by Anne Jolin
When I leaned forward to grab the towel, she stood up on her toes and I felt our lips touch.
Just for a second.
My soul buckled against hers, but my head screamed so loudly that my heart became deaf.
I jerked away from her, tripping over my own feet.
She didn’t seem surprised when I ran out the door.
HOME.
One of the many places my heart had found a home was in this place. I’d grown up here. I’d known triumph here, and I’d known loss here. Except as the weeks passed, I began finding it harder to leave one home for another and that seemed impossibly lucky.
I found a home nearly everywhere I’d been, while I wasn’t sure that Rhys or Glitch, even Fun Bobby or Dirt had ever felt entirely home with anyone or any place in their entire lives.
How difficult it must be to wander place to place, a nomad in your mind with a heart that’s never known a home.
“Are you okay?”
I rolled over onto my stomach and looked up at my sister through my sunglasses. We’d taken Christopher, who was now sound asleep in the shade of an apple tree, down to the lake for the day.
“Do you think everything happens for a reason?”
London’s pretty eyebrows pulled together, and she crossed her legs as she sat up on her towel. “I think sometimes it’s hard to believe that in the moment, but yah, I guess I do.” She cocked her head to the side.
Pushing my body up onto my elbows, I tilted my head to the side as I studied her. “Why do you believe it?”
She seemed to think, to settle in her own thoughts for a moment before she spoke. “Well, if I hadn’t fallen off Achilles and had to come home as a result, I wouldn’t have met Branson.”
This was true. London had been in the Olympics for dressage. She was on the fast track that led to everywhere but back home before the accident happened.
“And if I’d never met Branson”—her eyes moved to the bassinet to her right and she smiled—“then you wouldn’t have a nephew.”
I slid my sunglasses up onto my head and climbed up so I was kneeling on my towel. “So you think that if someone goes through hell in their life, it’s for a reason?”
My sister’s eyes came back to me and she studied my face. “Is this about your new job?”
“Yes.” I sighed.
Pursing her lips, she considered my question.
“I think there are bad people in this world, Aurora,” she said. “I think there are people with ugly hearts out there and some of those bad people, they will live a life that looks a lot like hell because they want to, they choose to.”
My heart sank a little.
“But sometimes, in all that filth, there are good people who do bad things for reasons justified by their hearts.” She reached forward and rested her hand on my knee. “And I choose to believe that those people did so for a reason that maybe I will never understand, but that those people, they aren’t beyond redemption.”
I felt a lump grow in my throat.
“I think there’s something special about the people whose hearts have seen rock bottom,” I whispered.
Squeezing my knee, she smiled. “And that’s what makes you so special.”
I leaned forward on my knees and wrapped my arms around her shoulders.
Every relationship, including that between siblings, had times where one person would be able to give more than the other, and in this moment, my sister gave more to me than I was able to give back.
The afternoon seemed to go by quickly after that. We took Christopher in the water in between his naps, and I devoured nearly an entire watermelon without any help from London, but now I was slowly drifting in and out of sleep.
“Aurora.”
I opened my eyes and saw Wells standing at the end of my towel.
“Hi, London.” He dipped his chin in the direction of my sister.
She twisted her head to look at him. “Hey, Wells.”
“Can I talk to you for a minute?” His gaze flitted down my outstretched body.
Pushing up onto my elbows from my back, I shook my head slowly. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”
He sighed. “Please.”
I blew out a breath that jostled the strands of hair that framed my face. “Fine.”
Wells held out a hand to help me up, but I didn’t take it. Instead, I clumsily climbed to my feet on my own.
“By the water?” he asked.
“Sure.” I shrugged.
I followed him down the beach until my feet were walking in the water.
“I just wanted to say I’m sorry,” he began, and I fought against rolling my eyes. “It was a mistake, and I miss you.”
Stopping, I turned to face him. “Listen, Wells. You’re not a bad guy.” He smiled, and I shook my head. “You cheated on me and that sucked, but I forgive you.”
His hand reached out for mine, but I pulled mine away.
“But just because I forgive you doesn’t mean anything has changed,” I said. “I’ve moved on.”
His calm façade slipped. “You’ve moved on?” he hissed. “With who?”
I put my hands on my hips and sighed. “You need to let this go.” I looked at him with more sympathy than he deserved. “Don’t make this into a bigger deal than it needs to be.”
He worked for my dad, for crying out loud. That’s how we’d met a little over a year ago, in fact. It seemed to me it was in his best interest more so than mine to forget this ever happened. He needed that job.
“It’s that guy isn’t it?” he groaned, throwing his arms into the air. “From the parking lot that day.”
I frowned.
“That goth freak,” he snapped and took a step toward me.
I’d humored him too long. Turning back toward the grass, I started to walk away.
He grabbed my bicep and I stopped.
“Let me go,” I whisper-yelled.
He leaned in closer. “It’s him, isn’t it?”
I yanked my arm and he released me.
“Don’t come crawling back to me when he knocks you up or kills you,” Wells hollered at my back as I walked away from him.
