Somebody's Ex

by Jasmine Haynes

  “Here’s what you need to do.” Mitch’s voice deepened in a very good imitation of their older brother’s tones. “That’s what he would have said. And you’ve started saying it, too.”

  “I’ve only ever offered brotherly advice.”

  “That’s what I’m talking about. Lou and his advice. But he didn’t give advice. He issued edicts. You didn’t used to pull that kind of shit, David.”

  David threw his hands apart, another flicker of anger stealing over him. “Have I told you what to do tonight? Have I even insisted you tell me whatever the hell is going on with you that’s got Dad so worked up?”

  “Listen to yourself. Dad’s a silent worrier. Mom’s a vocal worrier. It didn’t used to bother you. Now, it’s all about the solution. Jace shouldn’t be doing Taylor so big brother David has to step in and put a stop to it. Who the hell are you to decide?”

  “I’m your goddamn older brother.”

  “Yeah, you’re my brother. But I don’t need you to tell me what to do. I didn’t need Lou to tell me either. Why do you think I used to come to you? Because you listened. And somehow I figured out my own answers. But now Lou’s dead, and I don’t need to hear his voice out of your mouth.”

  “Don’t you even give a damn about that? He’s dead. He’s not coming back. Somebody’s gotta keep this family together without him.” His chest ached. Even his breath in his throat felt as if he were dragging in shards of glass.

  “Lou didn’t keep us together. We tolerated his high-handedness because we loved him.”

  “You asshole.” David slammed his mug down, beer sloshing over the side, then he slapped a bill on the table. Rising, he shoved his chair back, toppling it to the floor.

  He needed to get out. He needed air. He needed to stop hearing his brother’s voice in his head. Lou’s voice.

  Slamming through the tavern’s swing door, his angry strides ate up the dirt as he headed to his truck.

  Why don’t you listen to what I say, David?

  Why didn’t you do what I told you to do, David?

  Lou was the one who made them all strive to be better. Lou was the one who’d kept them on the straight and narrow. Lou was the one person in all the world David wanted to emulate.

  And Lou, God rest his soul, would roll over in his grave if he knew about Taylor and Jace.

  You don’t fuck your brother’s widow, even if your brother’s been dead three years.

  Roles reversed, Lou wouldn’t have let it happen. Lou would have crushed them. Lou wouldn’t have wanted Taylor to move on.

  His head about to burst, David leaned over, breathing hard, his hands on his knees.

  Lou could be an arrogant ass, but David had idolized him to the point of trying to fill the gaping hole he left behind. Doing what he thought Lou would do. Trying to be Lou. He saw his dad aging before his eyes, withdrawing. His mom struggling to pretend they were all fine. And Jace. Striving to atone for a death he hadn’t caused.

  “He was my big brother, David, and I loved him.”

  His ears roaring, he hadn’t heard Mitch’s boots in the dirt.

  “We’re never going to be the same without him.”

  David’s eyes burned, but he couldn’t say a word.

  “But he wasn’t perfect. You don’t need to be either.”

  Lou hadn’t been perfect. His way wasn’t always the best way. Ultimately, he hadn’t taken his own advice or followed his own rules. He’d paid with his life and plunged the rest of the family into turmoil with his passing.

  David had only wanted to smooth the scars left behind. He’d wanted to fix it all. Instead he’d alienated his brothers and stolen a piece of the happiness Jace and Taylor deserved.

  He’d also lost a good woman by telling her she wasn’t good enough just the way she was.

  How could he have missed all the answers?

  Because he hadn’t listened. Just as Randi’s father never listened.

  David rolled his head, eased the ache, then turned to his brother. “Little brother, how did you get to be so smart?”

  Mitch shrugged. “Guess I take after you.”

  Maybe. When he wasn’t walking around with his head where the sun didn’t shine. David knew what lay ahead of him would be hard. He had abused relationships to repair, acceptance to give, and forgiveness to ask. Mitch. Jace and Taylor. And Randi. Most especially Randi.

