Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 127991 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 640(@200wpm)___ 512(@250wpm)___ 427(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127991 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 640(@200wpm)___ 512(@250wpm)___ 427(@300wpm)
I nodded, enthralled.
“If he hadn’t intervened, I’d have been on a fast track to nowhere. I’d already done some petty shit I never got caught for, but the kid I was then, the crew I hung with who were even angrier and more directionless than I was? Shit, I would have gone all in with that stuff. I know it as sure as I’m sitting here.” He rapped the table with his big hand. “Might even have started with the hard drugs, ended up in a cell or on a slab like a couple of those guys did.” McGee’s jaw tightened. “Instead, I had Thatcher giving me jobs so I could earn money, then standing with my mom at my high school graduation. He’s the best guy I know.”
“Wow.” My chest tightened. Thatcher did have people in his life who loved him, who saw him, and it helped to know that. “Did you ever tell him this?”
“Sure. Sorta. Got real emotional right after my graduation and tried to thank him for helping me. You know what he told me?”
Thoughts of Thatcher’s guilt and regrets over his own son tumbled through my whiskey-soaked brain. I shook my head.
“He said sometimes the thing people think is your weakness can be your greatest strength. That maybe I needed to fight and I was just picking the wrong fights.”
There was a good point in there somewhere, but I was too tired and drunk to sort it out. “God, he’s such a good man. And you’re lucky to have him, but he’s lucky to have you, too, you know? He deserves to have people who care about him and are loyal to him. Who love him—” I swallowed hard.
“Hooo, boy.” McGee shook his head. “I knew you were drunk, but you are drunk.” He smiled, maybe a bit too sympathetically. “Or else you’ve got some powerful emotions going on. Anything you’d like to share?”
“God, no.”
“You sure? You wouldn’t be the first young man in the throes of capital-F Feelings I’ve counseled,” he said solemnly, though his eyes twinkled. “Not even the first this week. I’ve never suffered from that particular affliction myself, but I’m an understanding listener.”
I rolled my eyes. “Right. So I’m sure you’ll understand when I say that I hope a case of capital-F Feelings smacks you in the face someday.”
McGee laughed out loud, but my face heated with embarrassment. I stood up to escape to my bunk. “I think you’re right. I’m even drunker than I thought,” I muttered. “Sincerely, thanks for the talk, but, um… good night.”
McGee stretched out his legs before standing and looked at me for a long, long moment. Finally, he said, “Why don’t you use the bedroom in the back? I’ll have Thatcher take a bunk when he comes in, or he can take a room in the Martinezes’ house. He said they’d offered you guys one.”
I snorted. “Take my boss’s bed? Has that moisturizing serum I gave you gone to your brain?” I demanded. “Hell no.”
“Hell yes. You’re wobbly as fuck, and that bunk is narrow. If you fall out of it, it’ll be a whole liability thing. Take the bed,” he repeated. “Thatcher will sleep in the house.”
“What about you? You could take it.”
He shook his head. “I’m heading out in a little while. An old friend’s picking me up, and we’re gonna hang out at his place in Eagle. It’s all yours.”
There was a flaw in this plan somewhere, but I couldn’t quite reason it out. There really wasn’t any point in wasting the large bed if Thatcher was going to sleep in the house. And by the time I made my way to Thatcher’s room, stripped down to my undershirt and boxer briefs, and really stretched out in a bed for the first time in a week, I decided I was too tired to worry about it. I grinned dopily at the neatly stacked books and the reading glasses on the side table as I turned out the light, and then I rolled up in the blanket, shoved Thatcher’s pillow over my head, and fell asleep wrapped in woodsmoke and sage.
Chapter Ten
Thatcher
After Reagan left the house, I couldn’t focus.
The game was in full swing on the enormous television, and the remaining few guests were talking and laughing, but I didn’t care. Whatever I was drinking tasted flat on my tongue, and the entire room seemed less bright than before.
When there was a break in the action on screen, I pushed myself off the sofa. “I’m going to head out,” I told Don and Maya, who were curled up in an easy chair. “Thanks again for a great day.”
Maya grinned without getting up. “Thanks for coming. I was intrigued by the idea of working with PennCo before, but I’m even more eager now. You and Reagan made quite an impression.”