Make It Right

by Megan Erickson

  Jack’s eyes flitted over his two older sons before landing on Max. “What are you doing here?”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Cal just answered that, Dad.”

  “Don’t give me attitude,” he grunted, taking off his coat. He grabbed a plate from his cabinets and filled it with spaghetti and meatballs. He took a seat across from Max at the table.

  Jack was a big man, six feet, twenty thousand inches tall. He smoked about a pack and a half a day, so his teeth were stained and the smell had likely seeped into his bones. Sometimes Max thought Jack’s organs were nicotine ash by now.

  As soon as his plate was clear, his dad pulled a cigarette out of his shirt pocket and lit up at the table. On his first exhale, he said, “Where’d you get the food?”

  “Your kitchen,” Max answered.

  “You’re welcome,” his dad said.

  Max didn’t answer. He didn’t expect his father to thank him for cooking dinner.

  When Jack was finished with his cigarette, he rose from the table. “Clean this up,” he said to no son in particular. When he passed by Max’s chair, he tapped him on the shoulder with two fingers. “Cooking was good.” Then retreated into the den with a beer.

  Brent and Cal rose to take care of the dishes but Max sat frozen, the tap of those fingers echoing through his body. A weird sensation flitted over his skin and it took him a minute to realize the cause of it was his dad’s compliment.

  After the kitchen was clean, his brothers followed their dad into the den. Max didn’t want to. He wanted to go back to his town house. Hell, writing a paper was better than this. But that would be awkward—to leave when his brothers didn’t—so he sucked it up and joined his family.

  The news blared from the TV and as Max sank into the couch, the anchor began to talk about the assaults on campus. A reporter stood outside the hospital, “reporting live” and Max zeroed in on the same doors he walked through last night.

  Max fidgeted with a tear in the microsuede of the couch as the report centered on the injuries of the victims.

  When it was over, his dad turned to him. “If those guys tried that with me, I’d take ’em all out.”

  There was no Do you know anyone affected? or Be safe out there, or Watch your back. Nope, his fifty-two-year-old dad just professed the ability to take on three young guys at once. “Sure, Dad.”

  “You have to fight back,” he continued. “I think if I’ve taught you boys anything, it’s that. Fight back.”

  That was the truth. It was ingrained in Max’s brain. Like second nature to hit back when he was hit.

  “Oh, and I don’t need you Sunday,” Jack said to the TV.

  Max glanced at Cal and Brent. They looked back at him and shrugged.

  “Who are you talking to, Dad?” Cal asked.

  “All three of you,” he grunted.

  Max stared. He worked every weekend for his dad at his mechanic’s shop. He hated it and he hated knowing he’d be working there after graduation. But his dad paid half his tuition and said he needed him to get his business degree so he could take care of the books. His brothers had never gone to college, so Max considered himself lucky he’d even had the opportunity.

  Too bad his degree wasn’t anywhere near what he wanted to do.

  And a Sunday off? Unheard of.

  “You sure?” Max asked, know as soon as he did, Jack would like to be questioned.

  “Did I stutter?” Jack turned, his dark eyes pinning Max to the back of the couch.

  He gulped. “Nope.”

  Jack faced the TV again.

  Another half hour and Max was home free, climbing into the truck with an empty cookie container. He tapped his phone on his chin and thought about checking on Lea. But he didn’t have her number. And if he did, he didn’t know what to say.

  In her mind, what did he do exactly? Just give her a ride? Is that all she thought?

  Because that visit took a lot out of him. He hated hospitals. The smell alone made him nauseous.

  But Lea’s concern for her cousin reminded him of Alec’s mom. When he was in eighth grade, he and Alec were climbing trees. Max grabbed a weakened branch and it cracked. He fell with a crash of rotted wood and dried leaves right on his arm, breaking it.

  Alec’s mom didn’t baby him, but she showed concern. She allowed him to whimper in pain, she gave him ice and wrapped it on the way to the hospital. Alec rubbed his shoulder to ease his aching muscles.

