Page 19 of Preacher

“Bills. Mortgage. Groceries.” I jerked my chin toward him. “How long you been the one keeping the lights on?”

He blinked at me like the question had short-circuited something. Then he looked back at the sky, and I watched his throat work around a swallow.

“Since I was seventeen.”

Christ.

“That’s a long time, Trent.”

“It’s not that bad. Maria pitches in. She slips money in my drawer. She just—” He shrugged again, that same too-high motion. “She doesn’t talk to me. Hasn’t since Mom died. I think looking at me reminds her of stuff she’d rather forget. I look like our mom.”

There it was. Build the case, make it make sense, don’t let it hurt. I saw right through the excuse he’d probably repeated a million times to convince himself things were fine.

He said it without bitterness. Like he’d long since worked out a reason for everyone in his life that let him down. The human had a real talent for explaining away the people who’d failed him.

I wasn’t going to be one of them. He just didn’t know that yet.

“What about you?” Trent rolled his head toward me again. “Or is the interrogation a one-way street?”

“Wasn’t an interrogation.”

“Felt like one.”

“Felt like a conversation.”

“Same thing, with you.” He arched one eyebrow, and there was that flicker of fire Crowbar had clocked in the truck. “You’re asking things like a guy used to getting answers.”

I huffed. “Fair.”

“So.” He gestured lazily with the beer bottle. “Your turn. Family. Go.”

I considered how much to give him. Not the truth. Not yet. But enough he’d stop feeling like he was the only one bleeding at the table.

“My mother’s still alive. Lives about an hour north.” I tipped my beer toward the woods. “Quiet woman. Reads a lot. Calls me every Sunday and pretends she’s not checking up on me.”

“That’s sweet.”

“Don’t tell her I said that. She’s got a reputation to protect.”

The corner of Trent’s mouth twitched. The bruise pulled with it, and I had to look away from his jaw before my hand decided to reach over there on its own.

“Father?”

“Gone.” I took a sip. “Long time.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be. He was a good man. Lived a good life. Got more than most people get.” That was the truth, even if the rest of the picture wasn’t anything I could lay out for him under firelight with a beer in his hand.

“Siblings?”

“One sister. She’s down in South Carolina with a husband and two kids who climb me like a tree every time I show up.” I let the smile show. Damn pups made me feel like a superhero, visiting or just a call. “She’s the only person on the planet who can still make me eat my vegetables.”

Trent snorted. “I’d pay to see that.”

“Don’t tempt me. She’d have you set up at her dinner table inside an hour, you telling her every embarrassing thing about me you can come up with.”

He frowned. “I don’t know any embarrassing things about you.”