That night I headed over to my father’s house. He was in the kitchen frying potatoes and eggs. Will had called me and said that Cecily was up in Zion National Park and she would be back tomorrow. I’d told him to hit up every one of Patty’s friends with Jia and find out if anyone knew anything about her sleeping with Roscoe.

“Don’t people knock anymore,” Adam said, “or is that not the custom in Hollywood?”

“I didn’t live in Hollywood.” I stood in the doorway of the kitchen and watched him. A rag with blood on it was lying on the counter, a beer next to it. “Adam, you can’t drink with your pain meds.”

He waved me off. “In my day we drank with everything, and we weren’t keeling over dying every five minutes. Now they’re warning us against this and that, and people are dying younger and younger. Gotta be tough and take some pain. Take small pain now and you can handle big pain later when it comes.” He coughed into his rag a few times and said, “And the son of a bitch always comes.”

He scooped the eggs and potatoes onto two plates. He said, “Come eat. You’re all skin and bones.”

“Not really hungry right now.”

“You will be later. Just sit down.”

I sat down across from him, and he dug in. I took a couple of bites but couldn’t eat. He noticed and said, “Stress is a helluva thing. Eats you in your sleep.”

“Who says I’m stressed?”

“Since you were a kid you’ve had a tell. You raise your right eyelid when you’re stressed, like you’re trying to stretch it or something. It’s a tic. Your mother thought maybe we should take you to a shrink, and I told her that was ridiculous.”

Man, he was right. I didn’t even remember because it had become so natural I didn’t notice it anymore.

“So this starting over fresh, it working out for ya?” he said.

I shrugged and took another small bite of eggs. “Does it for anyone?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never done it. I was born in this town and I’ll die in this town.”

“You regret that?”

He was silent a second. “Sure, who wouldn’t? But I have a feeling that you only want what you don’t have, and once you trade for it, you realize it’s worse than what you got now.” He took a sip of beer. “Or maybe change is always best. What the hell do I know? I’m just an old fool dying by himself.”

I stared at him a second. “You’re not by yourself, Adam.”

My phone vibrated. It was a text from Gates asking if I wanted to have dinner tonight. I responded that I did, and Adam said, “She really likes you, ya know.”

“Who?”