He ran his hands through her hair working out the tangles caused by the brushes. She closed her eyes, enjoying his touch as it continued long after the last snarl was gone, and wondering if he would ever let her return the favor.
****
Gwen sat at the high top table beside the bar as she waited for Gabbi. She checked her phone. Fifteen minutes late wasn’t actually late for her sister. She had always been late to everything, even before she became a mother. The addition of children added another ten minutes. Five minutes later, she came breezing through the door of their favorite lunch spot in jeans and a t-shirt, her hair waded in a bun on the top of her head.
Gwen had always been inwardly critical of her sister’s lack of self-maintenance. After yesterday she had decided to at least forgive the bun. It wouldn’t surprise her to discover Gabbi wore it like that to hide patches of missing hair that had fallen victim to a cheap tiny plastic brush.
She reached the table and slung her gigantic bag over the back of the chair across from Gwen. “Hey. Sorry.”
“Not a problem.” She sat as Gabbi ordered a drink, the pit in her stomach growing with each passing second. Her sister had been pretty insistent on getting together. And that was before she knew about Joe.
“What’s up?” Gwen tried to keep her voice casual, but she wanted to get the ball rolling. Find out why she was here.
“That’s what I'd like to know. I was going to ask you why you've been acting weird, but I guess now I know.” Gabbi leaned forward. "Joe? You couldn't give me a heads up about that?"
"What did you want me to say?"
Gabbi threw her hands up. "I don't know. At least tell me. Give me the chance to talk to you about it."
"We're not in freaking high school. We don't need to sit and braid each other's hair while we talk about the boys we're dating."
"So you're dating him?" Gabbi rubbed her temples.
“I don’t really know. It’s been kind of a confusing few weeks.” She used her straw to stir the ice in her glass, sending it swirling through the water like a cyclone.
Gabbi sat across the table silently. Her face unreadable.
"I kind of expected you to think it was a good thing. That I was finally moving on." Gwen's voice caught just a little. She sipped at her water hoping to calm the muscles of her throat as they started tightening up.
"I don't know that you're ready for that Gwen."
Gwen looked across the table. "That's not for you to decide. I'm a big girl. I can handle myself."
"You're not the only one I'm worried about here." Gabbi crossed her arms and leaned back in her seat.
"It's really none of your business."
“It is! Joe has been through some really awful things in his life. Things that would shock you-"
“You mean prison?” The fact that Gabbi knew more about Joe than she did and was throwing it in her face, annoyed the piss out of her. She wanted to be sure it was clear she wasn't as in the dark about Joe's life as Gabbi might think.
Gabbi snarked. “No. I don’t mean prison.”
The waitress arrived to set Gabbi’s drink on the table, effectively hitting the pause button on their conversation. “You guys ready to order?”
Gwen’s stomach growled. Her appetite had grown with her aggravation at Gabbi for being more worried about Joe than her own damn sister.
“Yup. I want a burger with everything but cheese, and fries.” She paused. “Please.” She handed her menu to the waitress. “And can you bring me a Coke when you have time?”
She looked back to find her sister staring at her with her mouth hanging slightly open. “What?”
Gabbi drew her eyebrows together as she handed her menu to the waitress. “I’ll have the same.”
As soon as the waitress stepped away, Gabbi leaned halfway across the table. “What in the hell is going on with you?”
“I’m hungry.” Christ. Couldn’t a girl forgo a salad without persecution? “You ordered the same damn thing.”
“Yes, but I always order that kind of shit. You don’t. I haven’t seen you eat anything besides a salad in years.”
“I eat soup.”
“The kind you eat is just wet salad. First you start acting weird, then you show up with Joe. Now you order lunch like a teenage boy. What the hell Gwen?”
“Why is how I’m living my life so upsetting to you? You never seemed to have much to say about it before.” It was one of her favorite things about her sister. She didn’t meddle in her life. Apparently she was saving it all up.
