard’s.”

I rolled my eyes hard. “Whatever, Dad.”Chapter 26

Cancel my subscriptions. I’m done with your issues.

-Banner’s secret thoughts

Banner

I didn’t bother knocking.

Instead, I climbed up to her bedroom window and climbed inside.

Luckily, the damn thing was still unlocked from the last time I’d done it.

Unluckily, Dawson was sitting on the bed waiting for me.

He looked at me like I was a pain in the ass kid that was trying his patience.

“When Perry was four,” he said, looking at me. “She told me that her heart fell in love with me the first time that she saw me.”

My heart tugged at his words.

“Perry falls fast and hard,” he said.

I nodded.

“She loves hard. She holds on until the last dying breath.” He laughed. “She got a puppy when she was eight. A black basset hound mutt dog that was elderly. She had it a year before the dog started to go downhill. Heart problems here. Breathing problems there. Walking problems next. Incontinence. But she held onto that dog. Cared for it like it was her only lot in life, until it died six weeks later. And she didn’t even wake me up. I found her an hour past dawn burying him in the back yard. She’d dug him a hole with a fuckin’ garden trowel. Buried him. Even made him a grave marker.”

I felt my heart ache for her eight-year-old self.

“I’m not going to leave her. I’m not going to change my mind when it comes to her,” I promised.

Dawson grinned at me. “She’s getting me a couple of groceries from Walmart.”

I grinned back. “I’ll go.”

When I headed to the window, he said, “Take the stairs, kid. Ask my girl for a key. I don’t want you sneaking into my house anymore. And for God’s sake, don’t leave your car at the church anymore. There’s been a lot of break-ins lately, and I’d hate for that pretty car of yours to get stolen or trashed when you could just park it in our driveway.” He paused. “And I’m putting the window sensor back on tomorrow. If you open it without deactivating the alarm first, it’ll go off.”

With that parting comment, he got up and walked out, leaving me alone in his daughter’s bedroom.

The drive to Walmart took less than five minutes.

The funny thing was, it took longer to go down the stairs and out the front door since I had to wait for him to unlock it and deactivate the alarm than it would have had he just allowed me to go out the window.

It was only after I was driving that I realized how he’d known.

The alarm.

It had to be deactivated each time that someone went in and out, and I knew that Perry had her own code.

There was no way in hell he wouldn’t have noticed all those deactivation and reactivation messages.

I’d seen the alert on his phone as he deactivated it, making me feel like a fool.

I was fucking grinning when I walked into Walmart.

I wasn’t grinning when I circled the store twice without finding her, even though I’d gone out into the parking lot upon my second sweep to make sure her mom’s car was still there.

I knew she was there somewhere.

I just didn’t know where.

I turned to survey the employees.

It was late and there wasn’t anyone there but one chick manning the self-checkouts, and one older gentleman manning the ten items or less checkout across the entire store.

I pulled out my phone and called her for it to go straight to voicemail for the fifteenth time in the last hour.

I growled and texted her, hoping to hear it somewhere beyond where I was standing, but again, no luck.

I narrowed my eyes and once again looked at the woman at the self-checkout.

Then I made an ass out of myself.

I started screaming ‘MARCO!’ at the top of my lungs.