  And when Max’s dad met them at the hospital, he thanked Alec’s mom and told her he had it from there. And then they sat in the emergency room while his dad joked about Alec’s mom “babying” Max.

  He loved Alec’s mom, but he’d been sure not to get hurt in her presence again.

  His brothers might have shown him some comfort if they’d all grown up in a different household, but under Jack Payton, showing concern was weak.

  You took pain like a man, without complaining. Without flinching. And heaven forbid you cried.

  But Lea didn’t know that.

  Before he could change his mind he dialed Kat.

  “Hey,” she answered cheerily. She’d never been that happy when they dated.

  “You with Lea?” He thought it was a good chance, and he didn’t have her number.

  Pause. “No. Why?”

  It was on the tip of his tongue to ask for her number, to hear that musical voice and make sure she was all right. But he chickened out. “I wanted to check on her. And ask how Nick is.”

  “Oh. Well that’s . . . nice of you.” Max fought to roll his eyes at her pause before nice. “Nick was released today and she’s doing well. And . . . she really appreciated what you did.”

  That warmed him more than he thought it would, so he only grunted in response.

  “You want me to tell her you called?” Kat asked.

  Max knew he was chickening out before he said the words. “Nah, that’s okay.”

  MAX WATCHED WAYNE scarf down his dry food. It looked gross—little star-shaped kibbles the color of red clay—and smelled worse. Like if a cow and a tuna had a baby and then a monkey farted on it.

  Wayne didn’t seem to mind. The foul-smelling food was probably gourmet compared to trash or flea-infested rats.

  But just because his cat didn’t mind eating trash didn’t mean he had to, right? Max furrowed his brow and walked out to the living room, sinking down onto the couch and digging his laptop out of his bag.

  He typed “homemade cat treats” in his Internet browser search bar and scanned the results. He clicked on a blog and scrolled through a woman’s mile-long blog post featuring a dozen professional-quality pictures of her long-haired cat in various positions, in some sort of soft light. The cat looked like it was fed sushi-grade tuna and brushed with a comb made of solid gold and extinct rhinoceros horns.

  Max glanced over at Wayne, who had followed him and sat in front of him licking his paw and running it over his shredded ear.

  “You’re just as good-looking to me,” Max grumbled. Wayne deserved as much as this stupid cat in the pictures with its pink sofa. So Max would make him special cat treats. He was a good cook. As the youngest boy, he’d been relegated to kitchen duty most of his life. He perfected his chocolate-chip cookie recipe—the secret was to melt the butter and let it sit until it came to room temperature before adding it to the batter—and these cat treats didn’t look hard to make.

  Of course, on his rare Sunday off, he should have been writing a paper for macroeconomics—a class he hated with a passion—but his cat came first.

  He grabbed a pen and jotted down the ingredients.

  “Be back, buddy,” he said, bending down to scratch Wayne under the chin, his favorite spot.

  It started raining on his way to the grocery store, and his wipers were so rotted on his old truck, he could barely see anything. He made a note to buy new ones. Luckily, he could do basic car maintenance himself. That was one thing he could thank his dad for.

  He parked and ran inside th
e grocery store, then grabbed a small cart. He realized halfway down the first aisle that his had a bum wheel and it rattled over the tile floor so it sounded like he was dragging about four chains behind him. The Ghost of Nine Lives. Fucking cart. He always got a bad one.

  But he was tired and wanted to get back, so he kept pushing his obnoxious cart and ignored the looks from other shoppers. He needed some essentials. His dad threw him a couple of bucks for working on the weekends, but most of it went to his “debt” for his dad paying for his school. And he made some spare change at his job at the rec center. He grabbed some milk, bread, chicken breasts and frozen vegetables. Then he ran through his list for Wayne’s treats and pushed through the aisles to gather what he needed. His cart held a random assortment of products—baby food, rice, eggs, and rice flour. The recipe called for parsley, which Max had at home. He used it to make chicken picatta, a recipe he gleaned from that Italian chick on the Food Network. He’d started watching her because she was hot and had great tits and always wore low-cut shirts. But then he started making her food and now he was a little bit in love with her.

