Instead, it turned out to be the opposite. It was like she had collected all her worry, nagging, and hovering from all the time I was away from home and kept it balled up ready to dump it all out on me as soon as I got back.
It was done with a good heart and a lot of love, but that didn’t stop it from making me feel like she had wrapped me in several feather down blankets and was slowly smothering me.
Keeping my mouth shut got me through the rest of the mashed potato preparations with only a few more comments regarding my milk distribution and mashing technique. Finally, they were piled up in Mom’s favorite green serving bowl and set in the middle of the table. Mom followed close behind with a roasted chicken just as the front door opened.
I grinned when Nick came in. My brother coming to have dinner with us would take some of the pressure off of me. Having him around was definitely my favorite thing about being back in my hometown. I didn’t get to see him very often before coming back home.
“Something smells good,” he said.
“Well, come on over to the table. Everything is ready,” Mom said.
We all sat down, and Mom went around the table filling glasses and making sure everybody had their silverware and napkins. As if she wasn’t the one who set the table ten minutes before.
“How are things going being back home?” Nick asked.
Mom sat down and reached for her napkin. She slipped it to the side of the table like she always did and draped it over her lap.
With her napkin in place, she reached for the chicken and moved it closer to her so she could start slicing meat from the bones. One leg and several slices of breast meat went to my father first. Another throwback to my childhood. If there was one thing I could say about my mother and father and their marriage, it was that they had gotten consistency down to a science.
And yet, it didn’t have the same feeling as Steven and me. What they had was comfort. What we’d had was stagnation.
“It’s fine,” I said to Nick. “Just getting back into the groove of everything. But my room is exactly the way it was when I left, so that’s something.”
I lifted my eyebrows at him across the table, and my brother did his best not to laugh at the look.
“That’s good to hear. And you’ll see. Before long, you will have the career of your dreams, be back up on your feet, and find somewhere amazing for the next chapter of your life,” he said.
“Hmmmmm,” Mom said, shaking her head slightly as she put chicken on her plate and passed the platter over to Nick.
“Hmmmm?” he asked, lifting an eyebrow at her. “What was that supposed to mean?”
“It’s just that I don’t think Becca should be thinking about any of that. Definitely not going off on her own again. In fact, your father and I have been thinking about it, and we think it would be best if Becca just stayed here with us,” Mom said.
“What?” Nick and I asked at the same time.
“Well,” Mom said, seemingly shocked by our reaction, “it’s just that… well, you can’t just go out there on your own again. It didn’t work out last time, and we won’t let that happen again.”
I was so dumbstruck by the comment I didn’t even know how to respond. Nick didn’t have the same problem.
“Mom, that’s ridiculous,” he said. “You have to know that’s completely ridiculous.”
“I most certainly do not,” she said.
“Becca isn’t twelve years old. You can’t expect her to just stay locked up in the house with her parents for the rest of her life because her first stab at finding Mr. Right and settling down didn’t work out for her. That’s just the way things are sometimes. There are plenty of people who don’t end up on the perfect path first. They hit roadblocks and they move on,” he said.
It made me feel good to hear my big brother arguing on my behalf and standing up for me. At the same time, I felt like I was being left out of the conversation that was supposed to be about me. It made me feel like I wasn’t capable of sticking up for myself.
In a way that was exactly what got me to this spot in my life. I thought too much about everyone else and let everyone else think too much for me. I didn’t just think for myself, stand up for myself, and go after a life that would make me happy. I felt the need to step in.
“Mom, I can’t just stay here forever. If I did that, I would never learn how to be truly self-sufficient and completely depend on myself,” I said.
“That’s alright, honey. Your dad and I will just take care of you. You’re our baby. That’s our job,” Mom said.
“Speaking of jobs,” Dad said, lifting his head from his mashed potatoes long enough to interject himself into the conversation. “Do you really think you would be happy being a child psychologist? I think you would be much better off with a less intense job.”
“Child psychology is my dream. It’s what I’ve always wanted to do,” I said, anger starting to bubble below the surface.
“I know you’ve said that, but maybe you’re only still thinking that because it’s all you’ve ever really considered. Maybe you just got it in your head that that’s what you’re supposed to do. You should try other jobs and see if maybe there’s something else out there that you would like,” he said.
“We love you and just want you to have a happy life,” Mom said, tying the whole disaster of a conversation up into a nice bow.
“Alright, I’m done,” Nick said. He got up from the table and put his napkin down beside his plate. “Go pack your bags. You’re staying with me.”
My parents looked horrified, and I shook my head. “It’s okay. I don’t need to do that. I really am fine here.”
I wasn’t entirely sure why I didn’t take him up on his offer right then.
“Are you sure?” Nick asked.
I nodded. “Yes.”
“Well, keep it in mind.”
He sat back down and ate, keeping his head tucked down for the rest of the meal. After dinner, he barely spoke a word other than reminding me again that his place was available to me, then left. I went back into the dining room to help clear the table and found my mother shaking her head as she piled the dishes up to carry them into the kitchen.
