Gibson Boys Box Set

by Locke, Adriana

  “Did you date him?” I ask.

  “In a roundabout way.”

  “So, you slept with him,” Lance deadpans.

  Her eyes light up like a little girl. “No. Well, maybe, but that’s not the point.”

  As everyone laughs and Nana gets flustered, I peek at Hadley. She’s watching Nana tell her story with rapt attention. I wonder what it’s like to be her with no family but Cross. No stories to listen to, no holidays to share traditions with.

  “The point is, I learned a few things from Johnny that served me well later in life, and I would’ve missed out if I’d have dated your granddaddy right away.”

  “So, he taught you how to—”

  “Don’t you dare,” Nana cuts Lance off, her face flushing again. “Oh, Lance. What am I going to do with you?”

  My family breaks out into a conversation about Molly again. I take Hadley’s hand and hold it on my lap, wondering if what Nana said is true. And if it is, does that mean there is hope for me?

  Twenty-Six

  Hadley

  The truck kisses the curb and rolls to a stop. The leftovers Nana sent home with Machlan perfume the air, and I could sit here for the rest of the day and be content. Belly full. Heart fuller. If only things could stay this way forever.

  Machlan’s fingers tap against the steering wheel to a tune I can’t hear. His gaze is settled off into the distance, an almost forlorn look written into his skin.

  He’s been quieter since Nana got sick at dinner. Even his smiles don’t quite seem as genuine or as wide as they were before.

  “Hey,” I say, resting my hand on his arm. “You okay?”

  “Me? Yeah.” He pulls his gaze to me. “You?”

  “Yeah.”

  He gives me a half-smile, one his heart isn’t fully into. “Do you wanna take some of this food? She gave me enough to feed an army.”

  “I think you asked for that much.”

  “Only so Peck didn’t get it.” His smile slips wider. “I’ll share with you, though.”

  “I couldn’t eat any more. I’ll pop.”

  He turns the heat down, then fiddles with the radio. Taking his chew can out of his pocket, he turns it over and over in his hand.

  I hate seeing him like this. Nana is so special to him. Even as a teenager, he’d check on her. Make everyone promise not to tell her about his shenanigans. Mow her lawn. Help her with her garden. I don’t know how he’ll cope if something happens to her.

  “She’s going to be fine,” I say softly.

  “Yeah.” He clears his throat. “She’ll be fine. I’m not worried about it.”

  “It’s okay to worry about it, you know.”

  “I know. But I’m not. There’s no sense in it.”

  The can lays in the palm of his hand. He moves it so the light reflects against the metal lid and shines a light in the air.

  My heart sinks for him, and I just want to ease his burdens, if only for a minute.

  “Thanks for a fun day.” The slices along my forearms from the rose bushes are bright red from the irritation of the dishwater at Nana’s. I hold them up for Machlan’s viewing pleasure. “It’s been a blast.”

  Machlan tosses the can in the cupholder. “You look like you’ve been in a fight.”

  “The question is: do I look like I won?”

  He laughs. “You look like you took a hell of a beating, but there’s hope the other guy looks worse.”

  “He does. I chopped that rose bush to pieces.” I laugh too. “Seriously, though. Thanks for a fun day. I really did enjoy it.”

  “Me too.” He looks out the windshield again. “It’s kind of weird, huh?”

  “What’s kind of weird?”

  “Spending a day together.”

  His head turns to me first, and then he angles his torso to me. He stares at me for a long while, biting his bottom lip. This typically has me squirming in my seat because I don’t know what he’s going to say. But, today, I don’t squirm at all. Not a bit.

  “I think,” I say, “it’s more that we spent a day together being normal that feels so different.”

  “I didn’t think we had it in us.”

  “There’s a joke to be made there, but I’m gonna let it go.”

  He grins as I pop open the door.

  The evening sun streams in the truck. Machlan looks so handsome sitting in the driver’s seat, the button-up he put on before we went to Nana’s rolled up to his elbows. He looks as calm and relaxed as the day has been, and if I don’t climb out of the truck now, I won’t.

