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Jay felt a heavy, familiar hand on his shoulder; he turned his head and nodded at his father. “Hey, Pop.”
“Son. Talk to me about this woman.” He nodded toward Petra, who was seated at the bar. Katie was behind it, covering bartending duties. Maude sat beside Petra, and Keisha stood at her other side, her arm over Petra’s shoulders.
Jay had stepped back to make room for her friends. At first, he’d felt a flutter or two of jealousy, wanting her to want him close, but it hadn’t taken long for that feeling to fade away. He could see how being around so many people who loved her was making this day easier for her. The strength she drew from her friends was obvious, and he couldn’t begrudge her that.
Also, he liked to see so many people love her. She made an impression. She left a mark. He was proud of her.
Jay could think of only one thing to say to his old man. “I love her, Pop.”
His dad turned and looked at him, steadily and without expression.
Defensiveness flared hot in Jay’s chest. When Pop spoke next, he knew it would be some shit about how he couldn’t be in love, how he was too young or stupid or immature to know real love.
“How long you known her?” was the question Jay’s father asked. Which amounted to the same thing, didn’t it?
Determined not to give his father any ammunition, Jay answered the question calmly and directly. “I don’t know for sure. About a month or so, I guess.”
“There are people who’d tell you that’s not very long to start makin’ commitments to a woman.”
How was he supposed to respond to that? “I don’t give a fuck what those people think. What anybody thinks, actually. I know what I feel.”
More steady, expressionless staring from his old man. Then a corner of Pop’s mouth sharpened to a point and pushed into his weathered cheek, making the wry smile that said his father was on his side. Maybe he didn’t agree with him, but he was on his side anyway.
“You keep hold of that,” Pop said. “Know what you feel. Don’t let anybody tell you different. Takin’ an ol’ lady’s a serious step, and you wanna be sure—but only you can know what’s real. So be clear-eyed about it. Don’t let anybody else in your head about it.”
He squeezed Jay’s shoulders and pulled him in close. “You know, your mom always said when you fell in love, you’d go right off the cliff, all in right off the bat. I didn’t see it. I thought you’d be too fucked up about lookin’ cool to see it when the right woman came around.”
The thought of his parents sitting around discussing his love life freaked Jay out almost as much as his father standing here telling him about it, and he definitely heard the criticism buried inside his father’s words like a curdled cream filling. But he pushed all that out of the way so he could focus on the important thing: Pop wasn’t giving him shit about Petra. He got it.
Jay wanted to ask Pop if he liked her, but this wasn’t the time. Not in the middle of a conversation about how it was good Jay didn’t give a shit about what other people thought.
He truly didn’t give a shit about that. No secondhand misgivings in the world would change how he felt about Petra or change his understanding of those feelings. He was in love with her. Loving her made him feel good and right. He wanted to love, support, and protect her for the rest of his life. He wanted her forever. Period.
But he’d be lying if he said it didn’t feel good to know his impossible-to-please old man understood it. Maybe even respected it.
“I’m clear-eyed, Pop. I know what I’ve got with her. I won’t fuck it up.”
Now Pop really smiled. “That’s good, Jake. That’s real good.”
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~oOo~
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About an hour later, Jay came into the bar from the back, where he’d lugged a couple of garbage sacks to the dumpster. Petra was over in the bookshop side, sitting by the fireplace. A bunch of women had pushed all the armchairs over there together to make a circle, and they seemed to be deep in conversation. Jay saw Jacinda, Apollo’s old lady, and Kelsey, Dex’s old lady, and Jenny, Mav’s old lady and Duncan and Kelsey’s mom, mixed in among a few Gertrude’s regulars and a couple of Petra’s dance friends.
She looked up and saw him watching, and she smiled. It was a particular kind of smile, soft and sincere, a little sad. He’d come to understand it over the past week as her saying,I’m okay. Thank you for taking care of me. I love you.
He smiled back and turned toward the bar.
And then stopped in his tracks, because his brother was sitting at the bar, beside Pop, with Mom’s arms around him, and a cluster of Bulls behind them all.
His brother, who lived in Nevada, and with whom he’d exchanged nothing but a few texts about the events of the past week or so. Nothing in those texts had suggested Zach would ride a thousand miles east to be here for a funeral for a man he did not know, who was the father of a woman he did not know.
They’d made their peace during the last run, but it wasn’t a switch Jay could just flip and make everything normal again. He was glad to be able to talk to his brother again, but it would take time for him to rebuild that trust—even if it were true that it was his fault things got bad between them.
Zach looked over and grinned. Immediately, he slipped off the barstool and pushed through the crowd of their family. Jay headed toward him, and they met at the side of the bar.
