Neat

by Kandi Steiner

  I had done what was right, even knowing it wouldn’t be easy, and that was enough to ease the pain.

  It was another cold night, and since Dad had already cut off the electricity, I was painting by the light of several candles, wrapped up in a blanket on one of the few bar stools left. My arm and hand were freezing, but I was almost done with the painting I’d started that afternoon, as soon as I’d finished the book.

  It was the most powerful scene I’d ever read — the version that I saw in my head, anyway. It was my Maurie-Laure and Verner, sitting on the curb in Saint Malo. It was a young, innocent boy trapped in a war as a villain he never intended to play, and a young, innocent blind girl who fell in love with a world she could not see — even when it was at its ugliest.

  That scene was one I would never forget. Just like the book. Just like the boy who gave me the book.

  And I wanted to immortalize all of it with that painting.

  Fireworks were already spouting off here and there outside, even though we were far from midnight and the hour that would welcome in a new year. The sounds were dull and distant, so when a knock sounded at the shop front door, I nearly jumped out of my skin.

  When I turned and found Logan on the other side of the glass, I was paralyzed altogether.

  Small bursts of fireworks were going off somewhere in the distance behind and above him, casting him in soft pink and purple and blue glows as he stood there, hands in the pockets of his Carhartt jacket, hair a mess under his navy blue ball cap. My feet carried me numbly to him, and it felt like someone else’s hand unlocking the door, someone else stepping back to allow him inside. When the candlelight reached his face, I saw how dark his eyes were, how his beard was longer than usual and scraggly like I’d never seen it.

  He didn’t say anything at first. He just looked at me, at the blanket around my shoulders, the tears marking my face, the bird’s nest of hair on top of my head. Then, he looked behind me — at the painting, at the book on the stand next to it — and then back at me.

  My bottom lip quivered, and I sniffed, trying and failing to fight back another wave of tears. “I told you I’m not good with emotions.”

  Logan smirked, opening his arms, and I padded forward until I was in them. He wrapped me up in a tight hug, and I cried harder when I felt that embrace, when my head rested against his chest, his chin on top of my head, his distinct scent of whiskey and wood and old books surrounding me in comfortable familiarity.

  He sighed, as if that embrace was all he’d been wanting, too. And for the longest time, he just held me there, arms wrapped tight, hearts beating in sync, me crying on his shoulder.

  “I take it you finished,” he said, voice rumbling through where my ear rested on his chest.

  I nodded. “I told you not to make me cry, Logan.”

  “Well, you made me cry first, so I think we’re even.”

  My heart ached at that, and I pulled back, looking up at him through my wet lashes. “You’re right. I guess I deserved it, huh?”

  He chuckled, sweeping the mess of hair that had fallen loose from my ponytail away from my face. His eyes catalogued every part of me, but he didn’t look at me like I was the hot mess express in pajamas.

  He looked at me like I was a priceless, one-of-a-kind, first edition of his favorite novel.

  “I thought you were gone,” he croaked, voice low. “I came by earlier this morning, and the shop was so empty, and you didn’t answer… I’ve been looking all over town for you.”

  “You have?”

  He nodded, that favorite wrinkle of mine making its appearance between his eyebrows. “Mac came to my office first thing this morning and told me he talked to your dad, that he convinced him they made a mistake by giving you the management position. He said it was mine, and that you had quit, that you were selling the studio and leaving town and…” He swallowed, shaking his head. “I just knew something was wrong, something was off. I had to find you.”

  I laughed, wiping my nose with the back of my wrist with a shrug. “Welp. Here I am.”

  A hint of a smile touched his lips, but it disappeared quickly, his eyes searching mine. “What happened?”

  “I don’t even know where to start,” I said, blowing out a breath. My hands gathered at the center of his chest, and I looked at them instead of at his golden eyes. “I was sick all that night, after what happened. I wanted to run to you, to beg for you to believe me when I said I had nothing to do with what happened. But after our fight…” I shrugged. “You were right. I may not have played an active role in it, but somewhere, in the back of my mind, I knew what my father was capable of. I knew making any kind of deal with him was dangerous.”

  “I’m sorry for the way I spoke to you.”

  “You shouldn’t be,” I said, shaking my head. “I deserved it. And that next day, after wallowing in self-pity, of course, I came down here and I drew a sketch of you in my bed. And I looked at that picture of you on my wall. And I felt you in every inch of this room, of the room upstairs, of my life,” I confessed. “And I knew I had to make it right somehow.”

  Another tear slipped down my cheek, but it didn’t make it far before Logan was thumbing it away, and somehow, that made my chest squeeze even tighter.

  “I told my dad he needed to make it right, that he knew as well as this entire town did that that position was yours — not mine. I told him if he didn’t make it right, I would go to the Gazette with what happened that night when I was fourteen.”

  Logan inhaled. “Mallory…”

  “I know,” I said, glancing at him before my eyes fell to my hands on his chest again. “I know. Trust me, I didn’t want to. I don’t want to ever talk about that night with anyone ever again. But, I was willing to do it, if I had to. And I knew my father well enough that it wouldn’t come to that. He doesn’t want another mark on our name — not now, especially after everything that happened with Mayor Barnett this summer.” I sniffed. “Anyway, the next day, he told me I had two weeks to get out of my apartment, that he was sending movers to take all the furniture and art supplies to auction, and that I was never to talk to anyone in my family ever again.”

