More by Sloan Parker (best ebook reader for chromebook .txt) 📕

A tightness in my chest untangled. “Yeah? I guess we're all staying, then.”

Richard's body relaxed over mine. “You're not looking for a new place?”

“I haven't since I got here.”

“Good.”

“You want us to stay?”

He raised his head off my chest. “I do.”

Matthew's hand reached around Richard and found my face. He petted my cheek. “Staying.”

Richard cleared his throat and spoke louder. “This is how we should spend our Saturday nights. No cooking, no work, some games, and then sex to make Matthew scream like that again.”

Matthew shifted to his side and latched on to Richard. He buried his face in the man's neck. Richard returned the embrace. That was a cuddle if I ever saw one. What would it feel like to be wrapped up in them? To be held? I don't want to know. Do I?

I ignored the reaction and settled in, trying not to think about how long they thought I meant by staying. Or how long I'd meant when I'd said it.

Chapter Nineteen

Maria Lammon was a hyperactive ball of energy. I got a headache just watching her hands flail through the air as she drank her coffee, ate an orange cranberry muffin, and told me how glad she was to get my call, all without stopping for a breath.

“Thanks for agreeing to help me out,” I said and sipped my own coffee from the disposable cup, feeling exposed in the middle of the highbrow coffee shop. It was not my kind of place. More along the lines of my father's taste. His office was nearby. Did he ever fetch his own coffee or lunch, or did some staffer always bring it to him? Would I look up and find him watching me talk to his old college friend?

“Oh, please,” she said. “Even after all these years, there isn't much I wouldn't do for your father. Which means you, my dear, can ask me for pretty much anything.” She flashed a smile, tore off another piece of muffin, and flung it into her mouth. “Tell me what I can do to help with this party.”

Did my father have some sort of admiration elixir he used on people? Or was there more to her relationship with him? More than friendship perhaps? Maria looked years younger than her age. Her primped dark hair, manicured fingernails, and an absence of any serious wrinkles indicated a woman who had spent a lifetime giving thought to her appearance. She had to have been even more beautiful at the age of twenty-two. And she came from money. That much I knew from my online search the day before. Just my father's type.

“As I said on the phone, I'm trying to locate some old friends to invite. I was able to find some of my mom's but got stuck on my dad.” I pulled the handwritten list from my pocket. “I met with Roger Vance, and he gave me your name and all these others.”

She took the list in one hand and her coffee in the other. Her eyes crinkled at the corners as her smile widened. “Roger Vance. How is he?”

“Fine. He was helpful.” I pointed to the list. “I had no other names but his when I started.”

She looked over the list, nodding and smiling as she read certain names. “He did better than I would've thought he'd do. He wasn't all that observant.” She pulled out a pen and started circling names and scratching off others, adding a couple of new ones to the end of the list, tapping the pen to her lips as she thought of more, all the while guzzling down the coffee. “There. Not sure how big your party'll be, but I'd start with the ones I circled.” She handed me the list. “It should be fun to see everyone. We had some great times back then.”

I sipped my coffee again and tried to appear casual. “Roger seemed real fond of my dad. I take it you all were close?”

“Oh yeah.” She dropped the pen next to her half-eaten muffin, but her gaze lingered on it as she continued talking. Her body hadn't been so still since we'd first sat down. “It breaks my heart sometimes how easy it was to lose touch. But after Danny... ” She shook her head and glanced at her coffee. She took a couple of quick sips.

“I heard about that. I'm sorry.”

Her eyes met mine. “Did your dad talk about him much? Back then he wouldn't— well, he just sort of shut down after Danny's death.”

“I didn't know anything about him until the other day.”

“I figured.”

“Can I ask what happened? Roger said it was an overdose?”

“Cocaine.”

“Roger couldn't remember what he'd taken.”

She set her coffee down, practically dropping it. It splashed up and out the small drinking hole. She didn't notice. “Really? That's weird.” Her voice rose as she continued. “The night of the funeral, we all went to Uptown and got plastered, drinking to Danny. I heard him talking to Phil. He said he felt responsible. That he knew about the coke, knew about Danny's problem.” She paused and spoke more to herself next. “Maybe he doesn't want to remember.”

“Danny Conner had a drug problem, then?”

“No. No, it wasn't like that. He just got sad sometimes, needed a pickup. It was the ‘70s, you know. Danny was... emotional. He seemed happy that day though. Everyone was happy then, glad to be graduating. I didn't even know he had anything with him that night. He usually had it in that old pocket watch he carried, inside the back of the case.”

“You were there that night?”

“Yeah. We all were. I think Roger was working. He got there... after.”

“That had to be hard.”

She nodded and resumed her earlier emphatic hand gestures. “It was a big party, night before graduation and all. No one was all that sober. I'll never forget that woman's scream. She found him on the floor in the bathroom. Phil, John, and I rushed in when