  “I know I invited you out for a beer, but I’ve suddenly got a pressing need to be somewhere else. Rain check?”

  “Sure. Connie was pissed I went out anyway.”

  She hadn’t been, having practically shoved Mitch out the door. But right now, David had his own mistakes to fix, just as any man had to find his own answers. The sooner, the better.

  * * * * *

  The soft tones of the TV filtered through the door of her parents’ apartment over the store. Gathering her courage around her like a warm coat in a cold winter, or the comfort of David’s strong arms, Randi counted to ten before knocking.

  Her mother answered, her face grim, her jowls sagging lower than usual. Her mother had never been quick to laughter or a smile. Tonight, her lips drooped and the lines at her mouth were so deep it seemed her frown might be permanent.

  Caught in the middle, her mother had always hated the silences as much as Randi.

  “I want to talk to Pops.”

  Her mother glanced over her shoulder, quickly, stealthily. “That is not a good idea, Randi. Give him time.”

  Time. Her father always took his time. A day, a month, a year.

  “No. He and I need to talk now.”

  Her mom had never known how to handle Randi or Pops, and acquiescence to any demand was the easier road. She stepped back and opened the door wider, allowing Randi inside the steaming apartment. The heat rose from the shop and warehouse below, turning the cramped set of rooms into a sauna.

  Her father’s white cap of hair peaked above the back of his recliner. A TV tray topped with an empty dinner plate sat beside him. He didn’t greet her, and the TV volume rose.

  Their silences had been punctuated by a louder than normal TV, and if he absolutely needed to tell her something, he spoke through her mother. Just as he did now.

  “Tell that girl I am not at home.”

  “Your father is not at home.” Her mother repeated whatever he said, even when Randi was right there in the room to hear it.

  This isn’t normal. The punishing silences had been so much a part of her life that long ago she’d begun to think of them as ordinary. As if every father treated his children this way.

  It wasn’t normal. It was dysfunctional. While rationally, she knew that, in her heart and her belly, she believed his conduct was no more than she deserved.

  She rounded his chair and stood in front of him. He looked beyond her as if he could see the TV through a hole he sliced in her body. Under that non-gaze, her legs wobbled like Jell-O and butterflies dashed about in her belly, but she couldn’t back down now.

  “We’re going to talk, Pops. And not through Mom. You’re going to listen.”

  This time the TV’s volume didn’t change when he pointed the remote. This time, Randi was in the way.

  This time, she would make him hear her. “I’m not going to apologize. I did that this afternoon.”

  He rose on stiff legs, placing the remote very carefully in the cloth holder hanging over the chair arm. Moving the TV tray out of his way, he headed to the hallway leading to the bedroom.

  Randi followed, pushing past him in the narrow hallway to stand between him and the bedroom.

  “You either need to accept my apology or tell me not to come back. But whatever you do, you need to say it, Pops.”

  He went into the bathroom and closed the door in her face. Her mother watched her from the same spot near the front door. She hadn’t moved.

  The doors were thin. Her father could hear her breathe out in the hallway. She raised her voice only slightly.

  “Come out of there, and we’
ll talk about it like rational adults.”

  He turned on the water.

  She didn’t shout, merely raising her voice to be heard over his childish antics. “I can’t work for a boss who won’t speak to me. Come out and talk, Pops, or you’ll have my resignation by the cash register in the morning.”

  The water went off, and the door suddenly slammed open, crashing against the toilet on the other side. Her father’s face beat a deep red, and his eyes flashed an angry midnight blue.

  “Tell this person she cannot threaten me.”

  “Randi—”

  She held her hand up to shush her mother. “I’m not threatening you. I am telling you that in a normal business relationship two people talk. If you can’t give me even that much courtesy, then I can’t stay.” Her stomach crimped. She was quitting her job. She was quitting her family. But she wouldn’t let him smash her down. Not again.

