The Same Place (The Lamb and the Lion #2) - Gregory Ashe Page 0,47
like a tank inside a building—not ideal conditions for a porpoise, and Tean wondered, for a moment, where it was.
“You know that’s not a whale.”
“Dolphin.”
Tean clamped his jaw shut.
“This dolphin,” Jem said, “was born in 1949, and it was the first dolphin to kiss President Harry S. Truman—”
“It’s not a dolphin. Dolphins usually have long, prominent beaks, and they have a curved dorsal fin. That’s a porpoise.” Tean tried to hold back. “I mean, just look at the teeth!”
The blue-gray squall of Jem’s eyes was unreadable, and he murmured, “God, those boys on Prowler are going to go into a feeding frenzy when they get wind of you.”
As though on cue, Tean’s phone made another of those growling noises.
“You met the family,” Leroy said as he came back into the living room. “That’s Tessa. Met her down in Florida. You wouldn’t believe what those bozos were making her do, the kinds of tricks. Filthy, disgusting things. Bunch of perverts, the whole state. You don’t want to sit down?”
“We were just waiting for you.”
“I’ve got to sit these days,” Leroy said. He was carrying a bowl of painfully orange macaroni and cheese, and he eased himself down onto the sofa with a grunt. “I don’t know where Joy is. Haven’t seen her in weeks. Doesn’t talk to me. Doesn’t want anything to do with me. I can’t say it much plainer than that.”
“Thank you—” Tean said, but he cut off when Jem’s hand lighted on his back, and Jem gave a tiny shake of his head.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Jem said. “I don’t have much of a relationship with my parents; that’s not easy for anybody.”
Shoveling noodles into his mouth, Leroy just grunted.
“Who’s this lucky guy?” Jem asked, thumbing at a cluster of pictures featuring a Goldendoodle. In each of the pictures, Leroy and the dog were together, with the dog climbing on Leroy, kissing Leroy, or just stretched out alongside him. It took Tean a moment to realize that the tattoo on Leroy’s neck wasn’t Fozzie Bear—it was a very poor rendition of the Goldendoodle.
“That’s Bo,” Leroy said.
“He’s beautiful,” Tean said.
“Looks like a sweetheart,” Jem said.
Leroy ate for another minute without saying something, just a mixture of snuffles and grunts as he worked on the mac and cheese. Then he said, “Cancer. Got him young.”
“I’m so sorry,” Tean said, hating how empty it sounded.
Jem moved over to the sofa, taking the seat at the other end, and put his hand on Leroy’s shoulder. Leroy froze, and Jem waited for the first punch, for the shouts, for the demand that they leave. Then Leroy’s shoulders heaved, and he ran a thick wrist over his eyes. Jem didn’t say anything. Leroy didn’t say anything. But after a moment, Leroy coughed and cleared his throat and wiped his eyes again.
“Like I said, they’re my family now.” Leroy waved at the wall of pictures. “I taught Joy everything she knows. Taught her what matters in life. She took it and ran with it, took it way past what any decent person ought to do. That girl is out of her mind. Crazy. If you find her, I don’t want anything to do with her.”
“Trouble?” Jem said. He still had his hand on Leroy’s shoulder, and Tean suddenly remembered, as though seeing himself from the outside, how Jem did the same thing to him. He knew how it felt. Knew how effective it was, just to be touched, just to feel like someone cared about you.
“That girl’s whole life is trouble. Girl. She’s a grown woman, but she acts like a girl. Can’t keep one thing in her life from falling apart because she’s so dang crazy.”
“Like this thing with Zalie?” Jem said.
“Like that, sure. But that’s just ordinary stuff. People divorce all the time. People have affairs all the time. Nothing new under the sun. But the rest of the stuff—bombs, guns, hurting people. I’m supposed to believe some dumb son of a gun driving a delivery truck deserves to die because she doesn’t like how that company keeps their chickens? That’s bullspit to me.” Leroy eased his weight forward on the cushion, gesturing at Jem with the spoon. “I told her we’ve all got to make a difference. I taught her that. I said, ‘Look what I’m doing, sweetheart. Taking these poor animals in. Giving them a better life.’ But that’s not what she wanted. She always had to feel important, and somebody else always had to pay for it.”