Page 120 of The Man I Hate

His gaze fell to the ground between his feet. When he looked up, he bore an odd sense of content. “I’m going to guess it was with you and your brother. Two days before you left for boot camp.”

It was the last time I could recall seeing my brother alive. I was sure I saw him between our coastal drive and when I left for basic training, but my mind had no recollection of it.

Recalling the trip along the coast was easy. The four of us sat in silence, taking everything in until we reached San Clemente, at which point we ate dinner together at a local Mexican restaurant.

I gazed blankly beyond Hap, at the ocean. The meal was the last time we’d eaten together as a family.

“Remember Brandon betting me he could eat that hot pepper?” I asked. “Spit the fucker out and ran to the bathroom after one bite?”

“Drank half a gallon of milk trying to make that burn go away,” Hap said with a laugh. “What kind of brother dares his only sibling to eat an entire habanero, anyway?”

I shifted my focus from the coast to Hap. “That was a good trip.”

“One of my favorites,” he agreed.

I nodded in agreement. “Last time we were—”

I paused, not knowing what I intended to say.

Hap cleared his throat. “Let’s get this show on the road. If we don’t, we won’t be home ‘till dark.”

We continued south, slowing to take photos of the Bixby Bridge. We gawked at Big Sur’s beauty, admired the rock formations off the coast of San Luis Obispo, and paused to take in the sand dunes at Montaña de Oro State Park. Morrow Bay and Morrow Rock caused Anna to shed another tear.

It seemed if she wasn’t crying, she was snapping pictures with her cell phone, hoping to keep them to jog her memory at some point in the future.

I glanced in the rearview mirror, at Hap. “Did you keep all the pictures you took of us on that trip?”

“When we drove this the last time?” he asked.

I nodded.

“Sure did. Have ‘em at home,” he replied. “Maybe we could grab ‘em when we’re that way.”

“I’d like that.”

Anna patted her hand against my right thigh. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

Anna glanced over her shoulder. “How has Marge been?”

“Why don’t you tell me?” Hap grunted. “You’re the one that’s over there all afternoon.”

“I go over there for an hour,” she rebutted. “That’s not all day.”

“Well,” Hap replied. “I may or may not stop by for long enough to get a glass of tea. I don’t think that constitutes a conversation.”

“Fine,” Anna huffed.

Hap glanced out the window. “It’s going to have to be,” he retorted. “Because my business isn’t your business.”

“Next time you ask me something, you’re going to get a big fat nothing in return,” Anna said. “No-thing. Zero. Zilch. Nada.”

“You vomit information like a compromised dam spews water,” Hap said with a laugh. “You’ll leak out enough to keep me entertained.”

“Not anymore,” she warned.

I liked seeing Hap argue with her. It let me know that he’d accepted her into his life, and into his heart.