  But he did need salad ingredients, so he rattled his loud-ass cart over to the lettuce. A bag of chopped romaine went in the cart, then a container of grape tomatoes. Next were cucumbers. He grabbed one, threw it in and without looking up, reached for another. His hands closed around the width, but when he tugged, it didn’t budge. He glanced at the cucumber, only to see a hand on the other end. A rather dainty, feminine hand. His eyes followed the thin wrist with delicate, protruding bones peeking out from the cuff of a pale purple sweater, up to a shoulder covered in a cascade of dark hair until he met the dark irises of Lea. He hadn’t seen her since he dropped her off at her house two nights ago.

  Her eyes, normally so round in her small face, were widened in surprise, as they both gripped opposite ends of a rather large cucumber.

  “Umm . . .” Max mumbled. “Hey Lea.”

  She blinked, those long lashes fluttering over flushed cheeks. “Hi Max.”

  Neither moved, still gripping this cucumber between them like they were passing a baton in a race. A baton held at his crotch, which sorted his mind into one track. And because Lea made all his good sense and flirting knowledge fly out the window, he resorted to teasing her. In the library, he’d noticed the teasing coaxed Lea out of her shell. Instead of ignoring him or clamming up, she focused all that energy on him, even if it was to blast his ego to bits.

  “You want this one?” He jiggled his hand, and her arm vibrated with the movement. His lip twitched involuntarily. “It’s kind of big. You sure you don’t want something smaller?”

  One slow blink, and then those dark eyes flashed and narrowed. Her lips twisted in a wicked smile. “Oh, I like them big. Just so many more uses for them when there’s some girth, you know?”

  For fuck’s sake. That smile. Those red lips, now wet from one swipe of her pink tongue. And he was hard. In a grocery-store produce aisle. While holding a cucumber.

  Could he get arrested for that?

  “Oh, of course, but do you know what to do with one this big? I mean, it can be a lot to handle. You don’t want to waste any of it.”

  That tongue peeked out again. “Oh, I never waste cucumbers. I make them last a loooong time.” She drew out the word, curling her tongue on her upper teeth on the l and emphasizing the shape of her mouth on the oooo. And then she chuckled, a deep sound that traipsed along his spine like fingers. “I’m not sure you’re used to cucumbers this big, so why don’t I just take this one? Hmmm?”

  She tugged. And he tugged back. Through gritted teeth, he said, “Trust me, doll, I know exactly what to do with a big cucumber.”

  And that’s when Lea lost it. She let go of the cucumber, threw her head back, shiny dark hair flying, and howled in laughter. She had a deep, husky laugh that settled into his gut like a cup of hot chocolate. He wanted to drink and drink and drink. Because he loved that he could make her laugh, especially in light of what had happened to her cousin.

  When her laugh subsided, she eyed the cucumber in his hand and shrugged, giggles still escaping from her lips. “You can have that cucumber. There are plenty other big ones I can use.”

  Then she winked.

  And he wondered if he had stepped into some alternate universe and this was a porno, because he wanted to say, the only big cucumber you’ll be using is mine, and grab her and devour her mouth. But that was corny, and creepy and probably illegal in twenty-four states. So instead he threw his cucumber in his cart and bit the inside of his cheek.

  Lea carted another cucumber—which was smaller than the one he had, he noted with a silent grunt—and looked at his cart.

  “Baby food?” She raised her eyebrows.

  He looked down at his cart. “Oh, uh, that’s for Wayne.”

  She blinked. Then shook her head. “You’re feeding your cat baby food?”

  “Well, kind of? I’m, um, making him cat treats.” Was that a bad thing to confess to a girl you wanted? At least his boner had gone down.

  “What?”

  He took a deep breath and plunged in. “Well I saw pictures of these fancy cats on the Internet with homemade food and thought, why can’t Wayne have that? Just because he’s probably eaten junk all his life and is okay eating junk doesn’t mean he has to. So, I’m making him some treats.”

  Her lips softened, the smirk morphing into a smile. She cocked her head and said quietly, “You’re making your cat treats.”

  He nodded. Didn’t he just say that?

