Southern Storms

by Cherry, Brittainy

  “Careful!” he called out, his voice a mixture of annoyance and worry—not worry for me, obviously. He seemed more concerned about the daisies.

  Thankfully, I didn’t fall. I did my best to tiptoe through the flowers as I grabbed my things. “Sorry. I was wandering through the woods when I—”

  “Trespassing.”

  “What?”

  “You were trespassing. This land is private property.”

  I snickered a little as I hugged the book to my chest. “Yes, I heard, but—”

  “So you knew?”

  “Well, yes, but—”

  “There are no buts. You heard and disobeyed the law. Remove yourself from my property before I have to get law enforcement involved.”

  I huffed, stunned by his words. “Is it really that serious? I was just trying to get some fresh air and explore and—”

  “Trespassing,” he cut in—again.

  “Stop cutting me off!” My face was growing warm from his attitude as anger began bubbling up inside me.

  “I will once you’re not on my property.”

  The man with the most intense, sad-looking eyes was beginning to get under my skin. How did he think it was okay to be so rude to a person he didn’t even know? He was being so blunt, harsh, and cold.

  I decided to ironically call him Mr. Personality, seeing how his was ever so charming.

  “You don’t have to be so impolite,” I grumbled, shaking my head in disbelief. “I wasn’t harming anyone or anything by being out here. The idea that people can own nature is a completely ridiculous concept anyway. These trees were here before you were even born, will be here long after you’re gone, and still you are trying to claim them as yours. That’s insane to me.”

  “I suppose you’re fine with strangers wandering into your house unwelcome then.”

  “That’s not the same.”

  “Wasn’t the land the house was built on there before you were born? Won’t it be there after the house comes down and you’re gone? But I guess people trespassing in your space is different because it’s yours and not mine.”

  “Your sarcasm isn’t appreciated,” I snapped, speaking firmly despite my nervousness.

  I began to step forward to exit the field of flowers, and accidentally crushed a few daisies. He leaped toward me.

  “Careful!” he shouted.

  He bent down to the ground and began trying to repair the damage I’d caused. The grimace on his face turned into a full-blown frown as the daisies lay limp in his grip. His hands were so big it looked as if he were a giant playing with miniature florals. His lips moved slightly as he muttered something under his breath, but I couldn’t discern what he was saying.

  “I’m sorry, I couldn’t hear you,” I stated, my heart still lodged in my throat from my nerves.

  “Probably because I wasn’t speaking to you.”

  “Right. Sorry. Also, I’m sorry about any damage I caused to your flowers.”

  He mumbled beneath his breath—again. You know how there was Cesar Millan, the dog whisperer? Well, currently, I was dealing with Mr. Personality, the human whisperer—not because he had a profound way of understanding humans, but because all he did was freaking whisper.

  “If there’s anything I can do—”

  “Just go,” he stated, his voice low and controlled.

  “No offense, but you have a terrible attitude.”

  “No offense, but I don’t give two shits what you think about me.”

  “Asshole,” I muttered.

  “So you’ve heard.”

  “Heard what?”

  “About my role in this town’s fucked-up story,” he grumbled. “I’m the town asshole. Just living up to the part.”

  “I can see you take it seriously.”

  “I’m a professional.”

  “Hopefully, you’re just a small part in this town’s story.”

  “No small parts in a small town, just cliché small minds. I’m sure you’ll fit right in. Now, if you could do me the pleasure of getting the hell off my property, that would be grand.”

  Wow.

  Okay, Mr. Personality.

  He took his role to heart, a total method actor—cool. I could get behind someone who took their acting career seriously, no big deal. And boy, was he good. He deserved an award for his performance. I believed every arrogant comment he dished out.

  If Louise, Kate, and Mr. Personality were the highlights of this town, I was in for a treat.

  He didn’t look back up at me. Those dark, mysterious eyes didn’t lock with mine again. He kept his stare on the daisies with such a scowl on his face one would have thought I’d stepped on his loved one and crushed them to death.