  “In a normal place of business, the owner does not walk in on his employee doing the terrible things you were doing.”

  He’d actually spoken to her. She grabbed the triumph. “The door was closed, Pops. You didn’t have to open it.”

  Even his scalp pulsed with anger, gleaming red through his thin, white hair. “I knew what you would be doing. With that man. I saw it in his eyes. I have always seen it in you.”

  He’d hoped to catch her. He’d wanted to humiliate her. He wanted to find fault. He always had.

  “You have not changed. You were only thirteen and yet I saw the seeds. You do not listen. You forget everything I try to teach you. You do not learn. You marry trash, and now you are divorced and still you have learned nothing. You still allow men liberties.”

  She tipped her head as if that would somehow allow her to see her father clearly. “Are you trying to protect me, Pops? Is that what this is all about?”

  “You do not know a good man from a bad man. You allow them to disrespect you. I will not have it.” He slammed a fist against the bathroom door, sending it crashing once more into the toilet. “I will not have a man disrespect you in my store,” he shouted.

  She backed up until her shoulder blades hit the wall.

  “He wasn’t disrespecting me. He was loving me. And he is a good man. I know the difference.” She smiled softly. “He thinks I’m special.”

  “You speak nonsense.” This time her father didn’t shout. His face was still red, and his hair looked like he pulled a rake through it, but he was looking at her and talking to her, without shouting.

  “It’s not nonsense,” she told him. “People show how they feel in different ways. With David, I am special.” He’d touched her with reverence. Those heated, frantic moments in the locker carried a special brand of homage. Even his desire for her to confront her father was steeped in his belief that she was special.

  People showed how they felt in a myriad of ways, each utterly unique. She stared at her father as if seeing him for the very first time. He used silence to teach what he thought was the right path to follow. Punishment was love in order to guide. She’d just never seen things the way he wanted her to. That didn’t mean he didn’t think she was special.

  “Pops,” she whispered, “you have to talk to me. We can’t go on if you don’t talk to me. It just won’t work that way between us anymore.”

  “I am talking to you.” He rubbed a hand over his head, looked at the tiled floor of the bathroom, then finally back at her. “I do not like some of the things that you do.”

  “I know. I was wrong. That wasn’t the time or the place. But he does think I’m special, Pops. He does.”

  After long seconds of silence, he said, “You did not finish filling the orders for the morning’s shipping. Perhaps you will come in early tomorrow. And later we will talk about this man who thinks you are so special.”

  She smiled. He couldn’t change her with silence, and she couldn’t expect to change him. He would never be a talker, but what he had said was his own form of compromise. It was enough.

  “Yeah, Pops, tomorrow. I won’t forget to be there.” She didn’t touch him. They weren’t a touchy-feely family.

  When she turned in the hallway, she found her mom. The permanent frown etched along her mouth was gone.

  She left her parents with a lighter step than when she’d arrived. Life wasn’t perfect, neither was her relationship with her dad, but things were...on the upside.

  She took the stairs with a spring in her step, reaching the halfway point, and then she saw him leaning against her truck. David, legs crossed, his hands stuck in his pockets, the parking lot light shining down on his head.

  “I’m special,” she whispered, taking the last two steps. “He does think I’m special.”

  Warm night air fluttered through Randi’s hair as she crossed the lot to David’s side.

  “Hi,” was all he said.

  “Hi,” she answered, equally innocuous, a tentative note in her voice and a slight wariness in her gaze.

  “I went by your house first,” David admitted.

  “Then you came here to see if I did what you told me to?”

  He couldn’t blame her for her suspicion. Earlier, he’d come off like a know-it-all ass.

  “Actually, I didn’t have any idea where else you might be.” He shoved his hands deeper into his pockets so he wouldn’t reach out to stroke an errant lock of hair that had blown across her cheek. Talk first, touch later, if she let him.

  “Well, you found me.” She tucked the strands he wanted to touch behind her ear.

