CHAPTER 69
CARTER
The sun was just setting behind the MGM, and the crowd was getting restless. It was a small venue compared with the rest of the tour, but a few thousand people on the Las Vegas Strip were hard to miss. Half the women wore Sexy Bitch shirts. The men had matching shirts that said I’m with a Sexy Bitch.
I stuck by Emily while she prepped the dancers, then did ID cross-checks for Carlos and eyeballed the line forming outside the auditorium.
—Dad?—
I smiled when I saw the text. Part of me had been afraid he was going to stay mad and never call me “Dad” again. I would have accepted his decision, but I’d hoped otherwise.
—Yes?—
—I like your tie—
Instinctively, I patted down my blue tie. It was nondescript. Not worth liking or even mentioning.
—Which tie?—
A segment of the crowd had started chanting, “Sex-y Bitch! Sex-y Bitch!”
—The one you’re wearing. It’s a nice blue—
Phin was in Los Angeles, four hours away. Had he hacked into my phone? The security cameras at the MGM? The Nikon around the neck of a tourist?
—What the
“Dad!”
His voice came from the real world, almost lost in the noise of the crowd. I whipped around until I saw arms waving out of time with the chanting.
My first thought, seeing him in the line, pressed up against the sawhorses, was that he was not old enough to be hearing the phrase sexy bitch, much less chanting it. My mother was right behind him, and she should damn well know better.
My second thought spilled out loud enough to be heard across the plaza.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“Nice to see you too,” Mom said when I got to the line. She laid her hand on the shoulder of the girl standing next to her. “Carter, Phin’s dad, this is Summer.”
Summer was Phin’s age, with a spray of pimples on her chin and lavender eye shadow. She smiled, elbowed Phin, then shook my hand. A man my age stood behind her. He thrust out his hand.
“Mr. Kincaid. I’m John. Summer’s father.”
“Carter.” We shook.
“Your son has quite the head on him.”
I shot Phin a glance. Was he still my son to the outside world? The kid shrugged as if life was life for the time being.
“What did he do?” I asked with suspicion.
“Fixed my wife’s track pad. I thought we were going to have to toss the whole laptop. But no. I don’t even know what he did.”
“Me neither. Phin? Can we talk?”
“Can I get back in the line when we’re done?”
Trick question. Son of a bitch, this kid made me appreciate his mother’s intelligence more and more every day. If I said he could get back in the line, I was as good as saying he could stay where he didn’t belong. If I said no, I was going to embarrass him in front of Summer. This kid was just getting smarter and smarter.
“Just come.” I pointed to the pavement on my side of the sawhorse. He ducked under it, and I pulled him out of earshot.
“Before you get mad . . .”
“Too late.”
“She had tickets. What was I supposed to do?”
“Call and ask.”
“You would have said no.”
He was damn right about that.
“You have no business being here. You’re not ready.”
“But I knew you’d be here. I wasn’t trying to get away with it.”
“I can’t watch you and watch the client at the same time.”
“Grandma’s here. And John.”
“For the love of generations of tradition, call him Mr. . . . whatever. Show some respect.”
“Fine, fine.”
Behind him, the line started moving.
“Is this the girl with the mouthy friends?” I asked.
“Yes, but it was all stupid and messed up. It wasn’t what I thought. And when the thing about Mom happened . . .” He shrugged, swung his arms, craned his neck as if emotions and words were too big to get through his mouth. “She called me, and she was so nice. She invited me to get my mind off it.”
He told me he’d stay home. That was a big part of his argument when he told me to come to Vegas. But hearing how this girl had stepped up for him like a true friend, and seeing him acting like a normal kid after crying in my arms for hours softened my initial reaction. I was still going to give him a hard time, because he should have asked first, but once I was done giving him hell, he was going to the Sexy Bitch preshow.
“Please, Dad,” Phin continued. “Please let me stay. We’ll be home by morning to feed the cat, I promise. I’ll be good. I’ll take out the garbage without complaining.”
“You’re supposed to do that anyway.”
“Come on, Dad!”
He’d said “Dad” again. It had never given me more satisfaction than it did right after he knew I was his uncle.
“‘Come on’ is not a reason to be at an adult concert.”
“You can’t send me home. Summer’s dad drove.”
“Grandma can take my car, and I can do whatever I need to do.”
The wind whipped from behind him, flopping up a moussed panel of hair as if he had a trapdoor on the top of his head. I caught a whiff of him on the breeze.
“Are you wearing my cologne?” My laugh was pure delight, but he must have assumed it was derision.
“Whatever. Fine. Whatever. I’ll just, whatever, go home with Gram, and on Monday everyone can laugh at me. Great. That’s just great. No one’s going to talk to me anymore.” He spun on the back of his sneaker with one hand in his front pocket. The other snapped and twitched as he walked back to the line.
“Phinnaeus!”
He stopped halfway between me and the line but didn’t turn.
“I did not dismiss you.”
His shoulders rose, then fell. He stormed back to me, hanging his head in a cartoon of disappointment.
“There’s no more complaining about taking out the garbage.” He didn’t reply, and I couldn’t see his face from above. “You are not to chant the B-word. I don’t care if it’s empowering to some people. It’s not to you.”
His head popped up, eyes wide, mouth open in a crazed smile.
“I’ll be backstage looking out,” I continued. “I don’t want to see you drinking soda, eating candy or anything with sugar. It makes you hyper, and I know you want to be on your best behavior in front of Summer. Am I right?”
“Yes!” He threw his arms around me.
“Another thing. If the people around you are acting crazy, that’s not an excuse for you to act the fool.”
“Thank you, thank you.”
I patted his head, mentally listing off a lifetime’s worth of guidelines I’d never gotten around to telling him. It seemed too late. He either knew how to act or he didn’t.
“Do you have money?”
He squeezed me harder. “I have the twenty you gave me for my birthday.”
I took out my wallet, and he unwrapped himself, bouncing nervously. “You’re going to need more than that.” I pulled out three twenties. Teenagers were expensive. “Get Summer a thank-you gift or a soda or something. Offer her dad gas money on the way home, which is code for ‘Don’t spend it all at the concert.’ And don’t forget to thank your grandmother.”
He hugged me again. “Thank you. I love you.”
“I love you too.” I kissed his head and gave him a last squeeze. “Don’t get all mushy on me. Get out of here.”
He held up his fist. “Not even big enough right now, but it’s the size I got.”
I bumped. “I love you too.”
He ran back to the line with a rubbery grace, his gangly limbs growing to fit his newly expanded world.