  “I better get going,” I say.

  His brows pull together. “You have plans?”

  “Emily might come by.” The heat in my throat causes it to tighten as I toy with my next sentence. I might as well bring it up—sort of test the waters—because it’s going to happen whether I want it to or not. “Because, you know, I head back to Vigo soon.”

  Machlan shifts. I feel his energy move, but I can’t look at him. I just look out the window at my car sitting at the base of the steps.

  I’m going to have to get in my car soon and leave again. This time, the idea is to have some peace about where I stand with Machlan. And now, I struggle with getting out of his truck, knowing I’ll see him tomorrow.

  This plan of mine isn’t working. My stomach roils.

  As if he can read my mind, he sighs. “When do you leave?”

  “I need to be out of here this coming week. I have to get things ready to start my new job, get the things I left at Samuel’s house …” Those words weren’t planned, but I don’t take them back because they’re true. “Just stuff to do, you know?”

  My breath holds, a ball of stress sitting smack dab in the middle of my stomach, as I will myself to stop, hoping he’ll ask me to stay. I can’t stay even if he does. A few good days between the two of us doesn’t fix the years of problems we’ve had. I can’t change everything I’ve worked for because of a hopeful heart.

  He reaches across the console and touches my leg with the tips of his fingers. A chill ripples down my spine as I watch his strong, tanned hands contact my bare skin.

  If I don’t leave now, I won’t.

  “I gotta go,” I say. I give him a quick kiss on his cheek before sliding out of the truck. Reaching to the floorboard, I grab my bag. “Have a good night, Mach.”

  “Yeah. You too.”

  I hoist my bag over my shoulder and make my way to the apartment. I give him a little wave before going inside. It’s only after I lock the doors do I hear the engine fire and tires squeal as Machlan pulls away.

  Flipping on a light, I look around the little room. It’s the same as I left it early this morning, but it feels totally different. Bigger. Vacant. Lonely.

  Before I even put my bag down, I fish my phone out of my pocket and dial my brother.

  “Hey,” Cross says. “What’s up?”

  “Hey. I was wondering what you’re doing tonight?”

  “Well, Kallie and I are in Merom having dinner. There’s a kid who takes boxing lessons from me in a play over here. We’re gonna see that in a few. Why?”

  My bag hits the floor. “No reason. I was just gonna come by.”

  “You can come with us. The play doesn’t start for an hour. You can make it if you leave Linton now.”

  “No,” I say, feeling my spirits sink. “You guys have fun. I’ll find something to do.”

  “Where’s Emily?”

  “She might come by later. I’m just bored, I guess.” I sigh. “Go have fun. I’ll come by tomorrow. You working at the gym?”

  “Yup. Come by and I’ll let you kick my ass for a while.”

  “Deal. Bye, Cross.”

  “Bye, Had.”

  I set the phone on the table, and it goes off immediately. Samuel’s face flashes on the screen, and I silence it without a second thought because I have no thoughts to give. They’re all with a dark-haired bartender that I hope I can figure out how to live with. And without.

  * *
*

  Machlan

  “I can’t live with her,” I say to myself. “And I can’t live without her.”

  A wrench flies from my hand into one of the red toolboxes lining the garage. It gives a satisfying ping as it clamors against the metal.

  My hands are a greasy mess, and my shirt is soaked with oil. Working on my dad’s old truck usually takes my mind off everything, but it failed me today.

  Rinsing the grime off my skin in the basin by the door, I wish it were as easy to do the same to my brain. A little water, a pump of soap, and boom—Hadley is gone.

  “I didn’t know you still knew how to do that.” Walker’s voice makes me jump.

  I knock my elbow into the side of the sink. “Ouch.” Flicking the water off my hands, I cradle my arm and turn to face him. “What are you doing here?”

  “We just got back from the airport, and Sienna passed out. She went nonstop the whole time her family was here.” He shrugs. “Guess I just thought I’d come by and see what you were up to.”

