Page 28 of Naughty November

After shrugging out of my jacket and taking off my shoes, I headed upstairs as Dylan emerged from his room.

“Good seein’ you, son.”

“Hey, Dad. Lemme.” He grabbed the boxes and opened the top one, and he groaned at the smell. “Fuck yeah, I’m starving.”

I chuckled and headed for the last steps. These ones creaked even more than the main stairs.

The rooftop was my absolute favorite spot in the house, and it was Dylan’s baby. He’d turned an empty deck into a rooftop garden with a nice seating area under a wooden pergola with slithering ivy. In the summer, all the pots had flowers in ’em. Now, the olive tree and lemon tree looked a little sad from the cold, but they’d make it.

Dylan and I had built the pergola together, with him as the designer. The architect in the making.

“Is Uncle Max comin’—oh. You installed the heaters. They look great.”

I thought so too. And it’d be a waste to only spend the warm months here. “Max is on his way up.”

I switched on the heaters while Dylan opened the chest where we kept cushions and whatnot.

He’d designed that too. ’Cause my boy was deathly afraid ofspiders. He’d made sure the thing was airtight. Once, at around fourteen, he’d pulled out a blanket at his aunt’s place, and he’d screamed bloody murder when a common house spider dropped in his lap.

Max joined us soon enough, and he had beers and napkins for everyone.

A question about the holidays and upcoming exams led to their discussing our Thanksgiving plans, another thing to look forward to. We’d be here this year. Dylan, Max, Alex, Monica, Arianna, and Max’s parents—possibly his brother and his family too.

We also had Max’s forty-second birthday coming up. And I was not fucking forgetting this one. Christ. In my defense, I’d been down with the flu last year—and I’d made up for it by taking him and the boys fishing down in South Carolina.

I bit into a slice, content to just listen—and have my pizza to myself. Those two went all in for triple cheese and pepperoni. I wanted the works on mine.

It was probably best to keep an eye on Max the next few weeks. Closing our community was bittersweet to him, and I had a feeling he’d struggle to find his footing.

“That’s such bullshit,” Dylan laughed. “Me, Alex, and Mike’s kids fucking annihilated y’all last year.”

Max shook his head and reached for his beer. “I don’t remember it that way. I remember Alex fumbling with the ball a whole lot, and you fell into the lake?—”

“Dadpushedme!” Dylan yelled.

I chuckled. “The fuck I did. I was swattin’ away a wasp.”

He gave me a sarcastic look. “In November? Nice try, old man.” He huffed and grabbed another slice. “Whatever. We’re gonna beat you this year too.”

That made me laugh, because playing football in our backyard? It was a patch of grass and approximately 160 square feet large.

“Have fun doin’ that in our backyard,” I said.

He rolled his eyes. “Believe it or not, there are other places we can go.”

Hmpf.

The following Monday, I stopped by Max’s clinic for lunch. I hadn’t heard from him all weekend, not counting a couple of texts, and we usually talked on the phone if there’d been a game.

There was always a game.

“Hi, Reid. Max is almost done with a patient.”

“Perfect. I’ll wait in the break room.” I veered right, preferring not to linger in the waiting room. Everything was pristine white, and I’d just come from a worksite.

Nobody was in here, so I started unloading Chinese food on the table. It was a small clinic, with two dentists and four other staff, including Cathy at the front desk. Max was like me in that we liked taking our lunch later in the day, so we usually got the room to ourselves.

My favorite orthodontist showed up a few minutes later, lookin’ awfully tired for one-thirty in the afternoon.