He would always consider when Mama Joy agreed to take them on and adopted them as her own the best day of his life. The boys no one wanted had found a forever home with a single woman who ran her own yarn and knitting shop. Sure, most everyone told her she was half-crazy, but the way Jesse figured it, it was that wonderful crazy half that was just what she needed to keep the four of them in line.
Jesse felt something in his chest tighten as he watched Kerry bring the cup away from her lips once again. Her round brown eyes were soft and full of an understanding that made him feel like she’d been reading his thoughts, and he was suddenly more naked and vulnerable than his stupid underwear made him out to be. He cleared his throat. “You’re right,” he said. “I think I’d better go and get dressed. Before you know it, Damian will be here barking orders and trying to run things, so I need to be ready.”
Kerry just nodded, which somehow made him feel worse. More than anything, in that moment, Jesse wanted her to give him some of her usual dismissive admonishment. What he needed today was a Kerry-sized kick in the ass, not her sympathy. “You go and do that,” she said softly, and he caught a small hitch in her voice. “I, uh—” She turned and pointed to the back table, which, he noticed for the first time, on top of being packed with the leftovers from yesterday, also now held two large shopping bags. “I’ll sort out this food. I don’t know if you heard, but Mrs. Hamilton was here this morning and she dropped off more. I’ll pull it out, and if you want me to, I can bring some up and put it in the fridge upstairs.”
Jesse frowned. “I don’t know where. The house fridge is full of leftovers from the repast too. That’s why this other stuff is still out down here. We can try and stuff it or split it between all of us when the guys get here. Maybe Lucas can just take it to the firehouse. He’s there most of the time anyway.”
Kerry nodded again. “That’s a good idea. I’ll start dividing it up. But I’m afraid we’ll need more containers. Mrs. Hamilton was probably only the beginning. You can expect plenty more where this came from. Knowing the neighborhood ladies, they will want to keep you well fed.” She gave his chest and bare stomach a look then that was deep and penetrating and had his abs quivering on their own. “Besides, Mama Joy wouldn’t want you losing weight.”
Jesse shook his head and groaned. “No, she wouldn’t.” He sighed and looked again at all the food. “Mama Joy was definitely loved.”
“That she was.” Her voice cracked again.
Oh hell. Why did he go and say that? Jesse looked down and caught the tears that had sprung to Kerry’s eyes.
Shit. “I’m sorry, Ker—” he started, going to reach for her.
But she put her hand up, halting his words before they could continue out of his mouth. “No. Don’t say that. You have nothing to be sorry for. I should be here as a help to you and your brothers. Not blubbering like some fool and adding to your troubles.” She quickly swiped at her eyes with the back of her hand, pushing up her glasses and looking so darned cute and vulnerable. The image reminded him of catching her crying in the loft of the shop so many years ago, way back when they were in junior high.
“You’re not a fool.” He lowered his voice. “And you’re never trouble. You’re family, Kerry. And you loved Mama Joy just as much as any of us. Just as much as she loved you.”
There was a loud hiccup sound as her tears came on full force. “Well, damn, Jes. You went and did it now,” she said, putting down her mug and reaching for a paper towel.
As if on autopilot, Jesse stepped forward and took her into his arms. Her shoulders and back were awkward and rigid, but within seconds she softened, and he felt the delicate quaking of her muscles against his body as she sucked in uneven breaths between sobs. He held her there. Taking in the warmth of her softly twisted braids against his bare arms. Soothed by the light smell of lavender and musk as her twists tickled his nose as she heaved and let her sorrow out. Jesse swallowed down hard, blinking back his own tears as he fought to calm his hard-pounding heart.
He would not cry today. Jesse reminded himself of his vow once again. He had told himself yesterday that he’d shed enough tears and he was done. Mama Joy would want it that way. She wasn’t one to go in for a lot of sorrow. She’d have told him to have his moment and then move on. To think of her from now on with only joy and happiness in his heart. And that is what he would do. Once he got his damned mush of a heart in line to listen.
But then a damned lump formed in Jesse’s throat, and it completely pissed him off. He didn’t have a right to have a lump. He didn’t have a right to any more tears or wasted time. He’d done his crying and carrying on at the funeral yesterday, and that was enough. It was clear as day from the looks and comments from his brothers this past week and from all the neighborhood friends and acquaintances who had shown up: He was a fuckup, and as per his usual he’d fucked up and was a disappointment to Mama Joy right till the very end. Not even being there when she’d needed him at that critical moment. Wasting time and not living up to his potential, whatever that was. How could he continue to disappoint her now that she was gone?
Sure, it was a pattern for him, but it was one that he was now determined to break.
Mama Joy was the only one who’d ever seen potential in him, and she’d indulged him from the very beginning. Doing what she called “cultivating his creative spirit,” all the while working herself into an early grave. Truth was, he was nothing more than a selfish bastard, taking what he could and never giving back in return. Not even when she clearly needed him to help more around the shop and relieve her of some of her heavy burden.
