I stay for a while longer, my back pressed against the stone as I tell him everything that’s happened since I last was here, everything but these feelings I’m harboring for his brother. It helps talking to him like he’s sat right there, next to me, listening intently to everything I have to say.
After he’s filled in and my ass has started to go numb from the cold ground I climb up from the grass and stretch out my muscles.
“The next time I see you it’ll be Christmas.” I say, “Until then, Ty.”
Pressing my lips to my fingers and then to the stone I kiss him goodbye and head back down the path to my car, shivering a little in the cold.
When I pulled up the lot was empty but there’s now a truck parked on the other side, the driver still behind the wheel.
I know it’s Fletcher. I’d recognise that red chevy truck anywhere. My heart hammers in my chest as he meets my eyes through the windscreen and I pause at my door, hesitating. Will he get out? Come talk to me or did we cross a line on Friday?
When he makes no move to get out I put a hand up in a wave and then climb into my car, driving away from the Dallas brothers.
Maybe that’s just what I needed to do. Drive away from both of them because these feelings, this pain inside me, it was going to rip me apart if I allowed it.
The problem, he was addictive.
Fletcher Dallas was my absolute weakness, one that would beat me down until I was black and blue and I’d still go back for more.
Clearly I was just a sadist who enjoyed the pain.
Fifteen
I watch her leave. I’d been here for an hour already, waiting for her to finish with my brother before I went ahead. I was actually meeting the guys here, something we did every thanksgiving but I wanted some time with Tyler alone before anyone showed up. That’s not going to happen now.
Colt pulls in next to me in his Volvo, Decker in the passenger seat. They hop out and Decker reaches into the back to grab the two six packs of corona from the back seat. Colt slaps his hand on my back and for a minute, I appreciate what they are to me.
I knew Colt first, having met him in second grade. We were inseparable then and then Decker came along at the start of middle school, this skinny boy who was an easy target for the bullies in our school. We’d had his back and we’ve never looked back since.
“Ready?” Colt asks, jerking his head to the iron gate that entered the cemetery.
We walk in silence and then each sit in the grass, wincing a little at the water seeping through our trousers.
“I hope you appreciate this, fucker,” Decker tuts at the headstone, “You’re ruining my Levi’s”
Colt laughs and pops the cap off one of the beers, setting it down next to the fresh flowers Peyton must have left.
“To you, brother,” Colt tips his beer to Tyler and then takes a sip.
Decker and I follow suit and then we sit in silence for a few minutes.
“Do you remember that time down at the lake the summer before we left for college?” Colt pipes up, shattering the silence that was becoming uncomfortable.
“It was so hot that day and someone had set up a rope swing from that tree. Peyton was the first one to swing from it, obviously trying to show us up and hell, she went flying, smashing down into the water. Tyler wanted to show her up, so there he went, hauling himself towards the rope but he was so much bigger than she was, heavier and the branch couldn’t take the weight. It snapped right off!” Colt booms with laughter, “He went down hard, not even making it to the water, hitting that big ol’ patch of mud at the waters edge.”
I remember it well. Laughter bubbles up from my chest, and I drop my head as my shoulders shake. He got up, covered in mud, from head to toe and whilst we were laughing, he had dived into the lake to wash it off.
He was so pissed. He sulked for the rest of the day, claiming ‘it wasn’t that funny.’
It was hilarious.
Something lifts from my chest as more memories flood my mind. I didn’t do this. I didn’t remember the good times with him, the happy times when maybe I should. It made me feel better, remembering him this way.
We shoot the shit for what feels like hours, each of us sharing a story about Tyler. We only have one beer each, the rest we leave for Tyler.
I know we shouldn’t and either someone is going to come along and steal them or my mom was going to pick them up and take them back, putting them in the cooler in the garage for the next time we’re all over.
Colt and Decker head back to Colt’s place for the night and I head home, pulling my truck into the driveway.