“What was I supposed to do? You moved away. You cut me out.”
"And now that I'm back you want to make up for lost time?"
"No. I just want you to be happy. But I want him to be happy too." Gabbi shook her head. "I just don't think you two are in the same place right now. He's different. He lives a different life than you. Wants a different life than you have."
Gwen slammed her hands on the table and leaned in. "What kind of life is it you think I have?"
“You have everything Gwen. The job, the house, the car, the,” Gabbi gestured to the purse slung over the chair beside Gwen, “handbags.”
“You don’t even know what you’re talking about.” That was all just stuff. Shit to pass the time, fill the void.
“Then enlighten me.”
Gwen stared across the table at her sister and thought of all the things she'd really wanted in her life. Her throat tightened. She took a sip of her water to try to calm the muscles and give herself a second to try to get it together a little bit.
“Everything else I wanted was dead.”
Gabbi fidgeted with the wrapper of her straw, obviously uncomfortable with the turn the conversation had taken. Normally Gwen would have backed off, happy to avoid the discussion as well, but lately she'd been feeling anything but normal.
They'd never discussed Jason's death. Not when it happened, not at the funeral, not in the years since. Emotional expression outside of bickering was not an encouraged activity in their house growing up and it carried over into their adulthood.
Her family had hugged her and told her they were sorry, but that had been the extent of emotional support she'd received. After that, no one brought it up and neither did she. Life went on. Sort of.
“I didn’t get the option to have the things you have, so I had to settle for what I got. If you think for a second I’m happier with all that shit than you are with what you’ve been lucky enough to have, then you would be very wrong.” Gwen felt hot tears begin to trickle down her cheeks and for the first time ever in her life, she didn’t care who saw them, refusing to wipe them away even as the waitress arrived with their lunches.
The woman deposited a massive burger next to a heaping pile of fries in front of her, then set down a matching plate for Gabbi.
“You all right honey?” From the tone of her voice, she might as well have been asking if she needed a refill.
“Just a little emotional today.”
The woman stood and gave Gwen the once over. “Hopefully it's nothin’ a big ol’ pile of grease can’t fix.” She smiled warmly before patting her shoulder. “Let me know if you need anything.”
Gwen took a deep breath as the woman walked away, suddenly feeling much better. She knew the waitress meant anything related to her food, but it was amazing how that little bit of kind concern helped the sadness seem less… overwhelming.
A little calmer and relieved at finally telling her sister how she felt, Gwen turned her attention to her lunch. Miraculously, her little outburst hadn’t put a damper on her appetite. She popped a fry in her mouth as she squeezed ketchup onto her burger and into a pool onto her plate. She had a mouthful of burger before realizing Gabbi wasn’t touching hers.
She tongued her sizeable bite into her cheek. “It’s really good Gabs.”
While she was feeling remarkably better after her admission, her sister did not seem to be having the same reaction. Gabbi’s chin began to quiver. “Gwen… I neve
r knew what to say to you when he died. You just… You left and all I could do was hope you were… okay.”
“I tried to be okay." She shrugged. "It seemed like everyone just went on with their life so I tried to do the same. Only I couldn’t just go on. The life I had, the life I wanted, it ended and I didn't know how to deal with that.”
Gwen swirled a fry in ketchup as she thought about what she’d chosen to do instead. “I had to begin a new one, but I had very different and fewer pieces to work with.”
Gabbi simply sat and stared at her food as Gwen spoke. Their upbringing had left them both ill prepared for emotional situations. They were taught it was easier to ignore the issue and move on. Eventually it will go away.
Gwen leaned against the table. “Look. I don’t know what is going on with me and Joe. All I know is what I’ve been doing, the way I’ve been living my life, it isn’t making me happy and something has to change.”
Gabbi rubbed her hands over her face. “Can you just figure yourself out first? Joe doesn’t deserve to be drug along while you try to get it together.”
