Three Brothers

by Nicole Williams

  The washcloth fell from my hand, slapping on the floor. Rivulets of brown and red spread onto the tile, pooling into the cracks and staining the spotless grout.

  I wasn’t done fighting. Never. I wouldn’t let the one thing I’d gotten really right in life slip away because of a technicality. Sure, that technicality might have meant my early death, but there were worse things. Like living alone. Or living without love.

  “I’ve been thinking too. About this curse thing.” I stepped back, but I kept my hand over his chest. His rhythmic heartbeat steadied me. “And I’ve come to the conclusion that I would rather die young with you than live a long life without you. So you’re off the hook with this whole curse thing. I’ve signed the waiver. I won’t hold you responsible if I wake up tomorrow and a boulder comes through my bedroom window and squashes me.”

  Chance’s eyes turned to ice. “That’s not funny. This isn’t a joke, Scout. This isn’t some game of Bloody Mary—this is us talking about your assured, one-hundred-percent guaranteed premature death in some horrific way if we’re together.” His voice was loud, echoing off the bathroom walls. “So please do me a favor and stop being so cavalier about it, like a handful of buried women at the top of that mountain is just some humorous coincidence.” Chance’s arm thrust toward Red Mountain, his breath coming in short pulls and his eyes wild.

  I closed my eyes, rethinking my approach. Making light of it wasn’t working, but there had to be some way I could prove to him that I knew I was looking the Grim Reaper in the face and still making my choice with unwavering confidence. “I’m sorry.” I wondered how many more times I’d say that before the night was over.

  “When you fell for Conn right off the bat, you want to know what I felt?”

  The skin between my eyebrows creased. “Anger?”

  Chance whipped his head from side to side, covering my hand with his again. “Relief. I knew that he could never love you back, so you were safe loving him. You would be okay as long as you kept your attention on him. As much as I cared for you and died every time I had to watch your eyes go soft when Conn came into the room or when Conn said something mean to you . . . there’s a part of me that wishes when you came back this summer, you would have still loved him.”

  When I blinked, a tear spilled from the corner of my eye. “That’s a terrible thing to think.”

  “It’s not terrible if it means getting to watch you live a long life and die the way a person’s supposed to—of old age.”

  I swiped at my eyes again. “So you’re saying there’s no hope for us? You’re giving up on us before we even have a chance to get started?”

  Chance’s fingers curled through mine, giving my hand a soft squeeze. He worked up a smile, but his eyes didn’t mirror it. “I’m saying there never was any hope for us in the first place.” His eyes lowered. “But it was nice pretending for a little while.”

  I couldn’t stop staring at the washcloth on the floor. I couldn’t stop thinking about how if that small scrap of cloth could wipe away all that blood and dirt, again and again, and still come out clean with some warm water, why couldn’t I fix this? Why couldn’t I see past Chance’s objections and make him understand that, though they might have been valid, they weren’t my own worries? I wasn’t worried about losing my life—I was worried about losing him.

  “Can we just not talk about this anymore right now?” I looked away, feeling as though I’d both had my hopes lifted and my heart broken in the span of a minute. “My head’s about to explode, and we’ve got to get you fixed up better than this because if I keep up with the washcloth routine, we’ll be here until tomorrow night.” I waved at his face and neck, which were still pretty well coated in mud, and I hadn’t even gotten to his caked hair yet.

  For a moment, he almost looked as disappointed as I felt then his face cleared. “Yeah, later sounds like a good idea.”

  I knew what he really meant was never because in his eyes, it was a done deal. Sealed shut. Talking about us would have been futile because in his eyes, there never could be an us.

  “Why don’t you hop in the shower and get cleaned up?” I suggested as I bent down to grab the dirty washcloth and mop up some of the mess. “The hot water will help with the sore muscles I know you won’t admit to having”—I peaked an eyebrow a him—“and I’ll go in search of those frozen peas and not-cheap beer to help with the rest of the aches and pains. Sound like a plan?” I was already sticking my arm inside the shower, cranking on the hot water.

