by Eden Butler
My brother completely ignores me, standing to greet Autumn when she reaches up to kiss his cheek. Booker sighs as if all his dreams have just come true, an exaggerated sound that I know he utters for Autumn’s benefit and to annoy Declan, who stands right behind Autumn. “So, beautiful,” my brother says, his dark eyes sparkling with mischief, “Not married yet, are you?”
“No, Booker, not yet.” She is ever gracious with this running joke between them, tapping his shoulder to rustle his thick hair.
“Excellent,” he tells her, stepping closer before Declan clears his throat.
“But still taken, mate.” He offers Booker a hand to shake and my brother relents, laughing when Declan squeezes his fingers too hard.
“So you keep saying and yet,” he glances at Autumn’s hand, “no ring.”
“Sorry, I was always partial to Carver,” Autumn admits, laughing when my brother pratfalls onto the recliner. “He still in California?”
“Working, yes. He’ll be home next Easter,” I fill in, waving off my brother when he eyes Autumn with a mock expression of longing on his face. “Leave them alone, perv,” I say, pushing him further down onto the sofa. “No one wants your stinky butt anyway.”
Booker mocks offense, shooting me the bird just as my younger sister Alessandra walks in, pulling her thick, long hair into a bun at the back of her head. She’s inching toward twenty, is obsessed with dance and it shows in those long, muscular legs that she shows off in shorts I’d never be caught dead wearing. Dad can’t have seen those shorts yet, I think, squinting at her when she glances past Autumn and Declan and her attention hones directly in on Quinn.
“Who is this one?” Alessandra asks, showing her barely eighteen year old immaturity, her grin obvious.
“That one is a lot of piss and wind and way too much trouble to even consider.” I push my sister out of the room, ignoring the grin on Quinn’s face when he inches behind me.
“Worried I’ll fancy your bitty sister?”
“No,” I say, glaring at him over my shoulder. “Worried she’ll catch your bastarditis.”
“That I can offer for free,” he says, standing close enough to bend next to my ear. “Care to have a nip?”
“Bugger off.” Declan pulls his brother by the collar and away from me as we all move towards the kitchen.
“Oh, Autumn!” Mom squeals, rushing to Autumn and squeezing her tight. She returns that hug, smiling when Mom grabs her face, gaze working over her features as though she’s checking for something to worry over.
“I’m fine,” Autumn tells her indulgently, pulling Mom’s hand from her face. “What I really need to know is—is there fudge?”
“Autumn,” Mom says, frowning. “Are you trying to insult me?” Then she breaks into a laugh and nods toward the center island where a pan of homemade fudge sits waiting. Eagerly Autumn drags Declan, who had stopped to greet my mother with a kiss, towards the decadent treat, my siblings joining them in the now crowded kitchen.
“Who is this?” Mom asks me, stepping to my side as we both watch Quinn leaning against the doorway.
“This is Quinn, Mom. Declan’s brother.”
“Half-brother,” he reiterates and I try not to laugh at my mother’s humor or the way Quinn squirms under her scrutiny.
“So this is the one I’ve heard so much about,” she tells him walking away from me to stand next to Quinn. “How are you liking Cavanagh, Quinn?” They both glance at me when I laugh and Quinn’s glare almost dares me to rat him out. I could easily relate to Mom Quinn’s attitude about being here, how he thinks we live in a shitehole, but that would be too rude, even for our dueling.
Still, the expression on his face is mildly worried and I get where that comes from. My mother. There’s something about her, something that even as kids made us all vie for her approval, her affection. It is the same something that has my dad buying her flowers every week, even though she’s told him not to waste the money. Mom is simply one of those women who effortlessly holds attention with her openness and her vivaciousness. Her features are still soft. Her skin only mildly wrinkled around her eyes and her hair still a vivid auburn. Her beauty, her kindness, has always endeared her to others, even those who aren’t so used to being around women with such outgoing personalities. But even with as lively as she is, it is still in her nature to comfort, to make everyone feel welcomed and loved first and foremost.
