Page 74 of Try Me
Ugh. I was becomingthatguy, and I couldn’t even muster up the energy to care. “Is Cam coming?” I hadn’t heard from him since we’d gone to the diner.
“Nah. Says he’s working a lot.” Sam lowered his voice as we walked through the door. “I think it’s hard for him, too, being around all the drinking. I wouldn’t be surprised if he just goes independent.”
Fuck, maybe I should reach out some time. At least check on him.
I grabbed a quick shower and discovered a message from my dad on my phone when I stepped out, asking where I was. I fired off a reply and started toweling off my hair, surprised when my phone pinged again almost immediately.
Dad:Sounds great. Been wanting to pop in for a short visit anyway. See you soon.
Great. The last thing I wanted to do was deal with my dad, but what the fuck else was I going to do? Dad did this every so often. As a legacy, he liked to revisit the house and yammer on about the glory days back when he was president. When I was a kid and we’d attended home football games, I’d loved tailgating with the frat. As an only child, the sense of camaraderie and brotherhood was both cryptic and alluring; the idea that just by joining, there’d be a common bond that came with twenty plus built-in friends had been insanely appealing.
But right now I just wanted to eat some burgers and drink some beer and not think about anything for a while.
Dad arrived a half hour later, still in his golf gear. All the brothers loved him, clamored to crowd around him, give him high fives, offer him a beer, and shoot the shit with him for a few minutes. From a distance, I saw what they saw. The Cartier watch, the burnished skin, the distinguished salt-and-pepper hair. A legacy to look up to. To hopefully become.
But what lay behind it made me more uncomfortable than it used to.
My dad had always commanded respect, but the pervasiveness of his power had never actually frightened me until recently. He snapped his fingers and shit got done, no question. I wasn’t sure that was a good thing.
“Son.” He inclined his chin in acknowledgment and detached himself from the other guys. He held up his beer can. “Let’s grab a fresh one from the fridge.”
He dropped a hand lightly on my shoulder as we walked toward the house, and I thought it was meant to be affection, but it felt more like a rudder, like him steering me where he wanted me to go. It must’ve been easier when I was a kid and still hanging on to every word. He didn’t need the hand back then. He could just use his voice. Now? I didn’t know. Something was changing about our relationship, but I hadn’t sorted through the jumbled pieces yet.
We grabbed a beer from the fridge and wandered toward the library where the pool table was. Dad headed toward a bank of windows that looked out over the patio and back of the house. Drake’s latest album thumped beneath the thick silence in the room.
He cocked his head, listening. “Summer of 1986, ‘Sledgehammer’ was playing nonstop. We’d be out there just like you guys. Instead of phones and portable speakers, Jamison Stark would drag out an extension cord and set up his entire stereo with a six-disc changer.” He chuckled wistfully.
“Mm.” I stared at the pictures of each class hanging on the paneled walls, wondering how long he planned to stay.
“Different times.” He sighed like it was a shame. “The world is changing so much.”
I’d gotten a version of this speech in so many iterations over the years that the amusement now lay in trying to figure out which artifact of a bygone era he was about to lament.
“People are softer now. Triggered easily.” Dad hung air quotes on the wordtriggered, then shook his head with a grimace. “Makes me think of apples left out on the counter too long. Biting into that taut red skin only to find the interior is mealy and spoiled.” He sniffed derisively. “There’s a lot of mealiness lately.”
“Maybe you should stop eating apples.”
His gaze flinched toward me, sharing a flash of shock that quickly transitioned into a sharp, watchful glint. I rarely talked back.
The desire to look away from him was overwhelming. I knew these kinds of power plays. I knew what it meant when I looked away. In the past when I’d done it, I’d told myself it was the easier route, that I was saving myself unnecessary hassle and grief. But I had Chet’s grin on my mind, how his eyes had danced on the court earlier. How he held my jaw, my side, my hand. Fierce and tender and possessive at once.
So whether I held my father’s gaze out of carelessness or bravery, I wasn’t sure. They were easy to mistake for each other.
When he looked away, the sense of triumph I felt was probably a tenth of what he experienced on a daily basis, but I tasted it, absorbed it. And I understood the allure completely.
After a beat of silence, Dad strolled to the wall of photographs, stopping before this year’s class photo. “You were nominated for president. Why didn’t you win?”
I laughed in utter disbelief. He hadn’t said anything back in the spring about it. Why now? “I can’t force people to vote for me, Dad.”
He spun around, eyes hard. “Force, no. Persuade, yes. Did you run a campaign, talk to your fellow brothers, make a plan?”
I’d done none of those things with any measure of aptitude because I hadn’t wanted the presidency. “Does it matter now? It’s already been decided, and it’s not me. It’s not a make-or-break thing in the scheme of life.”
He grunted and started pacing. He had a way of making it feel like he owned the air in a room, like everyone else needed to shift and flow around him, make space for him.
So stop, said a voice in my head. But it wasn’t that easy. I’d been doing it for too long, and like any other script, it’d become second nature.
“Maybe it doesn’t now,” he demurred. “Different times, like I said.” He stopped and parked his ass against the edge of the sofa, arms folding over his chest as his gaze bored into me. “The bigger point is, son, it’s hard to know who to trust sometimes. Especially the older you get. Family, though? It’s always number one. We look out for each other.” He sucked his teeth, glancing at the photos again. “I’m assuming you’ll be at the house Sunday.”