Kerry sniffled loudly and Jesse swallowed down hard on the determined lump, willing it away while ignoring the wayward tear that slipped from the corner of his eye as he held her and gained strength from her pain. He mentally paused and took the moment in. Yes, he was a bastard, in the kitchen in his drawers holding this woman and once again letting someone else do the hard work for him. He couldn’t even grieve right for Mama Joy, so instead he just stood there and let Kerry do the hard work for him while he held on for all he was worth. But Kerry did feel hella good. Maybe he’d just hold her a little longer . . .
“What the hell, Jes? This is a goddamned business, not your bedroom. Mama Joy is in the ground one day and you’re seducing a woman in your underwear in her back kitchen!”
Fuck. Damian’s voice pierced Jesse’s ears like a hard two-by-four to the skull. Leave it to his annoying older brother to make his entrance at exactly the wrong time.
3
Oh, it’s just you, Kerry.”
Kerry stepped away from Jesse’s dangerously comforting embrace and turned. Damian’s voice was as bland and cold as his gaze.
Yeah, it’s just me. Gee thanks, Damian. Dismissive much? But she didn’t let her thoughts out of her head and off her tongue. What did it matter anyway? How many times over the years had she heard those words, or some version of them, from one of the Strong brothers?
An off-the-cuff “Oh, it’s just you.” Or, worse yet—no comment at all. As if she was just another fixture in the shop. Like the coffeepot or the old farmhouse table in the main room that was used for classes and weekly knitting circles. Kerry squelched back a sigh as she stepped back and out of Jesse’s arms and looked over at Damian, who had come into the kitchen through the back door. She quickly swiped at her wet face, noticing that Jesse’s chest was probably even wetter. Shit. It was bad enough that Jesse saw her weak and crumbling. She didn’t need to go falling apart in front of Damian too.
“Yeah,” she started, trying her best to keep her voice even and calm. “It’s just me. I was having a moment and, uh, Jesse was kind enough to offer some comfort.”
She watched as Damian’s sharp brows knit tight and his angled jaw tensed. He gave a glance Jesse’s way, no doubt taking in his state of mostly undress. “Comfort, huh? I bet he was.”
Kerry’s eyes went skywa
rd as her tears were, for the moment, forgotten and the brothers gave each other one of their usual stare downs. For brothers, Jesse and Damian could not be more opposite. Their differences had little to do with their lack of shared DNA and more to do with, well, just about everything else. Jesse was all light in his looks and demeanor, with his lightly tanned skin, his mossy green eyes and his shoulder-length sandy-brown locs, which fit his Bohemian vibe. And then there was Damian, who pretty much was the definition of darkness. With his cinnamon-hued skin, close-cropped dark hair and onyx eyes that could singe a person’s soul, he walked around most of the time with a smoldering aura that perfectly fit his whole quick-tempered, brooding persona.
And no one put Damian into a temper quicker than his youngest brother, Jesse. Maybe it was that Jesse fluttered between his vocations like he fluttered between women. A fact that bugged straitlaced Damian to no end. The vocation part—not the women, probably, since Damian was a low-key player himself. Still, Jesse couldn’t pin down whether he wanted to be a DJ, a bartender, or “use his liberal-as-fuck communications degree for something besides charming the shit out of women,” as Damian put it. While she was alive, Kerry knew, Mama Joy had to break up plenty of arguments between the two of them.
Damian, a corporate financial analyst, was the picture of a wannabe Wall Street raider the way he strutted around in his perfectly tailored suits. Kerry was sure seeing Jesse in the kitchen nearly naked was just the thing to piss him off. And she knew that Jesse was sure of it too.
“You can keep your judgment to yourself, Damian,” Jesse said. “Whatever is going on between me and Kerry is between me and her.”
Kerry balked. “There isn’t anything going on.”
Jesse shot her a look. “Of course there isn’t, but what business is it of his?”
Yeah, of course.
Damian let out a snort. “I can see you’re just as mature as ever, little brother.” He stepped farther into the kitchen and reached around Kerry to pick up a coffee mug out of the dish rack. Helping himself to a mug of the steamy brew, he took a sip of it, black, then looked back at Jesse. “So, are you going to go and get dressed, or have you decided to add ‘nudist’ to your list of useless extracurriculars?”
“Seriously, are you starting with me today?” Jesse said, crossing his arms as if instead of being mostly naked, as his brother had pointed out, he was dressed in the height of fashion. “Could we at least have one day that isn’t shrouded in your self-righteous bullshit?”
Kerry watched as Damian put down his mug and puffed out his chest, taking an ominous step toward Jesse while Jesse unfurled his arms and postured. His already wide chest became even wider and he jutted out his chin, looking his older brother directly in the eye.
“As if you know anything about self-righteousness or self-determination or anything to do with any type of work-related adjective,” Damian said.
“Listen, I’m not in the mood to take your sh—”
Kerry shook her head and took a step forward. She threw both hands up. Her palms stopped in midair, inches from each of the men’s faces, silencing them immediately. Having gotten the response she was looking for, she slowly put her hands back down and turned her head, shifting her gaze back and forth between the two, looking them both in the eye.