  Chance scooted off the counter, trying to seem like it wasn’t painful. “Sounds like a plan.”

  I grabbed a couple towels out of the cupboard and hung them on the hook outside the shower, tested the water, then opened the curtain and waved him inside.

  “I’m still in my pants,” he said, waving at his mud-coated jeans that left a trail of mud flecks as he came closer.

  “Yeah, I gathered that. You’ll probably want to take them off before you get in the shower.”

  His head tilted. “Yeah, I don’t normally shower in my pants, but you’re not exactly leaving me with a lot of options, are you?” His gaze went from me to the shower to his jeans then repeated the cycle.

  I rolled my eyes then headed for the door. “Prude.”

  “Voyeur,” he muttered back.

  He waited until I’d closed the door before even lowering his fingers to his fly. Chance had never been as bad as his brothers when it came to traipsing around the house in his underwear, but he’d never been so shy with me either. Right at the point in a relationship when most guys couldn’t wait to shed their pants, my guy wanted to keep them glued in place.

  I waited outside the door until I heard the shower curtain slide closed again. Instead of going downstairs in search of those peas, I stayed right where I was and did a little pant-shedding of my own. My shirt and what was left wound up in the same pile as my pants and socks. I didn’t hesitate to open the bathroom door this time. I didn’t even need to gather a breath or my composure—I just stepped inside and moved in Chance’s direction.

  “So about you and me . . .” I said, announcing myself when I was just outside the shower.

  Chance was silent for a moment, but when he spoke, his voice was two notes higher than normal. “I thought you wanted to talk about that subject later.”

  I shrugged at the shower curtain he was hidden behind. “This is later, and technically, it isn’t talking I’ve got on my mind.”

  “Scout—”

  But when I slid the curtain open and stepped inside, whatever warning had been about to follow stopped short when he saw that I was, just as he was, naked.

  “You don’t get to decide this for me too.” I took a couple steps toward him.

  The water was a few degrees past warm, streaming down his body and collecting at our feet. His face was so torn, so split right down the middle, but I wasn’t. I’d never been so sure of anything in my life. I moved closer until I could reach out and touch him. When I was close enough that our chests were touching, that torn look on his face became less . . . conflicted.

  “You don’t want to say or admit or do anything, fine. You don’t have to. But you can’t tell me I can’t.”

  I wasn’t sure what he would do, but when I lifted my lips to his, letting the water roll from his to mine, his arms tangled around me before he pulled me closer. Right before his lips touched mine, he whispered, “I won’t.”

  I’D BEEN AWAKE to watch the sun rise, unlike the person sleeping beside me, who’d probably seen every sunrise for the past fifteen years. I didn’t know what time it was—I wasn’t even quite sure what day it was—but I didn’t care. There was nowhere else I needed to be. Or wanted to be. Or should have been. Nowhere other than right there, huddled beside his body, our limbs so tangled together I couldn’t tell whose was whose, as I watched the dawn of a new day from his bedroom window.

  Contrary to what I knew Chance believed, this day didn’t look so much more threatening than yesterday. I
didn’t get any premonition or inkling that it might be my last day on Earth because I’d chosen to fall in love with the man beside me . . . but if it was the day—my day to go—then I’d leave the world knowing I’d experienced the kind of love everyone aspires to.

  The shower had been a good idea. I’d had the element of surprise, and well, I’d been naked. Always a good way to sway a guy’s mind. He’d fallen asleep late last night, his arm cradled in a makeshift sling I’d put together, with a smile I’d never seen on Chance Armstrong’s face.

  Part of me was scared for him to wake, not knowing if a half night of sleep and a new day might shift his mind back into unreasonable territory. Part of me wanted to freeze that moment in time, when I’d never have to worry about his arms around me in bed and he’d never have to worry about the sand running out of my hourglass. As far as moments to freeze, that was the one.

