“What’s your favorite Brazilian food?” Dillon asked.
“Pastels. They’recomo…eggrolls? Very thin pastry with meat and things inside. So hot and crispy from a street vendor.”
“Oh, man.” Dillon nodded. “I like anything fried in pastry.”
“Hell, yeah. I love that stew shit. The one with the black beans and meat, son? Balta makes that when he comes to stay.”
“Feijoada.” He loved to watch Balta make the Brazilian national dish. Beans and meat simmered for hours, served over rice. Balta was very proud of his recipe, very secretive about the pork belly he used instead of bacon.
“Yeah, that. That stuff is almost as good as Beau’s gumbo or Granny Taggart’s chili.” Coke groaned, the expression on the man’s face weirdly sexual.
Okay, that was just wrong.
Gramps Pharris wasn’t a sexy guy.
“Sim. I love it. We will have it at Christmas, too.”
“I want to make a ham,” Dillon said. “Maybe a turkey. I got a smoker.”
“Are y’all going to your place?”
He’d been to Gramps’ more than once, but no one had seen Dillon’s place, so far as he knew.
“Yes.” Dillon said it with weight, as if he and Coke had argued about it.
Joa knew better than to get in the middle of that, so he just nodded to Coke. “Your start.”
All he needed to do was play. That was it.
Play and wait for someone to tell him when it was time to drive them somewhere else. The rest was up to Balta, wasn’t it? Joa would follow the man anywhere. Perhaps it was unwise, but he loved with everything in him and he didn’t give up.
Joa thought maybe that was the cowboy way.