“What was that all about?” London asked.
She was standing at the end of her towel with her lips pressed into a frown.
“Nothing.” I grabbed my bag and started shoving my towel inside. “Let’s go.”
“Aurora.” She reached out for me.
I froze. “Not now.”
“Okay,” she conceded.
I packed our things into her SUV in nearly record time, while London put Christopher in his car seat in the back.
Grabbing a dress, I yanked it over my head and waited for her in the passenger seat.
“That guy is a real piece of work,” London scoffed, climbing behind the wheel.
“You don’t even know him!” I practically tore her head off on the spot.
She stopped midway through closing her door and frowned at me. “Wells?”
“Oh.” I felt my heart rate go down just a little. “Him, yah. He’s a jerk.”
I felt London’s eyes on me as I stared out the windshield, and after a few seconds, she finally closed the door and started the engine.
“Who did you think I was talking about?” she asked.
My sister was incredibly perceptive and I wore my heart on my sleeve, which didn’t help.
“No one,” I lied.
She put the air conditioning on full blast and turned to face me in her seat. “I heard what Wells said, Aurora, and I won’t pretend I didn’t. Who is he talking about?”
I groaned and rubbed my face with my hands.
“His name is Rhys,” I said to the floorboard of her car.
“And?” she urged. “Where did you meet him?”
The pounding of my heart started up in my head and my palms got sweaty. “At work.”
She paused for a second. “Is he a volunteer?”
“No.”
“Is
he a friend of Grant’s?” She knew what the answer would be, but she asked anyway.
“No,” I repeated.
Her lips pressed together and I could feel the concern rolling off her in waves.
“Why was he in jail?” London’s eyes narrowed on me.
I didn’t want to tell her.
I didn’t want her to judge him.
“Aurora.” She used the mom voice she’d nearly perfected.
“Assault with a deadly weapon.” It sounded like someone else’s voice was saying it, not mine. “And…” I trailed off.
“And what?” she pressed.
This was where I would lose her. She didn’t know him like I did, not that I knew him well, but that didn’t matter.
“Attempted murder,” I whispered as low as I possibly could.
Her hands came down on the steering wheel. “Jesus, Aurora!” she shrieked. “Attempted murder? Are you serious?”
I pulled my knees up to my chest, and she looked into the backseat to make sure she hadn’t woken Christopher with her outburst.
“Does Dad know?” she hissed.
“Of course not,” I snapped. “We just kissed.”
“You kissed a convicted felon on the mouth?!” Her eyes looked like they were going to pop out of her head.
“Well, technically, I kissed him and he ran away, but yah, we kissed. I don’t even know if he likes me,” I murmured.
She opened her mouth, then closed it and opened it again.
“He doesn’t really talk very much,” I continued. “Not at all sometimes, actually.”
“I—” she started and then stopped.
“I haven’t seen him since the kiss,” I thought out loud.
London reached across the gearshift. “Are you sure you’re being smart about this, Aurora?” She threaded her fingers with mine. “You have a big heart and…”
“You said that’s what made me special,” I argued with her.
“But…” she started.
I knew where this was going. It had gone this way my entire life.
“But you think my big heart makes me weak and naïve.” I laughed without humor.
I’d always been the saint with a bleeding heart. The one who took on whimsical notions of second chances and found a home in everything she loved.
I was a glorified joke.
“That’s not what I said.” She shook her head.
“You didn’t have to.” I unwound our fingers and buckled my seatbelt. “What happened to some people aren’t beyond redemption, London?”
“Aurora.” Her voice was pained, but I was done.
My heart was hurting.
“I don’t want to talk about it anymore.” I looked back out the window. “Let’s just go. I have to help Owen with the evening turn-in anyway.”
She paused for a few beats, possibly waiting to see if I’d change my mind.
I didn’t.
Eventually, she backed out of the parking space and drove us home to a place where one of my homes would never accept the other.
My heart, that loved to conquer, felt despair at the seams where hope had once kept it whole.
Not all homes were meant to be shared, I whispered to my soul. There are some we keep just for ourselves.
“Is he hot?” London whispered as we pulled into our driveway.
Or perhaps some homes just needed to grow on the guests that visited them.
“Yah.” I smiled. “I’ve never seen anything quite like him.”
She laughed lightly. “I know that feeling all too well.”
After we got home, London must have told my dad what happened at the lake, because Wells didn’t come to work the next day or the day after that. No one ever spoke about his absence, and by the third day, there was a new barn hand working in the stable.
A KISS.
Just one kiss that lasted barely a second had become the end of every thought I’d had in the four days she’d been gone.
That scared me.
She scared me.
A blonde girl in a sundress, with lips softer than a water lily and the name of a princess, scared the ever-loving piss out of me.
I’d seen the scum at the bottom of humanity’s barrel, and below it, the inhumane bodies they used to clean it. Yet still, a man who’d seen all of that was scared of a girl.
“What’s the camera for, bossman?” Glitch pointed up at Grant who was balanced on a ladder in front of his office.