“I don’t know what his problem is,” she said. She let out a sigh and scooped up the pile of dishes to go into the kitchen. “Actually, yes I do.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, gathering up what she wasn’t able to carry and bringing it in after her.
“The divorce really messed up his head. I hate that he went through that. I hate that either one of you had to go through what you did. That’s what I was talking about. I never should have let either one of you leave the house,” she said.
I mirrored her sigh as I put the dishes into the sink to start washing them. I couldn’t just let her continue on this way. I needed to stand up for myself and make sure she understood I hadn’t come back into town for her and my father to rescue me. I wasn’t crawling back into the womb anytime soon.
I put down the sponge, turned off the water, and turned to look at her.
“Mom, listen. I understand you and Dad want me to be happy. And I appreciate that. But I’m going to be happy with the job I want. That I’ve always wanted. I’ve got this. I’m an adult now. I don’t need the two of you to hold my hand and get me through life. Please stop worrying so much about me. And about Nick. We’re both going to be okay. Like he said, people hit speed bumps. They make mistakes. We have to make them in order to grow. And you have to let us. It’s the only way we’re going to get through.”
7
Tyler
For the first time in what seemed like forever, I had the night off, and yet I found myself heading to another bar. Granted, this time, it was in another city, and I wasn’t with my brothers, but Nick. He was fiddling with his phone, trying to find music the two of us agreed on to stream through the radio as I drove.
“So which bar are we going to?” I asked.
“It’s called Twisters. You can’t mi
ss it,” he said, still cycling through songs. It was driving me nuts since a second or two of each song would play before he would hit the next button.
“Will you just pick something, already?”
“Fine.” He put the phone back down on the magnetic holder on the dash. “Yanni it is.”
“It better not be,” I said, glaring at him.
“It’s not. Just drive.”
We’d passed out of the city limit and into another town a good twenty minutes ago, but I wanted to go even further, all the way out to Seaview. I rarely got a chance to get out of Astoria, and the beachy area near Seaview had a couple of bars that I remembered hitting up with Nick before my brothers and I ended up owning one.
Every once in a while, I just needed to blow off steam somewhere else. My initial plan for the evening was to stay at home, put on sweatpants, invite Nick over, and watch a pro wrestling pay-per-view. But after much haranguing by Nick, he convinced me to go up to Seaview and have dinner and drinks at the bar up there, which coincidentally also showed wrestling pay-per-views.
Pulling into the parking lot, I noticed that it was considerably less packed than I was used to. Being at the bar we owned had gotten me so used to wall-to-wall people and fighting for a parking space that it was actually kind of foreign to just be able to pull in and not have a wall of sound coming from the building. When we walked in, the hostess asked if we wanted a table, but we both opted for the barstools and took our places directly across from the main television behind the bar.
“Are you guys going to add a TV behind your bar?” Nick teased. “If you did, I’d probably come down more often.”
“That’s because you refuse to pay for cable,” I said.
“I already have approximately a thousand streaming services,” he said. “I don’t need anything else.”
“Except none of them have live episodes of shows you like, so you end up at my place or complaining the bar doesn’t have it on,” I said, laughing.
“Well, I’m just saying you’d have one more regular customer,” he grumbled playfully. The bartender showed up in front of us, and I was struck by how uninterested he was.
“What can I get for you?” he said, not making eye contact.
“Two tallboys of the seasonal from Sam’s, twenty wings, and a big-ass basket of fries, please,” Nick said.
“On it,” the bartender said and walked away.
“Pleasant,” I muttered.
“What?” Nick asked.
“The bartender.”
“Oh, stop being elitist about beer-slingers,” Nick said, waving the criticism away. “Tonight, you are not a bartender or a bar owner. Tonight, you are simply Tyler Anderson, my friend and fellow wrestling fan.”
I nodded. “Fair enough.” When the beers came, I had to resist saying something about the way he poured, but the look Nick gave me stopped the words in my throat.
A few beers in, and a number of buffalo wings sitting heavy in my belly, and I didn’t care as much about the bartender’s shitty pours. I was laughing, enjoying the show, and having fun with my friend. I got up to break the seal, and when I came back, a new beer was waiting for me.
“I don’t know if I should have any more,” I said, sitting.
“I already scheduled us a rideshare,” Nick said.
“You are a champ, my friend. A true champ.”
“I know. I am clearly the better sibling,” he joked.
“What’s that?” I said, curious. Nick shook it off, but he seemed like he wanted to talk about it. Something was bugging him, and he grinned as he leaned over to grab a fry.
“It’s just Becca. My parents are babying her so much, and it’s bugging me a little,” he said.
“Hard to believe anyone would baby Becca. Doesn’t seem her speed.”
“Right?” he said. “She’s way too independent for all that, but they keep pushing.”
“Well, you know they’re just looking out for her,” I said. “What she went through is traumatic.”