But I wasn’t quite so sure she could pull that off with Quinn. She tried, engaging him in conversation, laughing, smiling where appropriate, joking to put him at ease. And he did seem to soften. He didn’t at least call her a wanker or ignore her when she spoke to him.
“Well,” Mom says to Quinn, brushing her hands along his arm, an affectionate gesture I’ve seen her do a million times when my brother is upset about something. “My sister Carol has nothing but sweet things to say about you. Rhea adores you.” Mom holds Quinn’s hand and the frown leaves his face, as though just hearing that has somehow evaporated his attitude. “Anyone who treats our Rhea kindly, who makes her happy, is alright by my book.”
“Aye, erm… well…” Quinn tries and my mom ends his suffering, guiding him further into the kitchen, to the center island. Strangely enough, he doesn’t seem interested in Alessandra, or my sister Adriana, who walks in from the backyard with my dad. But he isn’t frowning, even ignores Declan when he mutters something in his ear. For a brief few minutes, Quinn actually keeps his attitude in check, sparing it and his frown for quick glances at me, sometimes at Declan. Everyone else is ignored. Except Mom. Her, Quinn seems eager to impress, telling her jokes, asking her about the dishes she prepared.
It’s damn weird to see him like this.
And then Dad says grace, holding Mom’s hand as he speaks about family, about friends, and I watch Quinn, peeking at him behind my lashes, curious what his reaction to this familial moment will be. When Dad mentions Rhea, Quinn’s expression changes completely.
“Father, we pray for a healing over Rhea, that you would cast away her illness and give her the strength to fight this battle. Lord, she’s such a blessing to us all…” Dad pauses when his voice cracks, and I slip my gaze to his face, then down to my parents’ hands held tightly together. Dad is an intimidating man—most litigators in this town are—tall, but not brawny with long legs, broad shoulders and a deep, barreling voice that carries, but he has always been sensitive, especially when he prays. Rhea has touched our lives, each one of us, and it no longer surprises me when one of us gets caught off guard, when the thought of her and the fight she’s had to battle has emotion slipping to the surface.
It’s a shock to Quinn as well, or so his reaction suggests. As my dad takes a few moments to compose himself and then continue with the prayer, Quinn looks at my father as if he’s never seen anything like him before. His face reflects confusion, and what looks to me like sympathy. For once, there is no condescending attitude, no tense frown, and amazingly, he seems to actually relax.
Other than my irritation, and my curiosity at Quinn’s motivations, I have no idea why it seems impossible for me not to watch him. Sure, he is very beautiful on the surface, anyone with a pulse would say that, but that attractiveness shouldn’t hold my attention so long. Yet it has, for weeks, and today I’ve watched him interacting with my parents, even speaking with Booker when there’s been a lull in the mad chaos that generally happens around my parents’ home. Our family is a circus and sometimes, to outsiders, it’s fun just to watch the madness unfold. Declan and Autumn are used to the chaos, but Quinn is not and he’s been an active witness to the insanity all day.
Yet even today, he’s watched me watching him, as though he senses when my gaze lands on him. Like right now, during the prayer as I observe him staring at my dad, Quinn glances at me, and that constant frown of his returns when our gazes meet. Normally, he’d do something foul like lick his lips or wink at me just to make me look away, but he doesn’t do either of those things now. He waits, just for a beat, his
eyes locked on mine, until with an infinitesimal shake of his head he disengages, returning to the prayer with closed eyes and bowed head.
For some reason, and I’ll never be able to sort that reason out, this bothers me. For some reason I can’t name, I don’t want Quinn to frown at me anymore.
DECLAN AND MY father had argued both Autumn and I out of the kitchen to clean away the dishes. My siblings and mother headed up to the attic looking for the box of used Halloween costumes I’d stashed there when I moved into my own apartment a couple of years ago. Halloween had always been my favorite and the stuff of legend between me and my friends. We’d spent the past five years upping our cosplay in honor of the holiday, one of us winning the costume contest nearly every year at Fubar’s, the pub we often frequented. But costumes and the holiday itself seemed less important to me now, not so much to my siblings who Mom directed to my stash just to shut them up.
