LITMIR.BIZ

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A cabinet banged shut as Martin started dinner. When they were home together, they took turns doing the cooking. They had a few part-time employees at Whiskey Creek Gas-N-Go who helped out on nights and weekends. Since the station opened at six and closed at midnight seven days a week, they couldn’t man it every hour.

      “Joe?” his father prompted when he didn’t answer.

      Apparently, Martin wasn’t going to let this go. Using the remote, Joe lowered the volume on the Kings and Lakers. “I don’t think so. Why?”

      “Why not?” his father countered.

      “You know how I feel about getting involved with someone from Whiskey Creek. I made that mistake when I got married.” He ran into Suzie’s family all over town—her parents, aunts, uncles, cousins. These people, whom he’d once loved as much as his own relatives, no longer spoke to him. They blamed him for the divorce and God knew what else, even though it was Suzie who’d cheated, Suzie who’d tried to pass off another man’s child as one of his.

      Sometimes he wished he could tell the Petrovicks what Suzie had been like as a wife. He wanted to see the shock on their faces, especially her stodgy old father’s.

      But he’d never say a word. Not even to Gail or Martin. He’d destroyed the results of the DNA test as soon as he received them in the mail. He’d never told Suzie that he knew. Summer meant as much to him as Josephine. If the truth got out, he stood to lose far more than he already had.

      The lid to the trash can closed with a thump. “Then why’d you go out with her in the first place?”

      Because she’d taken him off guard when she called and he hadn’t wanted to embarrass her. And, ideals or no, he needed some kind of diversion. Lately, he’d been so damn lonely, so dissatisfied. That didn’t exactly put him in a strength position when it came to turning down invitations.

      “It was just dinner, Dad, not a date.” Eve had talked too much and tried too hard, and then she’d nearly tackled him at the door as he tried to leave. But he’d known he wasn’t interested in her when he said yes. That made the discomfort his fault.

      “Right,” Martin said with a skeptical cackle.

      Swallowing a frustrated sigh—he really didn’t want to be grilled about this—Joe turned up the volume. “It’s true. You’re making too big a deal out of it.”

      His father raised his voice to compete with the sudden roar of the Laker fans. “You’re saying she just wants to be friends.”

      He slouched lower so he could lean his head against the back of the couch. “Yeah.”

      “That’s why she stops by to get gas almost every single day and spends fifteen minutes hanging around the minimart hoping to run into you.”

      The frequency of Eve’s trips had given her away. Joe had guessed, long before she’d asked him out. She’d been hinting that she liked him for the past several months. But he couldn’t see himself in a romantic relationship with her, couldn’t see her as anything other than the chubby little girl with pigtails who’d played Barbies with Gail. “Give it a rest, okay?” he grumbled.

      “You got to date somebody.”

      “Who says?” Finally goaded into dealing with this, he hit the mute button. “You don’t date. You’ve lived without a partner for years.”

      “Because I had you and Gail to worry about, and now I’m too old and ornery to get along with anyone.”

      He hadn’t brought a woman home since Linda left him for her high school sweetheart. Joe had been thirteen when his mother walked out, Gail eight. They’d hardly seen her since. She was still with the same man and by all indications happy, but she wasn’t one who liked to look back.

      “You don’t want to be alone for the rest of your life,” Martin said.

      “How can you be so sure?” The first few years after his divorce, being alone hadn’t been so bad. It beat the hell out of trying to live with someone as high-strung and volatile as Suzie. He never wanted to go through any of that again. The fighting. The shock of some of the things she said. The betrayal he’d felt when he’d learned about her affair with their next-door neighbor. The sickness that had swamped him when he found out she’d brought the man he’d considered a friend, the man he’d been barbecuing burgers for on Saturdays, into his bed. The sense of failure that’d dragged him down when she finally kicked him out because he was only staying for the sake of the girls. The loss of no longer waking up in the same house as his children. It had been hell.

      But his fear of getting involved in another bad relationship was quickly being offset by the downside of his current situation. He was tired of living with his father and sleeping alone. He hadn’t had sex with anyone since Deborah Hinz, the woman who’d come from Sacramento to sell him energy-conversation lighting for the exterior of the station eighteen months ago. Even that hadn’t been as enjoyable as it should’ve been. He’d thought there might be some potential there when she’d asked to meet him at a bar not far from where she lived. But when he woke up and realized he’d drunk too much and gone home with her, he beat a hasty retreat. Then he bought the lights she’d been hoping to sell him, even though his father insisted they could find them cheaper, to make up for not wanting to see her again.

      “I just need to go to Sacramento or the Bay area more often,” he said, and hoped he was right, that getting out and meeting new people would fill the void.

      His father’s voice was barely audible; he’d stuck his head into the refrigerator to get something out. “How will you meet someone in Sac or anywhere else? At a nightclub?”

      “I guess I could join a church group, but doing it for the wrong reasons seems a bit deceptive, don’t you think?” The Lakers scored from at least five feet behind the three-point line. “Nice shot,” he muttered, and rewound the DVR so he could take another look at that bucket.

      “You don’t need to leave Whiskey Creek,” his father said. “There are plenty of nice women right here.”

      Martin didn’t want to lose both of his kids to other locations. “Like who?”

      “Eve Harmon! That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

      He glanced over to see his father salting two pieces of fish, which he could smell from where he sat in the living room. “You want me to date one of Gail’s friends?”

      “What’s so bad about that?”

      He had to explain? “If things don’t work out, loyalty would force Gail to side with me, since I’m her brother, which could cost her one of her closest friends. That’s not fair.”

      His father arranged the fish on the broiler and slid it into the oven. “You’re overthinking it.”

      “How ironic.”

      Apparently satisfied that he’d started dinner, Martin came to the living room doorway. “What’s ironic?”

      Joe shot him a crooked grin. “Most dads tell their sons not to think with their dicks. Sounds like you’re saying just the opposite.”

      “Most dads are talking to young boys. You’re thirty-six.”

      “I left home once—and learned my lesson. Now you’re never getting rid of me.”

      His father must’ve known he was only joking because he didn’t comment. He leaned against the wall, watching the game while they talked. “It’s time to get back in the saddle.”

      “I’m not sure I’m willing to listen to your advice in this area, Dad.” He took a pull of his beer. “It’s a bit too much ‘do what I say and not what I do,’ don’t you think?”

      When his father made no comment, Joe saluted him with the can. “You have nothing to say to that?”

      “I guess you got me,” he replied, and went back into the kitchen.

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