Page 52 of Leading the Blind
“We’ll go to one of them mattress places and lay on every damn bed in the store,” Jason teased, splashing his hands in the water.
“Lord yes. We could get one of them magic number beds.”
“Bah. I don’t think we ought to get a bed that can break, Bax.” Listen to that wicked man.
“I reckon not.” No one else was there to hear but the dog, and he wasn’t gonna tell. “We’ll give it a workout.”
“That’s it. Do you like a big headboard deal? One with drawers?”
“I can go there.” He didn’t care, really, but he would bet that could be handy to hide supplies in—and keep shit away from said dogs. Lord knew, Coke and Dillon’s bassets was always digging out weird nonsense from people’s houses.
“Cool. I like that idea too. Drawers are always good for stashing stuff.” Jason chuckled softly. “So, couches? Recliners?”
“I like a big couch. One of them that has recliners on either end but a big middle. So we can sit together. Room for dogs and all of AJ’s kids.”
Jason snorted. “That would take three couches.”
Hell, it might take five. “It’s Gramps and the clown that’ll be around the most.”
“Mmm.” Jason nodded. “We’ll get the guest bed with them in mind. One of them adjustable ones where the head and feet go up and down.”
“Yeah. Yeah, Dillon would love that for Gramps.” Jason was a good guy. A real good guy, no matter what they said about him down at the jail.
“Cool. You think I could learn to read braille?”
“Whut?” That took him a minute to transition. “Sure. You’re a smart dog.”
“I was hearing they make labels for food and shit in braille, so I could find the peanut butter.”
“Yeah. And if it’s our place, we’ll put shit where it goes, like in the little fridge in the trailer.” They had a system. It wasn’t fancy, but it worked.
“I’m a lot of work.” Jason looked smaller all of a sudden.
Bax scowled. “No, sir. No more than me and my bad knees and worse temper. You stop it.”
He wasn’t having that shit. Jason Scott had made more money this year than he had in five. Jason’s name was what was going to keep them afloat, not his.
And Jason was his North Star. That was that.
Mini grinned, stretching, looking like that happy man again. “Well, okay.”
So there. Bax rubbed that dog with his toes. This was the good life.
His phone beeped, the real estate agent answering him. “That house is still available. You want to run down day after tomorrow?”
“Yes, sir. I surely do.”
“I’ll tell her.” He might see if he could put in some kind of earnest money too, Bax had a feeling about the place. It had all the things they needed—space, beach, land.
Their place.
Bax took a deep breath, filling his lungs with new air, letting out the old. Sometimes a man just had to do that.
Let himself believe a little, that this—all of this—was going to be real.
Bax got up, scaring the hound half to death, and scooted his chair across the porch to where he could dangle his feet in the kiddie pool. “Oh, that’s good.”
“Right? We filled it with a couple-three bags of ice.”