  But another part of me wanted him to wake and experience this new day with me. I wanted to feel him at my side as we journeyed through our new life together. I wanted him to challenge me and me to challenge him right back. I wanted to fall together and rise together, fail and succeed. I wanted to live a day or a million days of life with the knowledge that I was loved by a good man and there was nothing I wouldn’t do for him. I wanted to see everyday events painted a bit brighter because of that, and I wanted the mundane chores to feel a bit lighter because of that love.

  My world was the same except for one thing: I’d let the right kind of love into it. So in a way, my whole world was different at the same time it was the same.

  When I finally felt him stir, I smiled. “You slept in, cowboy.”

  Still half asleep, Chance kissed my back all the way to the top of my neck. “I did sleep in.” He rolled onto his back, probably to check the time on the clock on his bedside table, which I could have done if I’d really wanted to know the time. “I really slept in.” His voice was low and a bit raspy from sleep, his laugh the same. “I haven’t woken up and seen light out my window since I had the chicken pox when I was ten.”

  I twisted around to look at him. With the sun lighting up his face and his eyes staring at me as though everything he could ever want was right in front of him, I couldn’t imagine why I hadn’t seen what had been in front of me the whole time. How could I have been so blinded by one brother that I missed this one? The one. There was no other term to describe what Chance was to me. “Well, of those two options, I’d take a repeat of last night over the chicken pox, no question.”

  Chance’s good arm was still around me, and he pulled me close. “Ditto one thousand percent.”

  “So what do you think could be responsible for you sleeping so heavily you slept . . .”—I quickly checked the clock, my eyes widening when I saw the time—“three hours past your usual wake-up time?” I slung my leg over his hips just in case he needed any help with his answer.

  Another one of his smiles moved into place as his fingers gently raked through my hair. “Let’s see. Well, there was that whole thing in the shower.” He gave me a sideways look. “Moving on to that whole thing on the bathroom floor . . . ending with that whole thing on the actual bed. And there was that bit about me spraining an arm and bruising half my body.”

  With that reminder, I propped up on my elbow and inspected him. His arm was still cradled close, thanks to the sling, and it seemed as if he’d been telling the truth last night about it just being a sprain. The rest of him looked worse than his arm though. Giant purple and blue splotches ran down his entire right side, from his shoulder to his calf. Even his cheekbone was swollen and showing a bruise. Most of the scrapes and cuts had sealed up fine, but in the light, I saw fine streaks of dried blood staining his light sheets.

  “But besides all that, I think I know the real reason I slept so late.” Chance’s fingers brushed from my hair down my back, cupping the small of it.

  “And what’s the real reason? Since a three-peat and getting bruised and broken isn’t that good of one?” I smiled as I brushed his hair back from his brows. I hadn’t realized how long it had gotten. Chance was in a cowboy hat so often, or fresh from one, that I never got to see his hair unless it was matted with sweat. He had nice enough hair that it was too bad it stayed hidden all day. In the morning light, our hair was almost the same color, mine maybe just a shade more auburn.

  For one sudden, fleeting moment, I had a vision of a child with the same colored hair. Our child. I swallowed and kept that image in a memory bank for later. I still didn’t know where Chance stood on the night we’d shared. Until I did, I couldn’t plan out every night going forward the same way.

  “The reason I slept so late and soundly beside you is because of just that,” he said. “Because I was beside you. I didn’t have to distract myself from thinking about you or force myself out of some dream or nightmare of you. I didn’t have to try to convince myself this would never happen because”—his arm curled me closer so my chest pressed into his and my face hovered a few inches from his—“it happened.”

  “And how are you feeling this morning about what happened?” I kept my eyes on his, waiting for his answer. I didn’t wait nearly as long as I’d expected I would.

  “I feel like both the happiest and most scared man in the world.”

  I nodded, unable to keep from smiling. His iron resolve to keep me at a distance didn’t seem to be back in place. I could deal with him being scared. I could deal with the intersection and crosswalk thing. I could deal with anything, so long as I had him. “I feel the same way, except for the man part.”

  When Chance laughed, his chest bounced against my body, igniting something inside me that, after last night, should have been satisfied until Christmas.

  “So you’re admitting to being scared for your own life? I’ve finally gotten through to you?” he asked after his laugh subsided.