The old wound from years ago started to sting, but this time Gwen wasn't going to pretend and she wasn't going to hope it would go away. “Gab, I love you more than anything, but you are dangerously close to being a bad sister.”
“Joe is a grown man. You are not his goddamned keeper.”
For the first time in years she may have found someone and instead of being happy for her, Gabbi was acting like she was some evil temptress using a delicate man for her own benefit before casting him aside. “And quit acting like I’m some kind of selfish bitch out to break this man’s heart.”
“That’s not what I said. He's ready to get married and have a family. He deserves that. If you aren’t ready for that level of commitment, and it doesn’t seem to me like you are, just let him be. If he’s still around when and if you get to that point, then fine.”
Gwen sighed and relaxed back into her chair. She really wanted to be mad at her sister for being more concerned about Joe’s happiness than hers. Instead, it made her love her sister a little more. It also had the opposite effect of what Gabbi was probably hoping for.
Gabbi knew him well. She also knew a lot more about his past than she did and she clearly really, really liked him as a person. That meant he was worth liking. Probably even worth more than liking.
“I don’t think I can stay away from him. Even if I wanted to.”
Gabbi leaned her head back to look at the ceiling. “Damn.”
After more than a few seconds, she sat back straight and started finally picking at her lunch. “I knew when I saw you two at the bar.”
She pointed a fry at Gwen. “If something happens, he is going to stay our friend. Just keep that in mind.”
Fourteen
"I didn't do anything."
"You know damn well they don't care." Heath rubbed his face. "What you did or didn't do is irrelevant at this point."
"What in the hell am I supposed to do then?" Joe paced across the kitchen trying not to think of everything this meant. "What about you?"
"Nothing's been said. I think they were too focused on you." Heath yanked a stool out from under the island and flopped down. "We've got to figure out what's going on."
"I can call some guys, see what they've heard." Joe pulled out the stool beside Heath and sat.
"No. Don't talk to anybody. It just doesn't make sense after all this time." He shook his head and furrowed his brow. "Why now?"
Joe scratched at his blackened thumbnail. The same one Gwen handled so gently. "If they can't set me up, there's not much left they can do to me."
Both men sat silently. “The Sixes only have one way to get at me. Have they put out an order?"
He held his breath, not sure he was ready for the answer. He'd worked so hard and it was all finally paying off. His business. His house. Gwen. What if he only had two options? Leave it all behind or--
"What in the hell are you two talking about?"
Gabbi stood in the doorway, a shopping bag looped over one arm.
Heath jumped up and started toward Gabbi. He made it two steps.
"No." She pointed at him as she walked further into the kitchen, her face hard. "You need to tell us what's going on."
Us.
Joe jumped up almost as fast as his friend, but he didn't freeze under Gabbi's icy glare. He had more important things to worry about than whether or not Gabbi was pissed.
Gwen stood staring at him from the living room doorway. "What's happening?" Her eyes were wide, her fair skin a pale he'd never seen before. She looked absolutely terrified which meant two things. She'd heard everything and she'd put more of the pieces of his past together than he realized.
"Everything's going to be fine. There's just been a misunderstanding." He cupped his hands over her arms, stroking her bare skin gently with his thumbs as he eased her back into the living room. The kitchen was getting louder and louder and he didn't want Gwen to get any more upset.
"Who are the Sixes and what's an order?" Gwen's voice was quiet.
He held his breath. He couldn't lie to her, but the truth...
"Are they going to try to hurt you?" Her body went stiff.
"No." He took a deep breath. "Maybe."
Gwen looked down, her eyelashes fluttering as she blinked repeatedly. When she looked back up at him her eyes were rimmed in tears. "I have to go." She pulled out of his hands and turned, quickly disappearing out the front door.
The sound of Gabbi yelling behind him registered as he watched Gwen's car pull away.
"Where is Gwen?" Gabbi grabbed his arm. "Where's Gwen?"
"She left." He stared out the front window at the empty road.