I can see mom moving around in the kitchen, her sweet, welcoming face smiling as I’m sure my dad tells a joke behind her. More guilt eats at me. I needed to come home more.
I slam my car door loud enough for her head to whip up and her eyes to meet mine through the kitchen window. Tears instantly spring to her eyes and her lip wobbles.
Shit, I might cry a little too.
Before I can even get up the porch, my mom is bursting out the front door, throwing herself at me. I catch her as she swings her arms fiercely around me.
I’m six foot two to her five foot six frame but her hug would rival even the strongest of men. I feel her body shake with tears as she holds me and I hold her back, burying my face into her shoulder. When she pulls back she cups my face into her hands and stares at me, truly stares at me, looking deep into my soul.
Whatever she sees she clearly doesn’t like as pain etches its way across her face.
“Oh my boy,” she sighs, “You hurt too much.”
I close my eyes, willing the emotion back.
My dad is waiting just inside the door and once mom has released me, I walk up to him, expecting a handshake but I get something else entirely.
He wraps his beefy arms around me, pulling me in for a hug.
My dad has not hugged me properly since I was about twelve. Not because he didn’t want to but because I didn’t. I believed you got to a certain age when your parents open affection became embarrassing but as I stand there, taking his unconditional love, everything in me breaks.
I’m not able to stop the sob.
I haven’t cried since that day Tyler died and now all that emotion, all the repressed sorrow, it bursts out of me.
My dad only holds me tighter.
I hear mom quietly sobbing behind me and even my dads frame shakes and we just stay there.
Eventually though, at some point, it dries up and dad pushes me away, holding onto the tops of my arms, looking at me the same way mom did.
It makes me feel so young, like I’m still the boy that ran through these rooms with his little brother in tow and not the twenty-two year old man I am.
He sighs, a heavy exhale that moves the wiry moustache above his lip.
“Come on, son,” he slaps my arm, “I think this needs a whiskey.”
I laugh, “It most definitely does.”
We don’t talk about that sudden display of emotion. It was needed, long overdue and now, as we sit at the kitchen table, eating the dinner mom cooked, sipping the whiskey dad pulled from his collection it’s as if I haven’t purposely avoided coming home.
I want to tell them everything. How I feel about Peyton but whilst we have an open relationship I don’t think they would truly understand.
So I say nothing and I revel in the warm, easy atmosphere that is my home.
It’s late by the time I head up to bed.
I make a vow to myself that I’ll stop avoiding this place.
It reminds me of Tyler but it’s not bad memories, most of the happiest moments of my life so far have happened within these walls but even as I lay in my childhood bedroom, in the bed that I’ve outgrown and the posters that line my walls, my mind still turns back to Peyton.
Every memory involves her somehow. Her in a little bikini out back, sunbathing by the pool, Peyton in the living room, playing video games with Colt, in the kitchen making cocoa with my mo
m. She was everywhere.
All over this house.
If the walls could replay everything that had ever happened, I knew she’d be in every frame.
I throw my arm over my eyes, sinking back into my pillows.
My feet hang over the edge of the bed, the sheets too short for my tall frame and I laugh at myself.
How everything has changed.
I eventually fall asleep, in an awkward, half on, half off the bed pose.
_
I’m stiff the following morning, having to bend in ways I’m not used to, just to fall sleep is new to me. I rub my neck as I follow the enticing aroma of fresh brew and bacon. I find mom in the kitchen, in a floral dress that falls to her knees and her hair, greyer than I remember, tied up. She’s at the stove, cooking the bacon and before she can stop me, I nab a slice of toast from the pile she’s left on the counter, quickly stuffing it into my mouth.
She swats me playfully and I kiss her cheek, grabbing a cup from the cupboard to pour a cup of coffee. I spoon a heaped sugar into the dark liquid and then take a sip, smiling as I remember the coffee Peyton had bought me in the library. She had remembered just how I liked it.
