That made Hix grin.
But he saw now that Shaw was looking sick.
“You could just talk yourself without him asking you questions, you know,” his son began to defend his half of the juvenile gender, or more likely, the fact he hadn’t asked a girl a question about herself.
“And sound like an up-myself douchebag?” Corinne asked.
“Not a big fan of that word, honey,” Hix noted quietly.
Without skipping a beat, Corinne altered her statement. “And sound like an up-myself idiot?”
“It’s called conversation, Cor,” Shaw educated her.
“No, Shaw, conversation is, ‘I really liked that Avengers movie. I thought it was rad. I seriously liked the fight scene in the city. The Hulk is da bomb. Hey, Cor, how did you feel about that Avengers movie?’” Corinne returned. “Instead of forgetting the last part and going on to say, ‘But whatever, I think Mr. Galveston is a jerk. That pop quiz was uncool. I totally tanked it. My dad’s gonna be so pissed.’”
“Mr. Galveston is a jerk and that pop quiz sucked,” Shaw retorted.
“Is your dad gonna be pissed?” Hix put in, aiming this toward his son.
Shaw looked to him and gave a cool-guy shrug. “Maybe.”
“Son—”
“Pop quizzes are for teachers who are sneaks,” Shaw declared. “And anyway, we’ve been in school for two weeks. He didn’t even wait two weeks. He gave it in the first week. What teacher gives a pop quiz the first week?”
Hix had to admit, he agreed.
Just not out loud.
“Best the sneak next time and be prepared,” Hix advised.
“What do I care where Uzbekistan is?” Shaw asked, sounding like he genuinely wanted to know.
“You wanna become a marine, you better care about a lot of things,” Hix told him. “World opens way up, you earn a uniform.”
Shaw saw his point and shared that by jerking up his chin.
His son had wanted to be a marine now for three years. He wasn’t giving up on that, talked about it all the time.
This made Hix proud.
And it scared the fucking shit out of him.
“May be good too,” Hix went on, “you ask Wendy if she liked that Avengers movie.”
Corinne busted out laughing.
Mamie joined her.
Shaw studied his dad’s expression until he saw Hix was funning with him and only then did his face crack in a smile.
Hix let them put down more food, and did it himself, before he launched into it.
“Right, kids, want you to know, I called a real estate agent.”
All eyes came to him.
He kept giving it to them.
“She’s gonna be finding us places to live and I’ll arrange it so, when we go see them, we all go together so we can all decide together where we’re gonna move.”
“What’s wrong with this place?” Mamie asked.
Hix took his baby in, wondering where that came from.
She was still a little kid.
But day by day, she was growing out of that.
She didn’t have her own space in his old house because Hix wanted his girls to share a room, and share the closeness that would bring. Hope agreed because she’d wanted a guest room.
But his baby had to know that sleeping in her father’s bed with her sister and cramming her stuff into one drawer and a third of a closet wasn’t optimal when her dad was sleeping on the couch, and they all shared a bathroom.
“This is close quarters,” he said carefully, wondering if her question stemmed from the fact she thought, when he finally moved, he’d be moving back in with their mother.
“I like close quarters,” she replied, took a bite of garlic bread and kept talking while chewing it. “We all gotta be together and Cor can’t hog the bathroom all the time because we don’t have another one to go to.”
“You think Dad might not wanna sleep on the couch, Mame?” Shaw asked, not ugly, just pointing things out.
“Oh yeah,” Mamie murmured.
“Can I have my own room in our new pad, Daddy?” Corinne asked.
He shook his head. “I’m thinkin’, no. Sorry, honey.”
“You’re gonna be in it for, like, two years, Cor,” Shaw pointed out and looked at Hix. “You should get one of those townhomes they built when I was in junior high, out on County Road 12. Lev’s dad lives there and it’s way cool.”
Moving from a graceful, old, three-thousand-square-foot home to a shithole apartment to a three-bedroom townhome a twenty-minute drive from town.
It was still in the school’s district.
It was also still a step down.
“Someone’s selling, we’ll look, Shaw,” Hix allowed. “But just sayin’, they aren’t very big and they’re not close to town.”
“I’ll be gone next year. Corinne two years after that. Mamie not long after that,” Shaw stated.
“Don’t remind me,” Hix muttered.
“What I’m sayin’ is, Dad, you don’t need a huge pad,” Shaw replied. “We’ll be cool with whatever you get and not just because we’re all almost grown.”
“I’m gonna live with Daddy forever,” Mamie declared and looked at him with a big smile. “I’ll make my husband move in with us. That way you can have tickle wars with our kids and we can still have Junk Sundays.”
At the thought of his baby having babies, Hix was in danger of losing his dinner again.
“Your future husband would so not be down with that, Mame,” Shaw murmured.
“Like, so not,” Corinne agreed.
“Yes he will,” Mamie shot back. “Everybody likes Dad. I even heard Mrs. Turnbaum say he’s the most likeable guy in the county, way cooler than the old sheriff, who she said was a big blowhard.” She looked from her siblings to Hix. “What’s a blowhard anyway?”
“It’s not a nice word, baby,” Hix told her.
“Well, I like Sheriff Blatt,” Mamie announced. “Though, I’m glad he’s not sheriff anymore because he’s got a really big belly and it looked funny in his uniform.”
“I like that you got rid of the uniforms, Dad,” Corinne put in. “Everyone thinks it’s cool you only make our deputies wear the sheriff shirt and then they can wear jeans and boots. That whole sheriff gear thing is stupid and so yesterday. I mean, hello. Smokey and the Bandit came out in the last millennium.”
It far from sucked his kids were hilarious.
“I’m thrilled you approve of my wardrobe choice for the department, honey,” Hix said on a grin.
He was grinning because he was teasing his girl.
He was also grinning because he’d talked about getting them a new place, a place where they’d settle, leaving the in-between place, this stating plainly that life had changed in a permanent way none of them could do anything about.
He had no idea how Hope was with them. Outside of sharing such things as their mother made them eat stuff they didn’t like, the kids didn’t give him much and he didn’t pry. They came to him good, not moody, broody, acting out or out of their normal self in any way that was alarming, so he figured she was holding up her part of the job.
Which meant they were all moving on, not as he’d want—together—but they were moving on.
And Shaw’s point was valid, as much as Hix hated hearing it.