  “Should’ve called and I would’ve waited on you to help me with this thing.” I knock my knuckle against the side of the truck. “Every time I fuck with it, I tell myself it’s a pain in the ass and I should just get rid of it. But, you know …”

  Walker comes into the garage. “Yeah. How do you get rid of Dad’s pride and joy? I mean, it’s not worth shit and just takes up space, but what are ya gonna do? Sell it?”

  “Exactly.”

  I take in the hunk of metal my dad loved more than anything except Mom and us kids. He and our grandfather rebuilt it from the ground up, and although Dad never drove it anywhere, he changed the oil in it every few months. So, I do too.

  Even though I bitch every time I come out here with the new filter in my hand, I do it. And the whole time I’m working on it, griping under my breath, I think about my dad.

  I hate I didn’t really get to know him as a man. There are a lot of things I’d like to chat with him about, things I’d like to get his advice on.

  I’ll never forgive myself for not going with them that Fourth of July.

  “I heard Hadley was at dinner at Nana’s,” Walker says, testing the waters.

  I nod, biting the inside of my cheek as I test the waters right beside him.

  “That’s good,” he says. “She’s a good girl, you know.”

  “I’m aware.”

  “Then what the fuck are you waiting on?”

  My cheek pops free of my teeth, and I turn my back to Walker. I busy myself with sorting wrenches until I hear my brother laugh at me from the other side of the garage.

  “You know what? Fuck you,” I say.

  “I’m getting plenty of pussy. It’s you that I’m worried about. You’re not getting any, and it’s turning you into one.”

  As much as I want to argue with him, I can’t. I am turning into a pussy. My silence only proves his point.

  “I get this shit is hard,” Walker says. “Do you even know how much of my work Sienna just gives away like I’m running some charity operation? I’ve had to ban her from Crank most days just so I’m not in the red.” He leans against the truck. “It’s not easy. But if it was, would you want it?”

  “I’d want Hadley either way.”

  Walker raises a brow. I look the other way.

  “Seems to me,” Lance says, strolling into the garage, “that someone once told me to grow a pair of balls. To stop overcomplicating things.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s when it was you.” I face my oldest brother. “Why the fuck are you here?”

  “Just driving by and saw Walker’s truck and thought, ‘Eh, why the hell not invite myself over?’ Is this a private conversation? Not that I care if it is.”

  “This wasn’t even a conversation until you assholes showed up.” I head into the house and leave the door open behind me because I’m certain they’ll follow.

  They do. Jabbering back and forth, they trot after me like puppies until we’re standing in the kitchen.

  Walker tugs open the refrigerator door. “Didn’t I leave this beer here like a year ago?” He jerks one out and pops the top.

  “Probably.” I watch him take a long drink. “Guess it’s a good thing it didn’t get thrown out.”

  That’s all it takes for Hadley’s face to float through my mind. I hear her laugh. Smell her perfume. Feel my spirits sink.

  Lance pulls out a chair and sits. “So, Mariah and I aren’t eloping.”

  “Am I supposed to be surprised by that?” I ask as Walker and I sit too. “There was no way Nana was letting that shit slide.”

  “You actually asked her?” Walker takes another drink. “That’s ballsy.”

  “I think it was more ballsy not to,” Lance says. “Besides, I’m kind of glad she said no.”

  I raise a brow.

  Lance’s eyes dodge mine. “I can’t say I’m all that upset at having to see her in a dress and have the honeymoon and all that. I’m kind of looking forward to it.”

  “You’re both turning into pussies. You know that?” Walker deadpans.

  “Come on, Walk,” Lance says. “You’ve never thought about watching Sienna walk down an aisle? Never? Not once?”

  Walker lifts the beer again. We sit quietly as if Lance proposed some profound idea that requires loads of thought. He didn’t. But I still find myself envisioning Hadley wearing white with Cross by her side, walking her down a church aisle.

