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“Hey, son!” Dad’s happy voice hit my ear almost immediately. The music in the background was an obnoxious instrumental version of “Arms Wide Open.”
“Are you at a bar?”
Dad hummed. “We’re at the Rum Bar. I just got a Rum Espresso Martini, and it’s delicious. Next time you come down with us, you gotta try it.”
I rolled my eyes. “I take it Key West is still good?”
“Mm.” I could tell he was downing part of his drink. “But there’s a hurricane predicted for next week. ’Tis the season. I knew it was a risk booking now. We’ll be cutting this short by a couple of days. I hope now that you’ve found financial success on your own, you’ll still have time to pick your old man up from the airport and have dinner with him.” He chuckled. “Your mother has some friend she wants to visit in New Mexico before she comes home.”
At the mention of Mom, my stomach curdled. “Hey, Dad, do you remember Tav? Tavish? His mother was?—”
“Yeah! Tavish Greer. He was a good kid. Oh, boy, you moped around for a year after he broke up with you. Almost two, actually. I wanted to get you a therapist, but your mother said that was for Vert Island kids who didn’t have to work for their money. Could I get a refill? Thanks,” he said, and I assumed he was talking to the bartender.
“Dad.” I groaned.
“You know, I took a Scottish woman on a date once when I was in Europe at a convention. I wasn’t cheating on your mother. It was totally friendly. She had the most amazing?—”
“Dad! How hard have you been hitting the booze?”
He snickered. “I am a firm believer in the vacation buzz.”
Rubbing my temple hard, I glared at the dashboard. “Did you know Mom bribed him to go away? Tav, I mean.”
There was silence on his end, except for the background noise of the music and the hum of other customers at the bar. “You’re talking about the Scottish boy whose mother worked in the house? The one you dated? You took him out on the lake in our boat a couple of times?”
My face heated as I remembered what we’d done on the boat. Tav had been my first everything. “Dad, he’s an adult now. But yeah.”
“Well, I’ll be damned.” I wasn’t sure if he was surprised by the fact that people grew up or that Mom would do something awful.
I smacked my hand on the dashboard. “Did you know?”
“No, son, I didn’t,” he said, and for what it was worth, he sounded sad about it.
“Put Mom on,” I snarled.
He hissed, a slow exhale through his teeth that grated on my nerves. “This isn’t something you want to do on the phone.”
“I found Tav again, and I’m fucking keeping him. Get her on the goddamned phone.”
Dad was quiet for a time, and my anger began to boil. I wasn’t exactly mad at him, but I was pissed off that he was dragging his feet.
“Your mother isn’t a people person, you know? She likes her job, hates the peons. She always thinks people are out to get us. I think it’s partly from her job. I?—”
“Dad, there’s no defending this. Is she with you?”
“Sure. She’s on her laptop at a table. Let me get her. You can hash this out with her. Tav’s doing okay, is he?” The noise shifted, and I guessed he was probably walking over to Mom.
“He’s going to be fine,” I said, staring at the trailer. “I’ll make sure of it.”
“I love you, kid. Here’s Mom.”
There was the noise of a fumbled handoff. “Really? You’re drunk already. It isn’t even five o’clock yet.” She huffed. “Judah? You don’t interrupt vacations. Is there an emergency?” Her voice was crisp and she clearly hadn’t been drinking.
“Bet you’ll think so,” I said, not bothering to hold in anything I was feeling. I let my anger ooze out of me. “Guess who rear-ended my car the other day.”
She gasped. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Guess.”
