Stef Ann Holm by Lucy Back (books to read in your 30s TXT) 📗

He didn’t want to know, didn’t care. The fact was she wanted to come.

“I want to be there as soon as I can,” Mackenzie said, a waver in her tone. “Please.”

“All right. We’ll get it all arranged. I’ll take care of it. I can’t wait to see you.”

After a few minutes talking with his daughter, he disconnected the call.

He exhaled softly, grinning so widely he couldn’t stop it if he’d wanted to. Looking up, he realized he wasn’t alone. He’d forgotten about Jacquie and Lucy.

The two of them—so different from one another—stared at him and he couldn’t guess their thoughts.

Funny how the women in Drew’s life had a strange way of all being there at the same time.

Fifteen

Jason delivered his mom’s food to the Sunrise Trail Creek old people home. This was his third trip here and he thought it smelled like mold and something dying or dead.

He didn’t like this place.

His mom had dropped him off and he had to stay and help in the kitchen. He thought they would have their own cooks for this sort of thing, so why his mom was volunteering to provide food he didn’t know. The residents liked his mom. They smiled when she came in.

Momentarily, he wondered just how many people lived here. When he got old, he didn’t want to live in a place like this where it smelled gross—like B.O. and medicine combined.

Maybe it wasn’t that bad, but he just didn’t want to be here. When he turned eighteen, he was so moving back to Boise.

Little League ate up a lot of his day. And since starting “work” at the Sunrise, he had no time to himself. He’d also got that busboy job at Woolly Burgers. That one, he didn’t mind. It was cash-o-lah in his pocket. He worked there four days a week, and had to come here a couple times a week.

He had no effing life. That made his mom happy.

At least he was definitely trying. He hadn’t been smoking any dope. When he was done with work, he waited for his mom to pick him up and take him home. Too tired from being at baseball, Woolly’s and here, he didn’t have the energy to track down the local supplier.

If only he could get out of doing this food delivery for his mom. It was really not something he could get used to. Old people freaked him out.

Not his grandma and grandpa, though. They were cool. When he and Matt and Mom had lived in Boise, Grandpa and Grandma would drive their motor home to visit them and park it in the front yard. They’d hook up to the electric, and he and Matt got to stay with them overnight. It was like camping on their block. Jason missed their old house and everyone in the neighborhood. The skateboard ramp, the basketball hoop in the driveway and his old school.

Red Duck was a po-dunk town.

After Jason finished in the kitchen he wandered out front to wait for his mom. When the receptionist saw him, she waved him over.

“Jason, your mother called.” The lady had big hair and pink fingernails. “She’s running late and said for you to sit tight and she’ll be here as soon as she can.”

Frowning, Jason stuffed his hands into his pockets and went to look out the front window. The only thing that kept him from losing it was the fact that this volunteer stuff she was making him do would pay off and get him his truck back.

He waited until he got bored, then wandered out the doors and onto the porch that ran around the building. The heat outside felt good after being in the AC. Following the cement walk along the side, where a bunch of flowers grew, he held back when he saw a woman crying. And pretty hard.

She was with another lady. He knew who she was. Her name was Spin. She’d been featured on the television for living to be over a hundred years old without croaking.

When the tall, crying lady turned, Jason recognized her from that day in Opal’s when they had just arrived in town. He couldn’t remember her name. She was Drew’s girlfriend. Or something. Jason had seen her with him before.

She was kind of pretty, but she wore a lot of makeup. Black stuff smudged beneath her eyes. She had a tissue and she blew her nose, then said a four-letter word he’d never heard an adult say. At least his mom had never used it.

Jason inched closer, hiding behind a potted fern on the porch.

“That bastard is already taking up with two women before the sheets have even cooled down.” The woman sniffled into her Kleenex, her shoulders slumped. “I mean, I know I was the one who screwed up, but still. For chrissake…”

Spin stood pretty tall for someone over a hundred. Confusion about her name gave him pause. It made him think of the spin cycle on his mom’s washing machine, and he couldn’t figure out why someone would name their kid after a washing machine.

Spin put her arm around Drew’s girlfriend. “Jacquie, you’ve got to knock this shit off. First of all, it takes two to blame, so you are not the only guilty party. And second of all, the man isn’t worth it.”

Jacquie’s chin lifted. “How do you know? Sex is worth a lot, Spin. Forgive me, but you probably don’t remember what it’s like.”

“Oh, hell yes, I do. Wally and I went at it all the time.”

Jason grimaced. He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear this. The visual made him a little queasy. He knew exactly what sex was. Brian, his friend in Boise, had a porno DVD they got from a kid at school and they’d watched it. Gross. Awkward watching that stuff with another dude. They had only lasted about five minutes before turning it off and saying it was sick. But Jason had thought about what he’d seen.

Sex was kind of weird. He’d