Their bed. When had he started thinking of it as their bed, and where was Josie—
Memories from last night flooded over him, intensifying the headache. He sat up fully then, grabbing his head on both sides.
“Mr. Prescott? You all right?”
It was Mac.
“Mr. Prescott was my father, and I’m nothing like him,” Beau answered, thinking of Josie’s words to him last night. He then pushed through the headache and asked, “Where’s Josie? I’ve got to talk to her.”
“I don’t know, sir. She didn’t answer her phone when I tried calling her after you passed out—”
“I passed out?”
“Yeah, you’re in a hotel room right now. The manager said your family was old friends of the owner.”
Beau nodded. It had been so long since he’d been out and about in Birmingham, he’d almost forgotten how many connections the Prescotts had.
He swung his feet over the side of the bed, ignoring the resulting hammer pounding inside his head, and flung himself out of the bed.
“Mr. Prescott, what are you doing?”
“I told you not to call me ‘Mr. Prescott.’” He had to find Josie. He had to—
He tripped over something bulky and unyielding. Then he cursed a blue streak when he landed, legs and arms akimbo on the floor. “What the ?” he yelled. “What the hell was that?”
“I think they’re called ottomans.”
“What’s it doing there in the middle of the room?”
“That’s where most folks keep ottomans, in the middle of the room.”
“Not at my house.”
“No, but that’s because, Josie…” Mac suddenly trailed off, as if saying Josie’s name out loud was verboten.
But Beau sat up and said. “Josie, what?”
“She told me not to tell you.”
“And you’re going to stick to that promise, because Josie was the one paying your salary? Oh, wait a minute. She wasn’t.”
Still, Mac sounded all kinds of hesitant when he said, “She did a few things over the last week to make you more comfortable at the house is all.”
“A few things like what?”
“You know, just a few things: pushed all the furniture up against the walls, replaced some of the bigger pieces with smaller ones so you wouldn’t stub your toes; put down carpet runners so it’d be easier for you get from place to place; put different air fresheners in different rooms, so you’d be able to smell which room was which; had all the hardwood floors carpeted when we were at our appointment in Birmingham; placed a white noise machine in your bathroom, so you’d instinctively know which way to go when you had to—well go; and put decorative gripping down in the tub, so you wouldn’t slip.”
Beau sat there frozen, his mouth hanging open.
Then Mac snapped his fingers. “Oh, and she also put magnet closures on all the drawers and cabinets, so you’d never walk into them. I think that’s all.”
“You still don’t deserve me,” he heard Josie say again.
And that’s when it hit him. Really hit him. Losing Josie to Colin Fairgood wasn’t bad. It was worse than that. In fact, it was the worst thing that had ever happened to him. Even worse than his blindness. Because Josie was the best thing that had ever happened to him. And all he had ever been was an to her, and now she was gone.
“Mac you’re married to somebody blind, right? All this stuff Josie did for me... did you do the same for your wife?”
“Truth be told, Josie gave me a few ideas,” Mac admitted.
“She wouldn’t have done all that if she didn’t care about me, would she?”
“No, sir, I don’t think she would have.”
“And I drove her away.”
Beau fell back on the floor.
“Sir, are you all right?” Mac asked above him.
“No,” Beau answered, his voice terse. A clear and bright image of Josie crying in his arms the day before came back to him. How could he have let himself get out of control like that? How could he have pulled all that shit last night? How could he have been so blind in every sense of the word?
Josie had been right. About him. About everything. He didn’t blame her for going off with Fairgood, because he’d made one thing more than clear last night. He still didn’t come anywhere close to deserving her.
He set his jaw. “Mac,” he said. “I’ll take that help up now.”
Mac must have been standing above him the whole time, because he grabbed his arm and helped him stand up. And by the time he made it to his feet, the pounding headache was gone, almost as if it had been waiting for him to come to his senses before it let up.
“Tell me this,” he said to Mac. “If I wanted to figure out how to get rid of you, how would I go about doing that?”
“Are you asking how to fire me again, sir?” Mac asked.
“No, I’m asking how to make it so I don’t need you to get stuff done anymore.”
Mac still sounded confused when he answered. “Well, a lot of blind people live on their own. Hell, my wife could probably do it without me if she really wanted to, but that would mean you’d actually have to go about learning all that stuff you said you didn’t want to learn.” Something finally seemed to click for Mac and he said, “Wait up, are you saying you want me to teach you how to get around by yourself? Like a real blind person?”
Beau rubbed the back of his neck, feeling more than sheepish that he’d refused to put himself in that category when they’d first met. But he manned up and answered, “Yeah. Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m saying.”
CHAPTER 21
Six months later
“YOU SURE ABOUT THIS MAN?” Mac asked when they pulled up to the Birmingham Grand six months later.
“More sure than I’ve ever been of anything in my life?” Beau answered.
Mac shook his head. Beau knew this because he could hear the sound of the man’s beard rubbing against his shirt. “Just the last time you were in this place, I ended up having to peel you off the bar floor.”
Beau stroked his chin, which he’d shaved this morning all by himself. It wasn’t the first time he’d done so, but it was the first time he’d gotten the job done without nicking himself or Mac having to wipe up any blood afterwards, so he’d been humming the Rocky theme rather triumphantly in his head all morning.
“I’ll be all right,” he told Mac.
He put his hand on the door handle and prepared to exit the car, but Mac said, “I could come with you.” He sounded less like the man who had been brutally training him to navigate in the real world and more like a fretful parent.
“I promise, I won’t pass out this time.”
“Yeah, but…”
He carefully turned his face toward Mac’s voice. “Mac, you’ve been training me for this moment for months now. Either you think I can do it or you don’t.”
The sound of Mac’s beard rubbing against his shirt came again, but eventually he said. “Okay, but don’t punch anybody out this time.”
He couldn’t quite promise that, so instead he opened the car door and boldly stepped out into the Alabama sunshine. It was early on in the summer, not to hot, not to cold. A perfect day. Maybe that was a good sign.
“Can I help you?” he heard a doorman say in the distance.
But waved him off. “I’m fine,” he said. Then he made sure his Bluetooth earpiece was secure before pulling out a device about the size of a pocket flashlight and running his thumb over a few braille buttons until he came to the one marked “on.” Pushing the button activated a green laser beam that turned the device into the high-tech version of a traditional white cane. It delivered information about possible barriers and distances back to him through his Bluetooth device. He could also use the camera inside the main body of the device to do practical things, like scan barcodes, count money, and even “read” back words on packaging, books, or just about anything else.
According to the entrepreneur who’d met with him to pitch the “eye saber,” this device was at the cutting-edge of low-vision technology and it would revolutionize the way the blind got around.
But Mac, who’d accompanied him to the meeting, had been more concerned with how cool it looked. “It’s like a light saber!” he said with such awe in his voice that Beau could easily imagine the little Stars Wars fan boy lurking inside of the older man.
A memory of all the times he and Josie had watched the original Star Wars trilogy together when they were kids came back to him, and that was all it took for him to agree to make a sizeable investment in the entrepreneur’s start-up.
And now the “eye saber” was leading him back to Josie. The soft, computer voice spoke gently in his ear: “Check-in desk, approximately ten steps to your right.”