  I scooted so close I felt his hipbone against my stomach. “I’m not scared that way. I’m not scared the way you are. I’m scared because now that I’ve got you, I’m worried about royally screwing up and hurting you or ruining this. I’m scared I’ll mess up what we’ve got. I’m not scared of dying.”

  “Why wouldn’t you be scared of dying?” he said under his breath. His hand at my back skimmed up under my hair and curled around my neck. “There’s nothing you could do to mess us up or ruin this or hurt me. There’s nothing you could do that would extend past the way I feel about you and the forgiveness that goes with that. Nothing. So why don’t you stop focusing your fears there and put them where they should be?”

  I peaked an eyebrow. “Like on the sky falling on me? A meteorite targeting me? A pack of wolves developing a craving for Scout Holbrook?” When Chance’s forehead creased, I eased off. This wasn’t light subject matter to him as it was to me.

  A moment after I’d stopped, his face ironed out again. “Well, it would be nice if I had someone other than just me concentrating on keeping you alive. Think you want to give that a go? Help me out with the Scout-life-preservation objective?”

  He’d kept his voice light, but I heard the tightness underneath. I knew that while he might have framed his words in a teasing manner, he was dead serious. But he was giving in, letting go of the curse controlling his life. He was willing to put his fear behind his feelings for me, and as much as I wanted to leap up and bounce on the bed and scream with excitement, I wanted to kiss him more. So I did.

  “I promise to help you help me stay alive,” I said toward the end of our kiss, putting one more onto the corner of his mouth before leaning back.

  His eyes were still closed, his face peaceful, when his phone rang. I checked both nightstands, but I didn’t see it. Chance kept his eyes closed and ignored the buzzing phone. There was a whole five seconds of quiet after it stopped ringing before it started again. I huffed, threw the covers off, and crawled from the bed in search of the phone. It wasn’t quite as bad as an alarm clock, but it was annoying enough that I wanted to shut it off and keep it off.

 
“Where is it?” I crawled around the floor naked, looking under the bed and beneath the pillows scattered across it.

  Chance sat up, watching me with a look that made the muscles in my stomach contract. “Where’s what?” he asked with a silly smile.

  I grabbed the closest pillow and tossed it at his face. When it fell to the side, he was still smiling. By then, the phone was ringing for a third time.

  “My pants,” he said. “I think it’s in the back pocket of my pants.”

  Hopefully it wasn’t as mud crusted as the pants were. In the bathroom, I found the pants and found the phone in the back pocket that wasn’t caked in dirt. If his phone had been in the other pocket, it probably would have been as beat up and broken as its owner.

  “It’s Chase,” I called out before carrying it to him.

  For a moment, Chance’s face creased with concentration, then something dawned on him. The sheets and covers were off and he was rushing-slash-limping to the closet a second later. “The meeting with dad’s lawyer.” He grabbed the first shirt and pair of jeans his fingers touched. “It’s this morning.”

  Somewhere inside that head of mine, I’d filed away the memo that there was a Saturday morning meeting with Mr. Quacker, but it sure hadn’t been the first thing on my mind when I’d woken up this morning. Watching Chance wrestle into his pants, I rushed over to where my clothes were still piled on the floor. “What time?”

  “Nine o’clock,” he said, lifting his chin at the clock. It was 9:05.

  “Shit,” I muttered, pulling on my clothes in record time so I could help him out of his sling long enough to get his shirt on and get the sling back on. Since I could tell he was still in some serious pain, I tugged on his socks and boots, ignoring him the whole time he protested. “So I guess there won’t be time for coffee and breakfast?”

  Chance paused in the middle of stuffing his shirt into his jeans. “Breakfast and coffee on the front porch with you sounds only about a hundred times better than sitting around a table with a lawyer and my brothers. We don’t need to be there—I can find out what they talked about later.” Chance smiled at me as I fussed with getting his cuffs tucked over his boots. “Let’s stop rushing around like the house is on fire and figure out what we want for breakfast.”