  She peeked into his cart again. “What else goes in the treats?”

  He pointed to the ingredients as he listed them. “Well, I have some ingredients at home already, like eggs, water, oil and parsley. So I bought rice and baby food and some rice flour. The recipe said it makes a thick paste and then I spread it on a pan, bake it, and then cut it into bite-sized pieces. They are chewy treats, which I thought would be good for him. He eats dry food, which I read is best to control tartar. But I want to give him a treat, you know?”

  Lea stared at him. Fuck, he was rambling like a nut job about his cat.

  “Tess eats dry cat food, too. I give her canned tuna as a treat. She hears the drawer open where I keep the can opener and comes running.”

  The gears in his head clicked into place. “You have a cat, too?”

  “Well, at home. Not at my apartment because Danica is allergic. I miss her though. She’s a little tortoiseshell I got at the shelter. Her mom was brought in pregnant so she was born there and I picked her out as a kitten. She’s completely kooky. But I love her.”

  He smiled. “Tess?”

  “From Tess of the d’Ubervilles. By Thomas Hardy. One of my favorite books.”

  It didn’t ring a bell. He shook his head. “Never read it.”

  She laughed. “Not everyone is a Hardy fan. But I like him.”

  “I’ll have to look him up, I guess.” He didn’t read much, but if it was her favorite book, maybe he could make an effort.

  She pursed her lips. “Well, he died in 1928.”

  Oh. “Oh, so, this is an old book?”

  She giggled. “Yeah, the language can be hard to get through.”

  Well, fuck that.

  “So, uh, I called Kat last night to ask about you . . .”

  Lea’s lips quirked but she didn’t say a word.

  “What?”

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  “I know, but you gave me a look.”

  She widened those eyes, all innocence. “What look?”

  He didn’t answer, so she laughed. “Why didn’t you ask Kat for my number?”

  “I didn’t want to be pushy.”

  She studied his face. “Oh.”

  “So, how are you doing? And Nick?”

  “Nick was released yesterday. I’m picking up some food to take over to him now. And I’m okay. Glad he’s on the way to recovery now.”

  “Good, I’m glad.”

  She
didn’t look away, those eyes boring into him until he squirmed. “What?”

  Lea pursed her lips. “Just trying to figure out which Max is the real one.”

  The real one? “I don’t understand.”

  “The cocky flirt or the guy who drives me to the hospital and warms me with his blanket.”

  He still couldn’t tell what exactly that meant to her. “Can’t I be both?”

  She cocked her head. “I guess you can.” Then she lowered her gaze to the floor. “Thanks again. For the ride to the hospital. And for taking me home.”

  “Anytime,” he said softly.

  Lea grabbed her cart. “Well, I need to run. Talk to you soon.”

  She pushed away, her cart running nice and smooth, unlike his. Her limp was slightly more pronounced, and he wondered if her injury was affected by the cold, rainy weather.

  He pushed his cart to the checkout and made his purchases.

  The rain let up slightly on the way home. He gripped the steering wheel and thought about what Lea had said. He knew he was a flirt. Always had been. But that caring guy? A boyfriend? Nah, he’d never really been that.

  With Lea he’d slotted into that role easily. She needed a ride, he drove. She needed a pep talk, he gave it. She was cold, he provided a blanket.

  But did she see him as much more than a joke? The thought irked him. Normally he didn’t care. He wasn’t looking for anything serious so he didn’t want the girl getting any ideas. But Lea thinking he wasn’t more than a crass jock didn’t sit well with him. It slid under his skin like a splinter.

  Did he want to be more for her? And most important, could he be?

  Chapter 7

  LEA KNOCKED ON Nick’s door, a plastic grocery bag clutched in her hand. He lived in the on-campus apartments Kat had last year. There were two bedrooms with two guys in each room and all four of them shared a common room.

  Shuffling sounded on the other side and then the door swung open. Trish smiled wide. “Hey.”

  Lea took a step inside and hugged her friend. “How’s everyone doing?”

  Trish’s smile faded slightly. “Okay.”

  That was a loaded word.