Grant adjusted the baseball cap on his head and cursed under his breath. “Hooligans.”
Glitch’s eyes went wide and he pointed at his chest, offended. “These hooligans?”
He stepped down the ladder and wiped his hands on his jeans. “No, Glitch. If it was you hooligans snooping around my office, that shit wouldn’t fly and your ass would be grass.”
I almost choked on the sip of water I’d just taken.
“There ain’t enough ass on Glitch to make any grass.” Fun Bobby doubled over in laughter as he walked in our direction.
Today he was wearing some kind of tight, bedazzled-looking red shirt with track pants.
“What makes you think somebody’s been snoopin’?” Glitch passed him a small box from the ground that looked like it held another camera identical to the one he’d just installed.
“Sometimes a man as old as me just has a feelin’, son.” He shrugged and took the box from Glitch.
Grant played his cards close to the chest, and I didn’t blame him. He was surrounded by criminals and young criminals in the making every day. Honestly it was a bit surprising, at least to me, that it had taken this long to have a security system put in place.
“You goin’ to kick Dirt to the curb?” Glitch blurted out.
Dirt had missed his curfew by a half hour last night, and we’d all been shittin’ bricks waiting to see if Grant would narc on him for it. If he did, that meant a violation of Dirt’s parole, and he’d be back on the bus to the pen before dinner.
“That’s between Dirt and me,” Grant grunted.
He was clearly displeased but his eyes seemed more disappointed than they did angry.
For selfish reasons, I hoped he let Dirt stay. He was a good kid with bad habits to break, but out of all of us, he and Glitch had a good shot at a second chance. Didn’t hurt for me that he was also a great mechanic. His next day off was tomorrow and he’d promised to take look at my bike, which was currently sitting pathetically outside of The Shed covered in a tarp.
“Morning, baby girl,” Glitch said, his eyes going somewhere behind Grant’s head.
I didn’t have to look to know who it was.
It was her.
“Oh, good.” Grant clapped his hands together as he turned around to greet her. “I was just about to come find you.”
“Oh?” She seemed surprised, and I could see from the corner of my eye that she had her hair down today. “For what?” she asked him.
“We have an order ready at Westwood Feed and Tack but they don’t have time to drop it off until Monday, and we’re going to need it this weekend.” Grant spoke to her differently than he did any of the other volunteers. It was obvious to anyone who cared to notice that she was special to him. “I need you to take the one-ton into town and pick it up.”
“Okay,” she returned her answer to him with a smile.
He was special to her, too.
“Take Rhys and one of the other guys with you. It’ll be a heavy load,” Grant advised.
“I’ll go,” Fun Bobby offered before Grant was barely done with his sentence.
“Damn it,” Glitch pouted and kicked his shoe around in the gravel like a child.
Fun Bobby ruffled Glitch’s hair and pinched his cheeks before Glitch swatted him away. “Too slow, gorgeous. Maybe next time.”
Her eyes were on me while the two of them argued.
I could feel them in the way my heart became unsteady, ready to flee for the shadows. Just as desperate as they were eager to hide from the sun was I
eager to hide from her.
There were years when I should have grown into a man, eight years to be exact. Life should have molded me into a man who ran head first into a woman like that, but instead, a lack of living left me as a boy tripping over stones to get away from her.
“I’ll get the truck and meet you guys around front.” She spoke in my direction, and I nodded without fully looking at her.
“Sounds good.” Fun Bobby put some distance between himself and a moody Glitch.
I felt light-headed, the way you did after hours in the sun without water. I was parched, though I’d just drank a gallon, and only resumed breathing when I felt the burn on my skin from her eyes lessen to a dull throb as she walked away.
“You cause her any trouble, I’ll bury the both of you out back.” Grant pointed his screwdriver at the two of us. “Understood?”
I nodded.
“Ten-four, bossman.” Fun Bobby saluted him.
We waited for only about five minutes before a white one-ton Ford with the black Equine for Hearts emblem on the door rolled to a stop in front of the office.
Fun Bobby jogged up to the window on the driver’s side and leaned in. “Is it cool if I drive?” he asked.
“Sure,” she agreed.
It was only a two-door truck, and a two-door truck meant a bench seat. My heart practically whined as I jerked open the passenger door to see her sliding into the middle seat.
She smiled at me and my mind assaulted me with flashbacks of her lips on mine. Vanilla, she’d tasted like vanilla.
“You comin’?”
I blinked, looking further into the cab of the truck to see that Fun Bobby was already behind the wheel, and they were both waiting on me.
Folding into the passenger seat, I exhausted myself trying to keep from touching her body with mine but it was futile. The cab would have been small for three average-sized people, but Fun Bobby was a tank and my legs were too long to find a place to hide.
In the fraction of a second that I relaxed my muscles, I felt the heat of her thigh through a rip in the side my jeans.
My lungs ceased to contract and my brain without oxygen grew dizzy.
Glancing over at Fun Bobby, careful not to look at her, I watched for signs that she affected him in any way. That perhaps this was just how men felt around pretty women.
It wasn’t.