“One day—” she said, her voice so low that it was almost a whisper, and for a moment she wondered if they could hear her clearly. Kerry cleared her throat and spoke up, a bit louder this time. “One day is all it’s been that Mama Joy has been in the ground, and already the two of you are at it as if you’re elementary kids on the playground fighting over a toy. What would she think?” Kerry waited a beat as that question was answered with silence.
Jesse’s gaze shifted guiltily, while Damian clenched his jaw tighter.
She decided to twist the screw a little more. “I’ll tell you what she’d think. She’d be damned disappointed in the two of you. And she’d tell you both to straighten up and get your acts together and behave like the men”—she paused there—“no, the brothers that she raised you to be.”
It was then that Damian opened his mouth as if he was about to say something, and Kerry raised her hand once again, shocking herself with her forcefulness and silencing him. Her eyes shifted to Jesse, stopping whatever flippant response he was conjuring up. She gave him a quick up and down. “Now, I suggest you head upstairs and get yourself dressed, because I’m sure Noah and Lucas will be here soon, and you all have plenty to work out. Not to mention you don’t want any of the neighborhood ladies coming by with casseroles and getting an eyeful, do you?”
Jesse’s eyes went skyward before landing back on her mischievously and giving her a half smile. “Well, I don’t know—do I?”
She looked at him deadpan and they stared at each other in a mini-standoff for about three seconds.
Jesse blinked first and sighed. “Well, I guess I’ve gotten my orders,” he said to Damian before looking back at Kerry with what could have been a hint of admiration. “Look at you, Kerry Girl.”
Maybe not. The Kerry Girl comment skated on the edge of grating, but she’d let it pass, for now. Instead of stinging, for the first time that damned nickname actually soothed her in a weird kind of way. Still, she raised a brow. “It would seem you have, so get going. The day isn’t getting any longer.”
Jesse turned and headed out of the kitchen and back up the stairs while Kerry forced herself not to focus on his alluring back view.
“Who would’ve thought you had it in you?”
Damian’s words came smooth and matter-of-factly from over her shoulder but hit like a shot.
Kerry turned. He was leaning casually against the counter, coffee cup back in his hand as he sipped, and stared at her with those penetrating eyes of his. “Had what?” she asked, picking up her own, now cold, coffee and going to place it in the microwave. She pressed a few buttons and awaited Damian’s answer. “Well?”
“Had so much gumption, I mean. In all these years I’ve barely heard you utter more than a few words put together, and never with such forcefulness. What’s gotten into you?”
Kerry fought to get ahold of both her composure and her thoughts as the microwave dinged. What had gotten into her? What should it matter to her if the brothers fought? That was their business now. Mama Joy was gone and today they were getting together to decide how to handle her affairs. She was, or in a short while would no longer be, the hired help. She internally winced, but she knew she needed to be real now, at least with herself.
There was a lot to consider. Or, correction, the four guys had a lot to consider. Though the property was small, being a four-story brownstone storefront, the fact that it was prime Harlem real estate gave the brothers plenty to think over. In the end, the brothers would most likely close the shop, sell the property, and split whatever was left after the bank got their cut between the four of them. Each going their own way, only to get together every once in a while, on the odd birthday or holiday.
Just thinking of it brought a painful ping to Kerry’s heart. There would come a time in the not-so-distant future where they would be nothing more than a fond memory to her. And, well, who knew if they would ever think of her at all, fondly or not. She blinked quickly, careful not to look Damian’s way.
She wouldn’t cry again. She was determined not to. So instead she took a gulp of her coffee and ignored that its taste had gone sour and thanks to the microwave it was now way too hot. She swallowed the scorching brew anyway. Anything to counter these feelings, and right now a burning tongue beat a teary eye.
“I’ve talked plenty over the years,” she said between hot sips. “It’s just that you all weren’t listening. Not that it matters.” And it didn’t, she thought as she put the hot coffee down and busied herself by now shifting the never-ending dishes on the counter, opening and closing the fridge, playing an odd game of jigsaw, then finally pulling out a p
latter to use for serving later. Calmer and more composed, when she next spoke, it was with a lower tone. “Look, I know it’s not any of my business, but I do know that it would make Mama Joy—”
“Mama Joy is dead,” Damian said, cutting her off.
“Well, her memory, then,” she gritted out, “happy if you guys would just get along. Especially now. As brothers, like she always wanted for you all. More than anything, that meant so much to her.”
She looked up when all she got from Damian was silence.
He stared at her for way longer than was comfortable before finally speaking. “What the hell is all this talk about memories? What good will that do any of us now? She was here and now she’s gone. Anything more than that doesn’t matter.”
She stared back at him, then snorted. The snort came out purely by accident, but he was being classic Damian right now. His wall was up and, he thought, firmly in place. But she could see the cracks. With him there was always a crack. “If you say so. But does it matter what you say or what you can see? We all know what she believed and what she wanted.”
Once again, Kerry found herself playing a game of chicken.
Shit. She didn’t sign up for all this drama so early in the morning. Finally, he blinked. “Well, hey, at least you put a low fire under the unmovable Jesse.” He gave her a salutatory nod that was still condescending. “And for that I have to give you credit. It would seem that you learned a lot more from Mama Joy over the years than just knitting. I guess I can call a truce at least for that.”
Real Men Knit Page 3
