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Back in Texas, most of my socializing had been with business associates: other writers, financial bigwigs, clients. I hadn’t had a close group of friends since my twenties, when I was still in touch with my college buddies.
Though it was out of my comfort zone, I was ready to make connections here in Dragonfly Lake. More than ready. I’d hit a point in my life when I longed to settle in every way, like I hadn’t before. Previously I’d been focused on my career. Now that I was branching out, the freelancing was still important, but it was only half my career, and my career was only a sliver of my life.
I was working on connecting with my new family, making progress, but that came with expectations and pressure. I found myself, for the first time in a lot of years, longing for a group of guys I could call friends.
But damn did it suck walking into someplace I’d never been into a situation I had very little info about. The geeky researcher in me would’ve been content to have biographies and backgrounds of everyone who’d be present.
After checking one more time to be sure I had the right house number, I knocked.
A lot of seconds passed before I heard anything from inside, and I started to doubt myself yet again. Finally there were heavy footsteps and then the door opened.
“Hey, Knox.” Chance opened the screen door and extended a hand, friendly as could be.
“Chance. It’s good to see you. I was told to bring snack food.” I held out a donut box from Sugar.
“You brought the good stuff. Come on in. Welcome.”
“Thanks for including me,” I said. “Nice place you have.”
His house was in a neighborhood on the other side of downtown, away from the lake. The houses appeared to be twenty or thirty years old, family-oriented, like a slice of small-town America. Chance’s was two stories with a connected garage and a well-kept yard.
“Thanks,” he said, his tone suddenly less jovial. “I bought it with my late wife a couple of years after we got married.”
Though I’d met him at Henry’s and chatted with him a couple of times at Rusty Anchor, where he was the marketing manager, I didn’t really know him. Hadn’t realized he had any kids until Max had brought up this gathering tonight. Since their group was single dads, it followed that he wasn’t married, but I hadn’t known his wife had died.
“It suits my daughter and me well,” he continued.
“Max said she’s thirteen?”
“That’s right.”
“Teenagers scare the shit out of me,” I said.
“You and me both. She thinks she knows everything.”
“I suppose I did too at that age. Parents are stupid, right?”
“I always thought so until I became one,” he said with a laugh.
The basement was a walkout and had one big L-shaped room with some doorways off it. On the bigger side of the L was a bar, a pool table, a dart board, and a poker table. On the other, a big-screen played a football game, and a couch and a couple of recliners were situated in front of it.
Max and another guy sat on the couch, a coffee table in front of them laden with bowls of chips, peanuts in the shell, dips, and two Humble’s pizza boxes that were wafting out an aroma that made my stomach growl.
“There’s beer in the fridge,” Chance said, pointing behind the bar. “Water and soft drinks too. Help yourself.”
I went over and shouldn’t have been the least bit surprised to find a full stock of Rusty Anchor. I picked up an IPA. “Nice setup down here.”
“Thanks,” he said. “It started as a place for my daughter to hang out with her friends, but she couldn’t care less about it. She’d rather hole up in her bedroom with them and giggle.” He shook his head, and there was an air of concern in it. I didn’t know much about parenting, but I could guess that having a teenager was cause for concern in itself.
Beers in hand, we went to the TV area.
“Hey, Knox,” Max said, standing. “Glad you could make it.”
I shook his offered hand, then nodded at the other guy, who also stood.
“This is Luke Durham. The others couldn’t make it tonight. You’ll meet them later.”
“Knox Breckenridge,” I said as Luke and I shook.
