Page 60 of Leading the Blind
“We will. Fishing poles? Is there a deck?”
“There is. A wood one. Nothing fancy.” Nothing about the house was fancy, and that worked for him. He didn’t need that. They were boys with sand and fish guts and cow shit.
“Oh, that’s fine. We’ll bring you a bunch of old towels and all for the deck, and fishing poles we got a ton of. Jack loves to ocean fish.”
“Well, y’all come on. We’ll have lots to do, and we’ll figure it.” Hell, Momma might have fun.
“We will. We’ll see you Saturday midmorning.”
He’d bet they would be up before the sun and there by nine. “Yes, ma’am.”
“See you then, son.” They hung up just as Bax was saying, “Okay, Aje. Cool. Thanks, man. Bye.”
They sat together and breathed before Bax asked, “You ready for me to call Gramps?”
“Let me just grin a minute.”
“Was Momma good?”
“Yeah.” Yeah, he thought she genuinely was. She was worried about him, but she was happy. She trusted him, which was a huge thing. “She’s coming this weekend and bringing us a trailer of shit.”
“Well, then we’ll just get some furniture and some basics and see what all she brings.” Bax sat next to him again. “No sense buying anything she can give us.”
“Right? We’ll find us a bedroom and a couch and a big-assed TV.” There was so much to do—utilities and shit, Internet. All of it. Starting tomorrow.
“All right, babe. I’m calling the bullfighter and the clown.” Bax’s phone engaged on speaker, and it rang once. “Hello?”
“Everything okay, son?” Gramps sounded tired.
“Put us on speakerphone, Gramps!” he called out, hoping this would perk his oldest friend up.
“Sure.” There was a clatter, a “Shit,” then a crackle that meant they were live. “Shoot.”
Bax grabbed his hand. “We bought a house!”
“Youwhat?”
Dillon was right there. “When? How? What the hell?”
“We did.” Jason couldn’t stop grinning. “Just out of Corpus. Got enough land for some horses. A few outbuildings. Water is right there.”
“No shit?” Gramps sounded utterly shocked, then he started to hoot. “Really? Tell! Tell!”
So they did it again—telling about the sunroom and the dock, the guest suite and the balconies.
Dillon laughed right out loud at that. “You’ll have to make sure you don’t go over, Jase.”
“I’m going to take care of it. I was hoping Gramps would help me add another set of rails to the upper balcony, and we’re going to run a rope down to the dock.” Bax had this planned out, didn’t he?
“Sounds like a plan,” Dillon said. “There’s all sorts of things we can do to the outbuildings, too. Maybe gravel on one walkway and something else on another.”
Jason loved how Dillon thought of them as family now. ‘They’ did shit, not ‘y’all’.
“We’ll come down for the week before you ride again, fair? I’m taking a few days off here.” Damn, Gramps was pooped.
“That’s more than fair, Gramps.” He smiled toward Bax. “More than.”
“Hell, Momma and Jack are invading this weekend, and Jack will want to help,” Bax agreed. “Don’t you worry on it.”