“Of course it is,” Nick said. “I hate that she went through it, too. I’d like to murder the fucker who ran off on her. But Becca is a strong woman. She’s not a kid, you know?”
“Right.” He was right about that. Becca was certainly no child anymore.
“I know it’s bugging her a lot, but she doesn’t want to say anything about it,” Nick said. “It’s like she’s more concerned with Mom and Dad grieving than herself.”
“They’ll get past it,” I said. “Just parental instincts kicking in right now, trying to take care of their kid. Remember when the divorce first happened, they were smothering you, too.”
“I know,” he said. “That’s why I never moved back in with them. Becca did. I tried to tell her she could live with me, but she seemed like she didn’t want to disappoint Mom.”
“She’s a sweet girl,” I said. Nick nodded.
“You don’t know the half of it,” he said. “Best sister in the world.”
I had to bite my tongue to keep from saying that I knew pretty well how great she was. Our little impromptu lunch date had been some of the most enjoyable time I had spent in weeks, and the way she seemed to care for her parents and her brother shone through, even in that short time frame. But I assumed if Nick didn’t mention it, then that meant she didn’t tell him, and I didn’t want to be the one to broach that subject. It was a totally innocent lunch, but I still didn’t know how he would react.
A few more beers and a second plate of fries were demolished before the end of the show, and sure enough a rideshare was waiting on us when we exited the bar. I was still rather levelheaded, my tolerance having been built up to a great degree since the bar opened, but taking the rideshare was the safe bet, and one I would always choose if there was any question at all. Besides, it would be nice not to have to Nick fiddling with my phone to find music while he was very clearly inebriated.
After dropping Nick off at his place, I directed the rideshare to take me home. I hadn’t really bothered to check my phone all evening, and when I got in and started stripping down for a shower, I noticed I had a couple new notifications on social media. Still a little buzzed, I decided not to test bringing the phone anywhere near the running water and hopped in the shower first. Once I got out and was dry, I opened up the phone to find a friend request. From Becca.
I smashed the confirm button a little harder than was necessary, and when I did, her page came up. It looked like she had wiped months of statuses off her timeline, the most recent one being from a year ago. Probably erasing every last vestige of her ex and the preparations for her wedding was my guess. I didn’t blame her. If I went through a breakup like that, I would have nuclear bombed every reference to that person that existed within twenty feet of me at all times, much less scrubbing pictures and lovey-dovey status updates about upcoming nuptials.
Curiosity got the best of me, and I clicked the link to her photos. Her profile picture was just a close-up on her gorgeous green eyes, and while it was enamoring to look at, I wanted to see what else she had up. Despite the fact that all the references to her wedding had been removed, several pictures remained from what looked like a bachelorette party. Some of the photos had been sized to cut off what I assumed to be a sash, but the princess crown she was wearing in them seemed to have “bride” written across it in shiny fake diamonds, though it was hard to make out.
One of the photos in particular had her dancing on a dance floor in a dark club, several of her other friends nearby with her in the center. She had both arms above her head, bent at the elbow, and her knees bent, too. The picture was from the side, and her plump, perfectly round ass was prominent in the shot, as was the low dipping neckline of her dress. Her eyes were open, but not wide, as if she had them closed just a moment before the snap.
She was absolutely gorgeous, and my cock twitched in my boxers. I adjusted myself, trying not to let myself think that was why I was looking at her photos, but not clicking away from her page, either.
I scrolled through several, landing on one from over a year ago. Her hair had grown longer between that photo and her wedding, and she apparently cut it back to that length again right before her bachelorette party. It framed her face on either side, the blonde color bright in the sunlight.
She was smiling, and the smile suggested more than just happiness. There was a sexiness to it. As if she wanted to come right through the camera and party with the person on the other end. My mind raced to the sight of her biting her bottom lip, and my stomach clenched again. Even though I knew it was wrong to continue ogling her pictures, I kept scrolling, noting shots that showed off her incredible curves or the sly smile she had that screamed of equal parts cuteness and white-hot sex.
A particular picture, with her eyes closed as she jumped in the air, her knees bent so her feet were completely off the ground and under her ass, caught my eye. She was at the beach, and I could see one of her friends in the background, but she was clearly the star of the photo. She was wearing an American Flag–style bikini, and the high waist indicated that the backside of it was very revealing.
Her breasts nearly tumbled out of the top in midair, and I longed for a video of that jump. Or just more pictures. Alas, it was the only one from the beach, and I shook my head, trying to get myself out of the place I had allowed my mind to slip to. This was Becca Watson, my best friend’s sister. She was out of bounds, by all rights, and Nick would kill me on a normal day for thinking this way about her, much less just weeks after she was stood up at her wedding.
I closed the app on my phone and put it on the charger. I needed to just get to bed and chalk all this up to being a little tipsy, clouding my judgment. Yet as I closed my eyes, the only thing I could think about was how insane it was that someone would be so stupid to let her go.
8
His Best Friend's Sister: A Secret Baby Romance Page 4