  I muttered another apology with no response then began my trek back to the house—well, I tried to find my way back. When I ended up making a circle in the woods, I found myself back at the field of daisies. Mr. Personality was sitting in the middle of the field on the white painted bench, and he released a weighted sigh when he saw me.

  “Go straight this way to my house. It will take you to Merry Road. Hopefully, you can figure out where you live when you get to a main road.”

  “Right. Of course. Thank you.”

  He didn’t say another word.

  As I walked around the block to find my way back to my property, I couldn’t help but laugh at the fact that Mr. Personality lived on a street called Merry. He was far from merry. Scrooge Avenue seemed much more fitting.

  5

  Jax

  People were the worst.

  Unfortunately, my day job required me to be in close contact with humans on a regular basis. I was the town’s one and only plumber, so needless to say, I spent a lot of time dealing with Havenbarrow’s shit. There were so many days I wished I would’ve become a writer, or a sculptor—or literally anything that involved as little human contact as possible. Oh, you need someone to sit on Mars for fifty years? No fucking problem, boss. Sign me up.

  Hell, being a vet would’ve been better than this. At least then I would’ve been able to interact with cute pets while dealing with their dumbass owners who thought it was okay to feed their dogs wine because LOL YOLO.

  Needless to say, I wasn’t a people person. I found them too people-y for my liking. I’d crossed paths with a lot of different types of individuals in my life and I had learned quickly that most of them weren’t for me. Therefore, finding a woman trespassing in my woods wasn’t the most exciting thing for me to experience yesterday afternoon. Even if she was beautiful, she was still, after all, human. Her beauty wasn’t enough to make me not care that she was on my property. I wanted from her the same thing I wanted from pretty much everyone else in town—to be left alone.

  “What in the hell is stuck in there?” I grumbled as I glanced down the clogged-up sink of the Jeffersons’ master bathroom.

  Marie Jefferson was an older lady with kind eyes. She was in her early sixties and always wore her pearls around her neck, along with the most expensive, vibrant clothing known to mankind. She was always wearing designer clothes, and if it wasn’t designer, it was still expensive as hell. Most people in Havenbarrow received hefty paychecks or came from a family with hefty paychecks, and Marie was no different. She simply didn’t have the same snotty attitude as a lot of the town did.

  On the scale of people I hated, she was one of the few and far between who I could tolerate, which was good considering her husband, Eddie, was my therapist and had been since I was thirteen years old.

  “Oh, well, you know…” Marie shrugged her shoulders and twirled her finger in her dyed rose-gold hair. “Last night, Eddie and I got a little wild, and well…” She cleared her throat, and her cheeks turned a bright shade of red. “Jax, it’s a little embarrassing. Eddie told me not to tell you the truth, but I’m a terrible liar.”

  Her stare moved past me and landed on Connor, my assistant, who’d recently finished his junior year of high school. He was my one and only employee for one simple reas
on—no one else in town had enough nerve to work with me. Connor was different, though. He was the town’s hustler through and through. If there was a way to make a profit, Connor was all over it. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was a millionaire before he turned twenty-one. The wheels in his head were always turning with ideas on how to make more money for himself.

  I’d been working with him for almost a year now, which was a lot longer than any of my other employees had lasted. Everyone before him either left crying or calling me an asshole. Some cried and called me an asshole at the same time.

  Connor was different. He didn’t take any of my aggressive, short comments personally. He was determined to show up for his paycheck and have a good time doing it, too. Even when I was in a shitty mood, Connor acted as if we were the best of friends.

  It actually worked pretty well in my favor. We were the perfect odd couple. It was as if Oscar the Grouch had a plumbing business with Big Bird. When I came off as a grump to customers, Connor used his charm to win them over. He walked away with more tips than I did on the regular because people liked him. I couldn’t blame them.

  Sad to say it, but over time, the little shit had grown on me, too.