"Nobody fucking ever listens to me." Gabbi threw up her hands. "How much have you told her?"
Joe turned. "She found out herself."
“You didn’t even tell her?” Gabbi looked at Heath. He looked away. “You two better start talking.” She turned to Joe and stuck her finger in his face. “And you are going first.”
“Gabs, I was going to tell her everything, but she already knew.” He glanced at Heath as his friend backpedaled out of the living room into the kitchen. Coward.
“She knows everything?” Gabbi’s voice was tight.
“I don’t know. She knows I was in-”, He cleared his throat.
“Prison?” Gabbi’s hands were on her hips and she was staring him down with an evil eye like he’d never seen before.
“Yeah.”
Gabbi shook her head and let out a long exasperated breath as she flopped down on the couch, catching her head in her hands. “I don’t know what to do.”
Joe sat down beside her and put his hand on her back. “It’s going to be okay. I’ll go talk to her. I’ll explain everything.”
Gabbi sat up. Her eyes were rimmed with tears and her forehead was creased with worry. “You don’t understand.”
“It will all be okay. I promise.”
Gabbi took a shaky breath. “What about you?”
“Heath is on top of it. This will all get cleared up. It’s just a little misunderstanding and somehow my name was brought into the middle of it.”
He hoped he sounded more certain than he felt. He hated not telling Gabbi the truth, but there was no way around it. The truth wouldn’t make anything better right now. Hell, he didn’t even actually know what the truth was himself.
Hopefully he was right about at least one thing. That Heath could get this all straightened out. Quickly.
All Joe wanted was move forward with his life, every step taking him further away from these people, and if one of them tried to pull him back, just as everything he’d ever wanted was within his grasp, chances were real good it might not end well. For either of them.
****
Gwen’s fingertips paused, hovering over the keyboard of her laptop, the gentle clicking of the keys temporarily interrupted.
“Damn.” She took a swig from the c
offee cup sitting on the end table beside her elbow, holding the cold liquid in her mouth as she tried to decide whether it was going down, or back into the mug.
“Gwennie?” Her sister’s voice was soft as she called in through the mudroom door. “Gwennie are you home?”
Gwen swallowed the cold coffee and set the cup back on the table. “I’m here Gabs.” She closed the lid on her laptop and slid it onto the couch beside her, stretching her legs onto the coffee table.
Her sister came clamoring in and flopped onto the couch beside her, sitting on her computer and throwing her arms around Gwen in an uncharacteristic show of affection. “I’m so glad to see you. I was worried something happened.”
“Nothing happened. I just haven’t felt very well so I took a couple days off.” Gabbi’s stranglehold on her didn’t loosen up as she fished Gwen’s laptop out from under her butt with one hand.
“You were still working, stop lying.” She finally loosened her grip and leaned back, inspecting. “You don’t look sick. Crappy, but not sick.”
“That was harsh.” Gwen couldn’t stop herself from reaching up to smooth the hair leading from her hairline to the rubber band holding up her messy bun.
Gabbi cocked an eyebrow. “You deserve it. Do you know how many times I’ve called you?” She crossed her arms. “Not calling me back after running out of the house Saturday was a jerk move Gwen. I’ve been worried about you.”
“As you can see I am fine. Just taking a couple of days to regroup.” Gwen gave Gabbi her best smile hoping it would be enough to avoid any more involved of a conversation.
“Have you talked to Joe?”
Apparently it wasn’t.
“I haven’t.” Gwen picked up her cold cup of coffee and contemplated taking another drink. Maybe she could go Irish it up first.
“Hasn’t he called you?” The tone in Gabbi’s voice forced Gwen to tell the truth. She didn’t want Joe to have to suffer through her sister’s wrath. Especially if it was unwarranted.
“He has, but…” Gwen put her cup on the coffee table deciding without a little bit of spiritual infusion, it wasn’t worth it. “I think you were right Gabs. He and I are just at different places.”
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