  For a moment, everything feels right. I like it. Too much. So much that I get to my feet and scour the refrigerator for another beer.

  “Don’t worry about Sienna and me,” Walker says as I sit again with a cold one of my own. “Let’s worry about dipshit over there.” He tips his bottle my way. “What’s going on with you?”

  “Nothing.” I down half the bottle.

  “You letting her leave?” Lance asks. “I heard her tell Nana she was leaving soon.”

  I down the rest before standing. Flexing my fingers to relieve some of the pressure in my joints, I look at Lance. “I can’t stop her from doing what she wants.”

  “No,” he says. “But you could let her do what she wants by asking her to stay.”

  “I can’t,” I almost hiss.

  “You fucking can too,” Lance fires back.

  My blood pressure spikes because this motherfucker just doesn’t get it. No one gets it. They would if I told them the truth. Hell, if they knew the truth, they’d probably be disappointed in me too.

  I can only imagine their faces, the two men who are my two role models in life, two good as fuck guys who have some internal compass I lack, if I told them what they don’t know.

  That her dad left the week before she turned eighteen for Reno with a note written on the back of a grocery receipt as a goodbye. I was nowhere to be found when she broke down because I thought it was a good idea to get hammered the night before and pass out in a hayloft on the other side of Merom after running from the police for speeding about thirty miles over the limit.

  That she discovered she was pregnant the next week—the same day I was fired for missing too many days of work.

  That I couldn’t pull myself together fast enough to make her think having a baby with me would be better than living with giving our child up for adoption.

  I’m a joke of a man. All I’ve managed to do with my life is fail the only girl I’ll ever love in the worst of ways over and over again.

  “Maybe I could make her stay,” I say, my voice eerily calm. “But I won’t.”

  “And why the fuck not?” Walker asks.

  I glare at him. “Sometimes life isn’t about what makes you feel good. Sometimes it’s about what makes you able to live with yourself.”

  “Explain to me how, if you really love her, you can live without her,” Lance says. “Because I don’t get it.”

  “Maybe it’s really hard to look in her eyes and see my failures, all right? Maybe I’m a pussy, like Walker says, and I can’t stand to think what a bitch I am e
very time I fucking see her. How I’m responsible for the worst part of her life. How she’ll never be whole because of fucking me!” My breath comes out so hard, so hot, my nostrils flare. “How her life will be a constant state of fucked up because I can’t be a fucking adult, all right? I mean, I own a goddamn bar. I’m begging an asshole in a suit to trust me enough to loan me a basic fucking loan so I can start another business I have no business running.”

  I throw my hands in the air. “I mean, for fuck’s sake, guys. I’ll never be able to take care of her—not like I should. Not like she deserves.”

  I barely catch my breath when Lance laughs.

  “Well, that was impassioned,” he says. “Have you considered open mic night at the bar? I think you could really do something with that.”

  “Fuck you.”

  Walker holds a hand to Lance, stopping him from a retort.

  “Look, Mach,” Walker says, letting his gaze linger on Lance until he’s sure he’s shut up. “I don’t know what happened, but I’m sorry it did because it’s obviously fucked you all the way up.”

  “You have no idea,” I mutter. “The bar was the nail in our coffin.”

  “Why is the bar such a problem for her?” Walker asks.

  My head hangs. “Her mom was killed by a drunk driver. So, she had this immediate reaction like it was the worst idea ever, which, in retrospect, it might’ve been. I don’t know. She didn’t get why I wanted to buy it off Uncle Vince, and honestly, I don’t know if I understood it then.”

  Squeezing my eyes closed, I think back to the day I asked Uncle Vince if I could buy it from him. He laughed and said my mother would’ve killed him had she known her only brother was selling her son a tavern. He tried to talk me out of it, but he was dying of cirrhosis, and I was dying of the heartbreak of losing my daughter and Hadley. Even though she was still around, she was only there out of habit. I knew she’d leave eventually.

  It wasn’t too long after I bought it for less than a used car that Hadley asked me to marry her.