  I brushed my arm across my forehead. “Now, don’t be embarrassed, Marie. Either you can tell us now, or I’ll take apart the pipes. We’ll find out what’s in there regardless, but if you tell me now, I can avoid doing extra work in case it doesn’t need as much as I might think it does.”

  “Oh, heavens.” She blushed and clutched her pearls in her slender fingers. “Okay, well, I’ll just spit it out. There are anal beads down there. Not big ones or anything! Just a very small string of them.”

  Connor instantly burst out laughing. I shot him a stern look to tell him to shut the hell up as my body flinched at the idea of what Marie had just told me. The idea of sweet, little Marie using anal beads brought about a level of discomfort I wasn’t ready to face. What kind of freaky shit was my therapist into? Disturbing didn’t even begin to cover what I was feeling.

  Hell, now I was clutching my own damn pearls.

  “We only used them once while Eddie and I were…um, well…” She blushed more and leaned in toward me. “You see, I was on my hands and knees on the sink counter.” She paused and gestured around. “Don’t worry, I bleached everything before you came over. There’s no cu—”

  “Oookay, you know what, Marie? I think we got it from here. How about you go ahead and tend to whatever else you need to get done around the house? I’ll be done in here in no time.”

  I glanced over my shoulder to see Connor standing there with his arms crossed and the reddest face in the history of time. His cheeks were puffed out like Alvin the damn chipmunk, and I knew if I poked him in the side, he’d explode.

  When Marie was out of sight, Connor released his laughter, hunching over and gripping his stomach as he howled in a fight of giggles.

  “Oh my gosh, that’s the nastiest shit I’ve ever heard! She’s like a hundred years old!” he exclaimed.

  “She’s in her sixties, not one hundred, and you’d be lucky to be her age and still have a sex life.”

  He shivered at the thought. “That’s disgusting. I don’t want my wrinkled cock sliding into someone at that age.”

  “Language, Connor.”

  “I’m just saying that’s fucking gross.”

  “Language, Connor.”

  He groaned. “Sorry, Jax.”

  “Just hand me a wrench, will you?” I rolled up my sleeves and maneuvered beneath the sink to get started.

  “Hey, Jax—knock, knock,” Connor said, holding the wrench out toward me. I swore, this guy cracked more bad jokes than a Midwestern dad.

  “Who’s there?”

  “Marie’s anal beads.”

  For fuck’s sake. “Marie’s anal beads who?”

  He snickered before bursting out laughing again. “No, that’s it. That’s the joke. The joke is you’re about to touch Marie’s anal beads, and if that’s not comedy, I don’t know what is.”

  He kept snickering the whole time I worked, and I didn’t expect anything less from the goofy kid.

  After the anal beads had been successfully removed from the sink pipe, I scrubbed my hands aggressively then shut off the faucet. “Go toss the stuff into the truck. I’ll meet you there.”

  “Aye, aye, captain.”

  He hurried away, and as I headed out of the bathroom, I found Eddie walking into the house with a briefcase in his hands. He spent his mornings in the park, reading the newspaper on his days off.

  Eddie was in his sixties, too, and the wrinkles on his face told the stories of his past. His smile lines were deep, and all of his lines contained levels of depth.

  He nodded my way with a small grin. “I see you’re still alive after missing two weeks of therapy appointments,” he commented with a smirk.

  “Just working.”

  He nodded in understanding as he set his briefcase on the ground. He raked his hand through his gray hair. “And Amanda? How is she? How are you two doing?”

  “We aren’t. We broke up a few weeks ago.”

  “Hmph.” Eddie stare said a lot more than his words ever would.

  I sighed. “Okay, out with it.”

  “Out with what?”

  “Your thoughts on the subject of Amanda and me.”

  “Thoughts?” he murmured, brushing his thumb across his thick mustache. “I have no thoughts at all on the subject.”

  I arched an eyebrow. “Really?”

