My Dad's Best Friend Said No Daddy Jokes, So I Made Him Say Yes novel · Chapter 21 of 24
Chapter 21: The Fish Fry
By dusk there were eighty people on what was left of our dock.
Odette had strung the lights along the pilings where the roof used to be.
The fryers ran in a row on the gravel.
The catfish came out gold.
The hush puppies went by in paper boats.
The zydeco on the old speaker was loud enough to carry out over the bayou.
Lucius stood at my left in a clean shirt.
He had not left my side for two hours.
Every few minutes his shoulder touched mine.
The six shrimpers who had sued the Marchettis sat together at a long table by the ice house, with their wives.
They ate and did not look at the white sedan in the lot.
Declan's father stood next to it, with his arms folded, and two men in polo shirts.
He had not come in.
His son had.
At half past seven Declan climbed on a cooler near the end of the dock, with a beer in his hand, and tapped the bottle against the rail.
"Friends," he said. "Neighbors. Can I have a minute?"
The music went on.
Odette turned it down.
I watched her do it, with her braid over her shoulder and her face set.
I understood she'd been waiting for this exactly as I had.
"First, I want to say how sorry we are," Declan said, in his easy, pleasant voice. "What this storm did to the Devereaux place is a tragedy. My father and I lost sleep over it."
Somebody in the back said something short.
"We've made the family an offer. A fair one, in the middle of a hard season. I'm not saying take it. I'm saying don't let sentiment decide. Mona's been through a lot."
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of My Dad's Best Friend Said No Daddy Jokes, So I Made Him Say Yes are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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