Autumn and I take the quiet time to move outside, near the pool and back patio. We sit under a large grouping of pine trees along the backside of the fence, swinging on the wooden yard swing hanging from a large oak tree with limbs that stretch toward the pool. I’d found it a little weird, and even mildly suspicious when Dad asked Declan what his post-graduation plans were and the Irishman had glanced at Autumn, who quickly grabbed my hand and led me and my mom’s two dogs, Georgina and Darcy out the backdoor. But, I let her weird behavior pass, for the moment, too full from lunch, too sated by the falling temperatures to think about much.
“Georgie, stop it,” I call, clapping at the silly beagle puppy when she grips hold of one of the fallen deck chair cushions. The dog scampers away from me with only one quick bark in my direction when I pick up the cushion and replace it on the chair.
“She’s getting big,” Autumn says, laughing when Georgina jumps on Darcy’s back, pulling at his ears. “That poor thing.”
“He barely notices.” and, sure enough, the big bullmastiff only gives the puppy a little grunt before he moves his ear out of Georgie’s mouth.
“I feel like I haven’t seen you in months,” Autumn says, pulling my attention away from my fur siblings. She leans her head back against the back of the swing, smiling when I look at her.
“She takes all my time, sweetie.” Of course, she knows who I’m talking about.
“I know she does. I’m not…” Autumn grins, looking around the yard, to the large crepe myrtles and magnolia that stretch above the garage roofline. There’s a tone in her voice, maybe a little bit of worry, that has me frowning, but then Autumn grips my pinky as she moves the swing with her foot. “I hate that this is the hand you’ve all been dealt. It’s like… well.”
“What?”
She closes her eyes, taking in a breath through her nose. “I was going to say that it’s like when Mom died.” Autumn moves her head, a small roll to the left to stare at me. “But it’s not. I don’t guess it matters if it’s the same. No matter how sudden or how expected, it comes and there’s never enough time to prepare for it.” She looks out at the yard again, watching Georgie as she chases a dragonfly along the pool’s surface. “One day, one second, a million years, we’re never really ready to say goodbye.”
“No,” I say, leaning back to rest my fingers on the braided rope holding the swing to the tree limbs above us. “We never are.”
I hadn’t been ready for the final countdown when Aunt Carol gave it to me last year. I’d hadn’t expected the doctor’s to be so certain that a “year, maybe two” was all they could foresee of Rhea’s future. I only knew that the clock was ticking away and I had to do everything in my power to make time stretch. Autumn hadn’t even gotten that. Her mother was taken in a blink of an eye. One rainy night, the screech of tires and Evelyn was stolen away from all of our lives. No, I think to myself, watching my best friend’s expression shift, a smile, a frown and then finally nothing at all moving her mouth, we are never ready to say goodbye.
Autumn exhaled, taking a second before she sat up, stretching her long legs in front of her as though she wants to be rid of the sudden sadness that’s come upon us like a raincloud. “I think something’s up with Layla and Donovan.”
A few blinks and I smile at Autumn’s tone. “You think?”
“I do. She’s being really secretive and Declan said Donovan was changing in the dressing room a few days ago and he spotted a hickey.”
The image comes out of nowhere, unwelcome and unexpected and I fail at keeping my laughter quiet. “What? Is he fifteen?”
Autumn shrugs, moving her legs around to sit on them. “Usually when Donovan hooks up with someone, he tells Declan. That hasn’t happened for months.”
Donovan hasn’t dated anyone as far as I’ve seen for at least a year, and Layla broke up with that rent a cop from campus security at the beginning of the semester. I manage a squint, watching my best friend, knowing with one look that she’s serious. She might have the availability right, but I still think she’s reaching. “That automatically means Layla gave up the ghost finally?”
“No. I’m just adding two and two.”
“And getting five.” No way it’s that easy. There’s just no way that after years and years of hating on each other they’d finally decide to move things forward without any provocation. “You’re not going to win that bet, friend.”
“I’d almost forgotten about that. Damn. You know I think I am.”