  “Really.” He paused for a moment, still studying me with those therapist eyes of his. The fact that we weren’t sitting in his office didn’t mean he wouldn’t utilize his skills on me. A part of me was suspicious that he’d had Marie place the anal beads down the drain just to get me to come over after missing some appointments.

  I wouldn’t have put it past Eddie.

  “Why?” he questioned with his narrowed eyes. “Should I have thoughts on the subject? Do you have thoughts on the subject?”

  There it was.

  His comments seemed so nonchalant, but I knew he was setting me up to dig deeper into my psyche about why things hadn’t worked out between Amanda and me. He was therapist-ing me.

  “Do you want me to lie down on your couch and tell you my thoughts?” I joked.

  Eddie smirked a little. “My couch is always open.”

  “Yeah, well, not today. Plus, we have rules. In-office sessions only, remember? Besides, I have more jobs to get to with Connor, so forgive me for not wanting to dive into the details of my breakup.”

  “Hmm.” Oh hell. I knew the tone of that hmm. No good ever came from that type of hmm when it left Eddie’s lips. He gestured toward the couch. “Are you sure we can’t explore a bit? Even for five minutes or so?”

  I snickered. “Nice try, doc, but I have to run.”

  “What exactly is it you are running from?” he said with his hands clasped together and his head tilted to the side.

  “Currently? Anal beads.”

  He tossed his hands into the air. “For goodness’ sake, Marie, you couldn’t stop yourself from telling Jax about what happened to the bathroom drain?” he hollered toward the other room.

  “The beads were your idea, sweetheart! Don’t blame me for being unable to lie,” she hollered back. “My truthfulness was what made you fall in love with me all those years ago.”

  “Yes, well, things change.” He groaned, shaking his head.

  I pushed my tongue into my cheek. “Are you sure you don’t want to lie down on the couch and tell me your current thoughts and feelings?”

  He shot daggers at me with his eyes, making him less Dr. Jefferson and more Human Eddie. “I thought you were leaving.”

  I smirked. “On my way out.”

  “Stop by the office when you get a chance. We’ll have a real meeting.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “Oh, and Jax?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m really sorr
y to hear the news about your father.”

  I stayed quiet for a few seconds. I didn’t even bother asking how he’d heard about it, because I knew people in our small town were all news reporters without the credentials. It was a town of gossipers who didn’t really give a damn about my father or me.

  If anything, they were running around singing songs of joy about him almost being dead. Soon enough, I’d walk down the streets and hear the townspeople’s praises: Ding dong, the dick is dead. Which ol’ dick? The dickiest dick!

  My father wasn’t loved by me, and he was even less loved by the town’s inhabitants. If I had to count the number of times he’d been referred to as the town’s Mr. Potter from It’s A Wonderful Life, I would’ve been exhausted by the high number. I couldn’t even argue with the assessment.

  My father wasn’t a good man, and now he was in a nursing home, struggling after his third stroke had left him partly paralyzed with vascular dementia. He no longer knew who he was, and I was no longer able to take care of him. He’d recently moved into the nursing home where he’d be able to get the care he needed.

  Before my father was placed there, I’d spent the previous twelve years aiding him with his health issues—which were a lot. He never took care of himself, which made it even harder for me to do so. During all that time, he was quick to beat me, too, to remind me that I was under his control. My older brother, Derek, left the day he turned eighteen and never looked back. Mom had Derek from a previous marriage, but throughout my whole life, Derek referred to my father as his—up until the day our mother passed away and Dad turned to us as his punching bags.

  Now, Dad had been moved out of the home I grew up in and placed in the care of others. Even though I hated him, the house still felt a little colder at night. Funny how one could miss the demons they used to play with once they had to go away.

  Eddie had a field day when I revealed that truth.

  I nodded once, trying not to show any feelings about my father’s condition. The truth was, I’d skipped our therapy appointments because I wasn’t ready to talk. I didn’t know what to say.