  He uncrossed his legs and straightened away from the truck. “I owe you an apology.”

  “For what?” She shuttered her eyes, her gaze falling to his shoulder. Her posture gave nothing away.

  “I didn’t like what your dad said to you. If it had been anyone else, I would have popped him one right in the kisser.”

  Her glance flashed to his eyes, then dropped to his lips as if she had to read the words as well as hear them.

  “But I couldn’t belt the father of the woman I’m in love with. And I felt...helpless.”

  “The woman you’re in love with?”

  “Yeah.”

  “But you’ve only known me two days.”

  He took a chance, running a finger down her cheek. “Three days,” he corrected. “And that’s long enough with a woman who’s as open and honest as you are.”

  She toed the dirt lot. “You were right, you know. I’ve got a whole lot of crap going on with my dad and how he treats me, and I needed to do something about it.”

  He cupped her cheek, drawing her closer with a slight touch. “Your dad’s your own business. You didn’t have to do anything just because I told you I thought you should.”

  She took the final step to bring her body flush with his. “I didn’t come over here for you, David. I came for me. And for him. But you were still right, it needed to be done. I shouldn’t have thrown you out just because you told me what you thought.”

  He stroked her face. “What I said to you was for my benefit, Randi, not yours.” He leaned his forehead against hers. “My oldest brother died three years ago, and I’ve spent the time since trying to fix everything for everyone because that’s what he always did. I thought I could fill his shoes. I am only just beginning to realize that I don’t have to do that.” He pulled back to look at her. “I was trying to fix things for you, too. Tell you how you should run your life. I was wrong.”

  “I’m so sorry about your brother,” she whispered. “But you don’t have to fill someone else’s shoes. You’re perfect the way you are.”

  He touched his lips to hers. “So are you.”

  “And I’m glad you helped me realize I needed to have it out with my dad.”

  He breathed in her sweet scent. “How did it go up there?” If she needed to talk, he’d listen. He’d do anything she needed.

  “It was fine, David. Just fine.” She nuzzled into him.

  He didn’t know exactly what that meant, but whatever she did was fine with
him, too. “Randi?”

  “Hmmm?”

  “You’re special. So special that I can’t promise I won’t drag you into a meat locker or a closet or anywhere we happen to be because I need to put my hands on you.”

  She rose on her toes and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Ditto,” she breathed against his ear.

  “Say it then.”

  She crushed him close, her arms tight around his neck. “Oh, David, I love you.”

  Her words slid inside him to fill all the cracks Lou’s death had fractured. The last three years had been a long, hard road, and he was sure life would throw more hurdles in his path. With Randi by his side, he could make the leap.

  Chapter Eleven

  Holy Mack Moly. Randi could hear the commotion even as she climbed down from David’s truck.

  It sounded like a herd of Jacksons in the backyard of his parents’ house. She shivered, then David’s arm slid around her shoulders, pulling her close.

  “Don’t worry. They’re going to love you as much as I do.”

  He had a mom, a dad, two brothers, two sisters-in-law, three nephews and one niece—or was it three nieces and one nephew?—but the noise thundering out of the backyard sounded like multiples of that number on a logarithmic scale.

  “How am I going to remember all their names?” She shuddered to think. She was terrible with names, just terrible.

  “I’ll remind you. Besides, no one in my family is going to give a flying rat’s ass if you call anyone by the wrong name.”

  But she so wanted to impress them at this first meeting. She now knew David’s entire history from the time he was born to the day he slammed into her life. She knew about his dead brother, and the other brother who was going to marry the widow, and...oh god, please don’t let her say something totally embarrassing in front of them.

  David whipped her around as if he could hear all the fears running rampant through her mind and pulled her straight into his big, strong arms.

  “I love you and they’ll love you. I told you my mom was ecstatic when I said I was bringing a very special woman to the barbecue. You couldn’t do a thing to ruin it.”