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“Lance, it’s Emerson.”
“No kidding.” His smoke-roughened voice filled my ear. He?
??d never smoked in all the years I’d known him, but he still had the rasp from earlier efforts. “I’ve been waiting for this call.”
I frowned. “You have?”
“Father sense,” he said simply.
I couldn’t swallow hard enough to make the rock in my throat subside. “You are my father,” I whispered, clutching the back of the chair in front of me. “Even more than my own ever was.”
“Is that why you haven’t been coming by to see me?”
My fingers hooked around the wood spindles. “I’ve been training—”
“If you claim I’m your father, then tell me the truth.”
Yeah, that rock in my throat wasn’t moving. “I will. But not tonight. Can I come by tomorrow night?”
“No.” While I was trying to handle his denial, he continued on. “I’m heading in to work early tomorrow. I’ll stop by on the way.”
I started to put him off, then realized I’d probably be up. Who was I kidding? Even if I could’ve slept in, tonight had virtually assured that I wouldn’t. And I had work.
There was always one more thing to do to keep me from thinking too damn much.
“Okay. I’ll be here.”
“Whatever it is, not talking only causes stuff to fester.”
I didn’t say anything. Talk about an understatement.
“And I’m here to listen.” His voice softened. “And I won’t judge.”
“Okay,” I said again, because I didn’t have the voice for anything else. Gratitude had washed away the emotion and left me hulled out. I only hoped that tomorrow I’d find the words that had escaped me tonight.
“Goodnight, son.”
I hesitated, tempted to ask him if Lily was home. If she was calling from there or if she was still with JC. What difference did it make? They weren’t here, and probably never would be. JC had never even seen my place, and Lily hadn’t seen the stupid new sheets I’d bought, thinking they might visit. I’d skipped what she called “manly plaid” and gone for something she might like, a pale yellow. I’d made the bed in them this morning, just in case.
“Goodnight.” I clicked off before I broke down and asked about his daughter. Then I turned off my phone.
A horn honking made me toss it aside and head toward the window in the living room. My apartment overlooked the street, but none of the cars I could see had the flashing lights I’d associate with a car alarm. So who was honking?
Then came the ping-ping-ping of rocks hitting glass. It sounded like my glass. What the hell was going on?
I walked over to the window next to the fire escape, hauling it open and stepping outside. I was only two stories up and could get downstairs fast. Let the kids or whomever must be parked in the alleyway try to start shit with me in the mood I was in, and they’d see what happened.
A flurry of stones pelted me—shoulders, arm, left cheek—and boy, those fuckers hurt. Then came that voice, the one that twisted melody and misery together.
“Emerson!”
I rubbed one of the stings, cupping my cheek as I stared down at the car parked in the alley, blocking the exit for the pizza joint next door. The longer I stared, the less sense it made.
JC’s beloved blue sports car was idling, and he was leaning on the horn while Lily—my beautiful Lily—was scrambling around on the hood and flinging pebbles. Or at least she had been until I stepped outside.
Now she was silent, gazing up at me while the misty rain streaked down her cheeks like tears. But the horn blared on.
“Shut that shit off,” I demanded. “You want the neighbors calling the cops?”
