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After dinner, while Clare hauled the boys up for a bath, Owen relayed the conversation to Beckett.
“Bite him in the dumb ass. Kid’s got a way. Clare and I talked to them after it happened. Played it down, but played it straight. Still, they heard stuff at school. So Harry called a powwow, and they came to me about it.”
“Keep the women out of it?”
Beckett glanced toward the stairs. “Maybe that’s not politically correct, or even correct, but it feels right in this case. They need to know we’re covered, and that I trust them to help take care of their mom.”
“We’d’ve done the same.”
“Yeah, we would. Speaking of, I was able to tell Clare about that situation on the way home. You pitch the radio to a certain level, your voices to another, you can actually have a conversation that doesn’t carry to the backseats. Plus we used a lot of code.”
“What did she say?”
“What you’d expect. Mom’s entitled to a life. She’s a vital woman, Willy B’s a good man. Blah blah. I mean she’s right, but still.”
“It wasn’t her mother and Willy B mostly naked in the kitchen.”
On a sigh, Beckett closed his eyes. “And thank you for that fresh image to add to my growing collection.”
“We could start trading them, like baseball cards.”
That triggered a laughing shake of the head. “The other thing? When I talked to Clare about it, she didn’t really seem surprised.”
“What do you mean?” Owen lowered his after-dinner beer. “Like she already knew?”
“That or one of those woman’s radar deals. With stuff like this? They’re kind of like bats. Anyway, I started to ask her, but then Harry and Murphy started on each other, and that was the end of adult conversation.”
The thought slapped hard into his brain. “If Clare already knew, then Avery . . . Son of a bitch.”
“Coulda been that radar.”
“Avery’s a woman. She has radar. She’s as much of a bat as any of them. Plus, it’s her father groping our mother.”
“Stop. Stop.” Beckett covered his ears.
“If she knew, she should’ve told me.” Now the thought rooted in his brain, sprouted like a weed. “I’d’ve told her.”
“We know now. And I guess we’re going to have to get used to it.”
Owen started to respond, but Harry ran in, shiny from his bath in his X-Men pajamas, and announced a Wii tournament.
Roped in, Owen gave it an hour. He liked the kids, he liked Wii, but he just couldn’t get the idea of Avery keeping the situation from him out of his head.
He chewed at it all the way home, sat in the truck chewing over it some more. Then he turned around, drove back to town. He went into Vesta from the back.
“Hey, Owen!” Franny stood behind the counter slicing up a large pizza. “What can we get for you?”
“Is Avery around?”
“You just missed her. She’s running some deliveries. More people calling in than coming in tonight. I’m closing, so she’s going to go right on up when she gets back. I can give her a call if it’s important.”
“No. Nothing important. I’ll catch her later. How are you feeling?”
“Back to normal. Are you really opening the inn next month?”
“Yeah, we are.”
“I’m spreading the word.”
“Keep spreading. I’ll see you later, Franny.”
He went out the back and, after a quick debate, went up the stairs rather than down.
She had to come back sometime.
He considered the fact that he had keys; he was the landlord after all. But that crossed the line.
Instead, he sat on the floor outside her apartment door, took out his phone. He passed the time reading and answering emails, texts.
He checked the time, wondered where the hell her deliveries were? Portugal?
He wished he’d hit Franny up for coffee, tried to entertain himself with some Angry Birds.
He closed his eyes—just to rest them for a minute—and the restless night caught up with him. He fell asleep on the floor, his trusty phone still in his hand.
CHAPTER SIX
HAULING GROCERY BAGS, Avery shoved open the stairwell door, adjusted her load. Out of habit she paused on the landing, checked the lock on Vesta’s rear door, then climbed up to her apartment level.
And stopped, frowning at the picture of Owen propped against her door, eyes closed, phone in hand.
“What’s the deal?” she demanded, and when he didn’t respond realized he was dead asleep.
“For God’s sake.” Muttering, she stepped closer, kicked him.
“Ow! What? Damn it.”
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Waiting for you.” Annoyed, he rubbed his hip where her shoe—canary yellow tonight—had hit. “Where the hell were you?”
“I had deliveries, then I swung into the grocery store. I ran into a friend, and we . . .” She stopped, glared. “Why am I explaining to you? Why are you sleeping on the floor in front of my apartment?”
“Because you weren’t home. I wasn’t sleeping. I was just . . . thinking.” He pushed to his feet, blinked at her. “Your hair’s wet.”
“It’s spitting some sleet. Move, will you? These are getting heavy.”
He blinked again, then reached out and took the bags. She unlocked the door, walked in ahead of him.
He crossed the living room, went straight to the kitchen, dumped the bags on the counter. Watching him, she peeled off her coat, unwound her scarf. “How long were you out there?”
“What time is it?”
Even as he checked his watch, she arched her eyebrows. “It’s what-the-hell’s-going-on o’clock.” She tossed her coat and scarf over the back of a chair on her way to the counter.
“That’s what I want to know.”
“You’re the one sleeping on the doorstep,” she said as she began stowing groceries. Unlike her living room, which he considered messy, and she considered a living room, her cupboards and refrigerator were meticulously organized.
“I wasn’t sleeping. I maybe nodded off for a minute, and that’s beside the point.”
“What point?”
“You knew. You knew what was going on, and didn’t tell me.”
“I don’t tell you a lot of things.” Eyes narrowed on him, she began plucking eggs out of the carton and laying them in the bin. “Be more specific.”
“You knew your father was sleeping with my mother.”
The egg slipped out of her fingers, hit the floor like a little bomb. “What?”
“Okay, you didn’t know.” Owen stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Now you know.”
“I say again, what?”
“My mother, your father.” At a loss, he pulled his hands free, rolled them in the air.
“Get out. Really? No.” She laughed a little, yanked off some paper towels, dampened them to deal with the broken egg. “You must’ve had some dream while you were camped at my door.”
“Yes, they are—and no, I didn’t.”
Still shaking her head, she dampened another towel, scrubbed off the tile. “Where do you get this? On a short trip to Bizarro World?”
“From me. Myself. My own freaking eyes.” He forked his fingers, pointed at them. “I went over to the house this morning. I walked in on them.”
Avery’s jaw dropped as she slowly straightened. “You walked in on your mom and my dad? In bed?”
“No. Thank God. They were in the kitchen.”
“Jesus!” Gaping, she took a step back. “They were having sex in the kitchen!”
“No. Shut up.” Appalled, Owen slapped his hands over his eyes. “Now I really know what Beckett means about images in the head. Oh God.”
“You’re not making any sense. At all.”
Start over, he ordered himself, because Avery had a point. “I went over, they were in the kitchen. Your father’s in his boxers. My mom’s wearing this, this little
. . . thing. And they were . . . hands, lips, tongues.”
She stared a moment, then held up one finger. Turning, she opened a cupboard, took out a bottle of Glenfiddich and two lowball glasses. Without a word she poured two fingers in each, handed one to Owen.
She knocked hers back, took a careful breath.
“One more time. Our parents are sleeping together.”
“That’s what I said.”
“And you walked in on them, scantily dressed and groping each other in your mom’s kitchen.”
“I’m telling you.” Now he downed his whiskey.
When she began laughing, he assumed hysteria, but it only took a moment to recognize genuine humor.
“You think this is funny?”
“One part is. You walking in on them?” She pressed a hand to her belly. “Oh, oh! I wish I could’ve been there to see your face. I bet it was like—” She mimed exaggerated shock and horror, then fell into fits of laughter again.
