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“You know,” Jon Rambo said, tossing a brightly colored reverse card onto the pile in the middle of the table, “there was a time when we’d have been playing poker and drinking something a little stronger than colas.”
Ed rolled his eyes. Except for the occasional glass of wine with a fancy dinner, neither he nor the guys had ever been much for drinking stronger stuff. They had, however, played plenty of poker—for pennies, dimes, nickels, and quarters for the really good hands.
Not much anymore though. One by one, as they'd become domesticated husbands and fathers, even their taste in entertainment had changed to a more family friendly kind.
“Yes!” Dan Mulholland said, a grinchy grin curving his lips as he threw a draw four card on top. “Red. Gotcha!” Jon scowled, but pulled four new cards from the top of the deck without complaint. “We’re all dads now. The day you and Hannah became parents, your days of being footloose and fancy free ended. Oh wait! You never were footloose and fancy free, were you?” Everyone chuckled, even Jon because he knew he used to lead a very narrow, dull life.
“And I, for one, couldn’t be happier about that,” Ed, the proud grandfather of four month old Nicky, declared, just before he announced, “Whew. Thought one of you would have caught me when I forgot to tell you I only had one card left last time, but you didn’t. I win.” Jon scowled again, looking at the dozen or so cards in his hand. From his expression, it appeared he’d drawn at least a few that would hurt his already sorry score.
The girls were at Cal and Darby’s making Christmas decorations with the kids while the guys were spending their night out at Dan and Jess's. It was a tradition that never lost its appeal no matter which bunch had the kids. Their wives just tended to plan projects while they were content popping a bunch of corn and watching movies or ordering pizzas and playing video games.
Tonight, all of the kids—except for Nicky—would be helping, even the triplets, who would be two in a couple of months. Ed couldn't help it. He was always a little jealous of the girls when they had the kids. He looked on all of them as his grandkids but to be a grandfather to his youngest daughter's child? That was something he'd never believed would happen. But it had and even though he got to spend more time with them now that he'd retired and was working for himself, he'd never tire of holding that baby.
As Sam was dealing the next hand, Jon’s cell phone rang. Judging by the expression on his face, they all knew who it was.
“Yeah. I’ll be right there,” Jon said, after listening for about thirty seconds. His voice was as toneless as a robot when he ended the call and got up from the table. “I have to cut out of here for a while. There’s a furnace that needs fixing.” He walked to the foyer, Dan hot on his heels. "I shouldn't be gone too long."
“I don’t know why he doesn’t just tell them to eat dirt,” Cal muttered when the front door closed behind him and Dan returned to the table. “Every time they call, he about breaks his neck to get over there help them. It’s like they have some hold over him.”
“They do,” Ed said softly, unable to hide the frustration he felt over the situation. “They’re his parents. He’s trying to prove that no matter how much they hurt and neglected him, he’s the better person.”
“Still, after everything they did to him—” Cal shook his head.
“At least he had you guys,” Ed pointed out, though he agreed with the other guys. Jon had done far more than he should have for his abusive parents and no one would blame him if he finally said enough.
“He didn’t have me,” Chris reminded him, grabbing a potato chip from the paper plate beside his cards. Though he was Jon’s business partner in C&J Construction, he hadn’t met any of the guys until they’d started college.
“True enough, but he did have the rest.” Ed couldn't imagine a young Jon surviving his childhood without his friends.
“He had you too,” Dan said quietly. “I think we all helped keep him from doing something stupid but I don’t know if we’d have been enough as we got older. There was something about you though. I don’t know where Jon would be today if you hadn’t started coaching our team. The summer we met you was one of the worst ever for him."
"It sure was," Cal muttered, his jaws clenched.
And it had been, Ed knew, for all of them, but especially for Jon and Cal.
"That was the summer you were dating that girl, Sam." Dan's brows drew together as he tried to remember her name.
"Deirdre," Sam said, not surprised the name still tasted sour on his tongue. "Her name was Deirdre and I was tutoring her, not dating her."
That girl nearly scarred him for life. Well, maybe it hadn't been that dramatic but she'd certainly scared him off girls for a long time. He hadn't dated much before he met Holly and it was because he'd always wondered whether a woman liked him for him or because of what he could do for her. Especially after he'd started making C&J Construction rich with his one of a kind house designs.
Yeah. That had all been courtesy of Deirdre Hollister.
She'd been nearly three years older than him but he'd been tall for his age, and more mature than most boys in high school. He'd been crushing on her for most of the school year and the day he’d found her crying in the park, head bent down, her slender shoulders shaking as she'd wept, had nearly broken his heart...