Page 6 of Badd Daddy

I groaned. “You are sneaky, you know that?” I unlocked my apartment door and stepped in, closing the door behind us. “She wasn’t a great person, and it wasn’t a great situation. She wasn’t interested in being a mom. She never really clicked into the role, you could say. She took off when the boys were seven. I haven’t seen her since, and I’m not interested in doing so.”

Olivia stood just inside my apartment, staring at me. “She left?”

I nodded. “Yep. I came home from work one day and she was gone. The boys got home from school before I got home from work, and when they walked in the place was empty. She had packed a suitcase, took the money we’d been saving in a coffee can, and vanished. No note, nothing. Just left. The boys didn’t understand and, honestly, neither did I. Had no clue what I was s’posed to say to ’em. The bitter truth was their mama was nothin’ but a bar slut I never intended to have kids with. But seven-year-old boys don’t understand that shit.”

“And you raised them alone after that?”

“Well…if you want the truth, I’d sayraisedmight be a bit of an exaggeration. Getting them to adulthood without them starvin’ or livin’ under a bridge is about the best I can say for myself.”

Olivia sighed. “I’m sure you’re underestimating yourself.”

I scratch my shaggy beard. “Possibly, but I doubt it.” I waved at my apartment. “Anyway, here it is. I wasn’t expecting company, least of all a beautiful woman, so I ain’t cleaned up properly.”

“I don’t think you need to worry about that,” she laughed, patting my shoulder. “There’s nothing in here to clean.”

I faked being offended. “I have an entire couchanda twenty-five-year-old fourth-hand television set, I’ll have you know.”

“And that’s it,” she said, snickering. “Literally. Not even an end table?”

I shrugged. “No point. Don’t need one.”

“What if you want to set a drink down? What about photos of your boys?”

I pawed at the back of my head. “Don’t really set my drinks down, now that I think on it. I drink ’em, finish ’em, and that’s it.” I frowned. “As for photos of my boys…? I guess I don’t really have any.”

She sighed. “Not even one?”

I shook my head. “Nope. Didn’t have the money, or the time for that.” I growled to myself. “Or at least, that’s the excuse I’ve always made.”

She moved into the middle of the living room, poked her head into the kitchen, then the bedroom and the bathroom. With a wave of a hand, she indicated my apartment. “So it’s a totally blank slate right now. What do you want in here? What do you want it to feel like?”

I shrugged. “I ain’t got a damn clue, Liv,” I said, frustration tingeing my voice. “I guess all I can say is that I’d like it to feel like a home.”

“This is an apartment, though. Will you be here for a while? Like, does it make sense for you to paint walls and such if you’re just going to move in a year or so?”

I hang my cane on my forearm and sit heavily on the couch, massaging my throbbing leg. “I dunno. I’ll be here awhile. My boys all have their own lives, serious girlfriends, and careers and all that shit. So I’m here because…well, that’s another long story. But I’m here, and this is a nice spot. Close to all three of the boys. Close to a half-decent job. Grocery store. Video store. Library.”

Olivia snorted. “Video store?”

I frowned, gesturing at the DVD player, which I got at the same thrift store as the TV and couch. “Yeah, the video store. How else’m I gonna find anything to watch?”

She stared at me as if trying to decide if I was kidding. “Uhhhh…Redbox? Netflix? Amazon Prime? Hulu? Apple TV? Roku?”

I blinked back at her. “Pumpkins. Rabbit. Sixty-two.”

Her face twisted into a rictus of complete confusion. “Are you having a stroke or something?”

“Is that a joke about my age?”

“I just have no idea what you’re talking about, or why you said those words.”

I laughed. “Well, you spouted a bunch of gibberish, so I figured I would too.”

She closed her eyes slowly and palmed her face as comprehension dawned. “Those are all alternatives to renting DVDs at a store, Lucas. Redbox is, well, a big red box from which you borrow DVDs. There’s one close to here, actually. The other things I mentioned are all streaming services.”

“Streaming services?”

Olivia shook her head. “Are you teasing me? I don’t want to assume you’re really this uninformed about current technology.” She huffed a laugh. “I mean, you have three sons in their thirties. Surely they’ve tried to get you basic Internet, at least.”