We’d made that bet a year ago when Layla and Donovan had traded some particularly nasty pranks, the best of which was Layla filling the AC vents of Donovan’s car with over a pound of glitter. The poor guy had looked like a severely pissed off Edward Cullen for at least a month. The sexual tension between them was palpable and Autumn had predicted that they’d end up naked in bed together before they graduated. I disagreed. Donovan’s position on the rugby squad was too important to him, and with Layla being the coach’s daughter, he’d make sure to keep his nose clean until then. The wager was a hundred bucks and I doubted, despite Autumn’s little theory, that my bank account would be that much lighter any time soon. Especially not after that screaming match at the coffee shop.
“Keep telling yourself that, friend, but I don’t think either of them will ever stop being pig headed.”
“And blind,” she offers, still smiling.
“Yep and blind.”
The laughter is comforting, reminds me of a time when our lives were normal, when I didn’t live in the constant worry that one phone call would change my life forever. I’m reminded of happier days with Autumn, when our lives were our own, when we didn’t keep things from each other—like whatever it was she didn’t want Declan telling my father about after they graduated.
I mean to ask her, since we’re alone and in a decent mood, about what it is she’s keeping to herself, but then Georgiana growls, running behind the swing and toward a retreating Quinn on the other side of the fence line. The dog’s bark is so pronounced that even Darcy lifts his head, watching Quinn as he moves toward the back gate. When he steps through the gate and onto the property proper, Georgia attacks, yelping and growling as she latches onto Quinn’s jeans.
“Piss off, you pouncy mutt.” He jerks away from the small attack and I sigh, leaving the swing to grab the puppy.
“Not a mutt.” Quinn ignores the growling dog and my frown.
“So you say.”
“I do.” There is an unlit cigarette behind his ear and I shake my head. But it’s pointless to lecture and I don’t want getting in a fight with him to ruin my day. “There’s a bench and metal ashtray behind the garage. Dad likes to smoke Cubans sometimes.”
“And do you give him fits for that then?”
“I do, actually, but like all the Irishmen in this town, he’s a stubborn jackass.” I wave my fingers, dismissing him. “The seat to kill yourself is that way. Off you go.”
He doesn’t seem to like my dismissal or the way that Georgie continues to growl at him, but Quinn walks off, toward the garage on the other side of the proper
ty. Autumn stops the swing from moving for me to sit and once Quinn is out of view, I set the dog on the ground.
“So damn bull headed.”
“It’s hereditary.” Autumn shifts her gaze toward the house, right at Declan who smiles at her through the kitchen window where he is drying dishes. She gives him a thumbs up when he nods in the direction Quinn had disappeared to.
“No way is Declan’s that bad.”
“Honey,” she says, looking at me again, “why do you think they argue so much?”
“Because Quinn is an entitled asshat?”
That earns me a laugh and Autumn nods, agreeing. “Well yes, but they have the same damn temper. I swear I think Dad has to refrain from throttling them on a daily basis.”
“Poor Joe.”
“Poor me!” Autumn lifts her eyebrows, eyes round as though she can’t believe I didn’t offer her my pity. “I have to be around them all the time.”
“Yeah, but you get to go home. Sometimes take Declan with you.”
“True, but not as often as I’d like.” The sigh she releases sound a bit too much like frustration and I decide not to open the gate for that topic. I really didn’t need to hear my best friend complain about lack of alone time with her man “Declan doesn’t trust Quinn will stay put at Dad’s if he’s not there, so he rarely stays over anymore. Even when Quinn goes off to wherever the hell he goes when he’s not with Declan, it’s still not enough of a reprieve.”
“Where does he go?”
Autumn shrugs. “Clemson Drive. Some warehouse. Declan found some papers but what Quinn would want with some abandoned building, I have no idea. Still, it’s better when he’s out and not at home with Dad and Declan.”
“What will you do after graduation?”
Autumn’s gaze jumps to my face, her eyebrows shooting up behind that long ginger fringe covering her forehead. “What do you mean?”
I debate making her sweat a little, make her think I want to know what she is keeping from me, but didn’t have the energy. Instead, I shrug, letting her off without an interrogation. “You telling me Deco and Quinn are going to live with Joe forever?”