Most people got the sugar wrong, only putting a small amount in and not the heaped mound I liked. It’s probably more like two sugars but like hell I’d admit to having two, I’m a healthy athlete after all, I’ve got to stay in shape.
The coffee loosens the grip of sleep still clinging to my body and I stretch out, picking up the paper my dad had left on the table.
I flip to the sports section, settling my body at the table to read. I’m still reading when mom places a plate in front of me, my mouth watering at the crispy bacon piled on top of my eggs and toast. Paper forgotten, I dig in, spooning huge amounts into my mouth.
My mom chuckles, “You wanna chew that?”
“Why?” I say past a mouthful of food, “When I can just inhale it.”
I grin at her as she just tuts and shakes her head, placing a plate at the head of the table for my dad and then one opposite me for herself. The other end of the table is eerily vacant, and I realize, as I stare at the space why I’d avoided coming home.
How could I forget.
Just because there’s happy memories here, it doesn’t mean the pain goes away.
No, no, if anything it makes it worse and suddenly the food in my mouth tastes like lead that I have to swallow.
Sixteen
“You look beautiful,” Eric’s mother, Rachel, steps up behind me, her aged face smiling at me from over my shoulder. She’s an elegant woman, with her grey hair pulled into an elegant up-do, a pair of pearl earrings hanging from her ears. She was one of the kindest people I knew.
“Thank you,” I look back to myself, sighing at the mid-thigh red dress I had chosen for tonight’s meal with the Dallas’. “Is it a bit much?”
She scoffs, a sound that makes me laugh when it comes from such a graceful woman like her, “as if. It’s never too much to dress up like this.”
The dress was tight, fitting my body like a glove with a high neckline and the entire thing was covered with lace. I had curled my hair slightly, the ends bouncing against my chest and my makeup was light.
“You look so pretty, honey,” mom coos from the door behind me.
I blush at the perusal. “You don’t mind?” I ask her.
“Not at all, go have fun with your friends.”
I head over to my bag and pull out my converse.
Rachel gasps in horror whilst my mom just laughs.
“You cannot wear those with that!” She gasps.
“Well I’m not wearing heels!”
“Why ever not!?”
“I enjoy being able to feel my toes,” I tell her honestly, ignoring her wide eyes as I slip my feet into them and tie the laces.
She shakes her head, tutting furiously as I grab my purse and head to the door, “Don’t stay up,” I tell mom, “I’m not sure what time I’ll be home.”
“You have your key?” She checks.
I nod and dangle my keys, showing her the house key hanging from the chain, my heart twisting at the little football trinket Fletcher had given me all that time ago.
With a kiss on the cheek, I head out the door, fighting the nerves battling to get out. I’ve done this a hundred times, I tell myself, this is no different. Instead of driving, I walk over to the Dallas house, the day drawing into evening, the sky turning to a dusty blue. Pink lines the horizon, vibrant streaks that slash through the sky, lighting up the fluffy clouds and making them look like cotton candy. It doesn’t take me long and before I can talk myself out of it, I march up the path and knock on the door.
“I’ll get it!” I hear Fletcher yell from the inside and my whole body goes stiff.
I have no chance to run away as he flings the door open, looking handsome in a pair of beige chinos and a white button down shirt, his hair tamed but still managing to look disheveled and sexy, falling over his forehead.
His eyes widen at my presence before they drop down my body, following the lines of my curves until he stops at my feet.
I tap my toe, fidgeting a little under his scrutiny.
Suddenly he bursts out laughing. “Are you seriously wearing your converse with that dress?”
I huff, “Yes, there’s no law saying I can’t!”
He chuckles, swiping a hand across his mouth. His smile lights up his whole face, his chin dipped as he looks at me from beneath the frame of dark lashes.
“You look beautiful,” he tells me, turning serious.
