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Blake had a feeling he’d like all of them if they were the right size, and sure enough, by the time he’d put on each pair, both shoes, and walked around in them, three of the four pairs sat in the “buy” pile. He looked at them, and he looked at his son’s hopeful face.
“You can get two pairs,” he said. “You have to eliminate one.”
Tommy nodded, his smile huge. “Thanks, Dad.” He plucked out the pair of matte brown leather ones and moved them to the “not buying” pile. Blake picked up the two boxes and turned toward the shorts again.
“Did you need to try those on?” he asked.
Tommy held them up to his body. “I think they’re fine.” He hated trying on clothes, and Blake would be lucky if he got him into another changing room.
“Socks?”
“Yeah, I need socks.”
Birmingham’s always had a BOGO sale on socks, and Blake ended up getting a few new pairs too. With the big black bag filled with the two pairs of shoes, three pairs of athletic shorts, and dozens of socks, Blake looked at his son.
“Are we done?”
“Hats?” Tommy asked, his eyes once again round and hopeful. “Urban Economy has the coolest snapbacks you’ve ever seen.”
“You’re down to fifty bucks,” Blake said, making up the number on the spot.
Tommy grinned and said, “It’s over by where we parked.”
The only good thing about shopping in Charleston was the fact that Tommy didn’t run into someone he knew every five feet. Not that the boy had dozens of friends, but Carter’s Cove was a small community. All of the kids knew one another, and Blake didn’t like watching Tommy either shrink from the teens he knew and didn’t like or take forever to get through buying candy bars and ice cream because he saw ten people he wanted to talk to.
At Urban Economy, Tommy found half a dozen hats that he liked, and he whittled it down to three, as they were having a three-four-five sale, and forty-five dollars came under his fifty-dollar limit.
“Thanks, Dad,” he said as they paid for the hats.
“None of those are porn?” he asked for the third time. He looked from Tommy to the clerk, who glanced up from the credit card machine. He shook his head, and Blake nodded to the twenty-something.
“Dad.” Tommy scoffed and turned away. “You’re so embarrassing.”
Blake grinned, signed his name on the receipt, and picked up the bag of snapback hats. “Thanks, man.”
The other guy grinned and held out his fist. “You’re a good dad.”
Blake bumped his fist to the clerk’s and said, “Thanks,” before turning to follow his son back out into the main halls of the mall. Tommy looked at him with wariness and semi-disgust, and then rolled his eyes.
“What?” Blake asked. “I don’t know what’s what. You got a hat with a Sasquatch on it and seemed like it was the greatest thing in the world. How do I know what that means?”
“It’s from a TV show,” he said. “Not porn. Jeez.”
“Again, I don’t know that. It’s my job to ask.” He handed his son the hats. “You carry the non-porn hats then.” He grinned, but Tommy only rolled his eyes again. “Home?” he asked as they pushed out of the doors of the mall and back into the muggy heat.
“Yeah,” Tommy said. “Can we go to the beach?”
“Do I ever say no to the beach?” Blake gave his son a smile. “I do have one condition this time.”
His son gazed at him. “A condition?”
“I need to know who that girl was you held hands with a couple of weeks ago.” He deliberately wouldn't look at his son. “The first time Lauren came with us.”
“Oh, uh, let’s see…” Tommy acted like he didn’t know the girl’s name, and that certainly didn’t settle Blake’s gut.
“You hold hands with so many random girls on the beach, you’ve forgotten her name?”
“No,” Tommy bit out. “Her name is Kathy. She’s, uh, older than me by a few years, and I don’t know. We talk.”