I feel my cheeks burn bright and silently thank my stars that I decided to put makeup on. Hopefully the foundation on my skin will hide my blush.
“You, uh, you don’t look so bad yourself.”
His jaw clenches and then he steps back, opening the door wider, “Come in.”
I duck beneath his arm, getting a whiff of his aftershave.
He smells so god damned good I want to lick him.
I giggle at the thought.
“What’s funny?” He asks, right behind me, his breath brushing down the nape of my neck.
I sober instantly, goosebumps chasing away the humor. “Uh, nothing.”
“I like that sound,” he says right by my ear, “your laugh.”
I suck in a breath, turning my head a little to look over my shoulder at him. He’s so close, only a few inches between my back and his chest, his presence pushing the air around us until it feels like we’re being enveloped by it.
I swallow and open my mouth to speak but a loud female voice cuts me off as Mrs. Dallas whizzes around the corner, an apron tied to her waist. She pulls me in for a hug, “You made it!”
“I told you I would,” I hug her back.
“Well don’t you just look like a picture,” she claps her hands, “Wait right there, I want a photo of the two of you.”
“Mom – ” Fletch starts but she cuts him off.
“None of that, young man, now put your arm around her whilst I go fetch my camera!”
She disappears to wherever it is she’s stored her camera and Fletch laughs awkwardly, “I’m sorry about this.”
I shrug, “Should be used to it by now. This isn’t the first time and I very much doubt it’ll be the last.”
“That’s true,” he nods.
Mrs. Dallas comes back with the little silver camera in her hands and I realize it’s still the same one she had when we were kids. God, that thing must be a hundred years old! My camera on my phone would take a better photo.
I don’t say anything as she stares at us expectedly, waiting for us to stand closer together so she can snap the picture.
“Come on, you two,” she gestures with her hand for us to get closer and it’s at this point I understand, she doesn’t know how distant we’ve become. I didn’t want to disappoint so I close the gap between Fletcher and I. He stiffens but places his arm around my waist, his fingers lightly digging in at the hip.
His hands on
me should not feel this good. Not at all. It’s like he’s fire and I’m the helpless moth drawn to the flame. I know it’s going to sting when I touch it, but I go anyway, willing it not to hurt too much if I get close.
“Just one more,” Mrs. Dallas says, pressing the button. Her brows pull down, “Oh it didn’t take. You just wait right there. Ben!” She yells for her husband, “The camera stopped working!”
“Don’t move,” Fletch whispers, “she’ll be able to tell and then she’ll kick both our asses.”
I laugh, “Oh I know it.”
His fingers flex on my hip, “Strawberries.” He mumbles.
“Huh?”
“Your hair, it smells like strawberries.”
I bite my lip and nod.
“It smells good.”
I move my eyes to study his profile but I find him already looking down at me, his eyes suddenly darker than I’ve ever seen them, his lids hooded. He swipes his tongue along his plump bottom lip, his body suddenly closer, hard chest pressed into me.
“Got it!” The camera clicks as it snaps the picture.
“We weren’t ready,” Fletcher says, pausing before turning away from me to look at his mother.
“Well get ready,” she tuts, oblivious to whatever the hell that was.
She takes the picture and before I can say a single thing Fletcher lets go of me as if I’d burned him and stalks down the hall.
I say hello to Mr. Dallas from his spot in the living room and then help out in the kitchen, preparing the table for dinner whilst Mrs. Dallas dishes the food into serving bowls and lines them on the table.
“Where has that son of mine disappeared to?” She tuts.
“I’ll go find him,” I say too quickly.
She doesn’t say anything and I quickly dart out of the kitchen, heading up the stairs in the direction Fletcher went before.
His bedroom door is closed and I don’t bother knocking when I open it. I find him standing at the window, his back to me, broad shoulders filling the entire space and blocking out the light from the lamps outside. His lights are off and I can only see his broad silhouette.
Fletcher( Boys of HGU #1) Page 8