  Logan shook his head, framing my face with his hands and forcing me to look at him. “Why would you do that?” he asked urgently, searching my gaze. “It’s just a job, Mallory. I could have done something else. I could have—”

  “It’s not just a job, and you know it,” I argued. “It’s your family’s legacy. It’s the position you’ve worked your entire adult life for — and the one you damn well deserve, too.”

  “But, your family,” he whispered, then he looked around. “Your dream.”

  “My family was never family to begin with. Family sticks together, no matter what. They love each other and understand each other and they would never, ever, do what my father did to me — not when I was fourteen, not now.” I shivered. “And my dream is to bring art to kids. But, I don’t need my father to make that happen. Maybe I’ll go into education, or maybe I’ll open up a shop of my own. Whatever I decide to do, I know one thing for sure — I don’t need my father to do it. I don’t want any part of his legacy, not with the way he’s living it. I’m ashamed I even came back and agreed to that deal with the devil in the first place.”

  “You didn’t do anything wrong,” Logan assured me.

  “No, I did. I did. And that’s okay, I admit it, and I did what I had to do to make it right. When I came back, I was lost. I was fresh out of college and jobless with no money or career possibilities ahead of me. I fell right back into the trap I fought my whole life to escape. It was a moment of weakness, a moment of being on my knees. But, I’m standing again now.”

  The left side of Logan’s mouth quirked up, and he nodded. “You are.”

  “On top of all that,” I continued. “I realized something very important that day after I watched you walk away from me.”

  “What’s that?”

  “That if it means I can’t have you, if it
means hurting you, then it’s not right. I don’t care what it is.” My hands began to tremble as I slid them up the rough fabric of his jacket, my eyes flicking to his mouth and back to those honey eyes. The blanket I’d been tucked under fell to the floor at our feet. “And I’m going to say something so crazy, you’re going to want to commit me. Because I know it’s too soon. I know that to most people, it would seem impossible. But…” I swallowed, shaking so bad I had to fist my hands in his jacket to keep from tumbling over. “I think I love you, Logan Becker. You poor sonofabitch.”

  Logan laughed, his eyes sparkling in the candlelight as he pulled me into him more, as if his warmth could stop the trembling that came with that admission.

  “I can one up your crazy,” he said.

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “Yeah. Move in with me.”

  My next breath didn’t come, though my jaw dropped low enough to let in a giant gulp of air, had my lungs allowed it.

  Logan smirked, chucking my chin with his knuckles until my mouth closed. “Move in with me, Mallory. We can figure everything else out together. Wanna know how I know?”

  “How?” I barely whispered, still riddled with shock.

  “Because I love you, too,” he said, leaning down until his forehead met mine. “And I don’t just think it. I know it.”

  “You’re insane.”

  “As long as we can be crazy together.”

  Before I could laugh, his lips were on mine, hands sliding back to hold my neck and pull me into him. Two more tears slipped free when that man kissed me, and I leaned into it — into the pain, into the love, into the crazy. I leaned into the uncertain future that kiss promised me, into the man I trusted to get me through anything, and into the choices we’d both made that led to that moment.

  He was my Romeo, and I his Juliet, and our families be damned — we were going to make it.

  And this story wouldn’t end in tragedy.

  It was the wildest, most whirlwind of a month I’d ever experienced in my life — that month I spent falling for Logan Becker. When he took my hand and led me outside to watch the fireworks, bringing the blanket with him, I curled up inside that warmth with him with the most relieving sigh finding my lungs. I’d never felt so right, so sure, so… at home.

  He leaned against the storefront of the shop — the one that we’d built up together, the one now empty once again — and I rested my back against his chest, eyes cast toward the sky. We watched those bursts of light fire off in the sky, talking about the week we’d spent apart and what each of us had been through. Logan promised me his family would come around, that he would find a way for that to happen, that somehow, we’d make it work. And though it scared the absolute shit out of me, I believed him.

  For hours, we sat there in the cold, talking and holding each other and watching the town of Stratford say goodbye to another year passed.

  When the clock struck midnight, Logan pulled me to stand, wrapped me in his arms, and kissed me into the new year, into a new future, into that new universe we promised to make — one where it was me and him against the world.

  Then, he dragged me inside, up the stairs, and we made some fireworks of our own.

  Logan

  “Oh, come on, Mom! It’s his graduation,” Noah pleaded, holding the shot glass filled to the brim with Scooter Whiskey. “Just one shot.”

  “Absolutely not,” she said, pointing a finger at Noah in warning. “I said no, and I mean it. I’m not naïve enough to think you boys didn’t drink before you were twenty-one,” she said, waving that finger across all of us older boys. “But, I’ve managed to keep this one away from the stuff so far, and I intend to keep it that way.” She said the last part pointing at Mikey.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jordan defended. “I was an innocent, law-abiding child.”

  Mom rolled her eyes, taking the shot glass from Noah and slamming it back herself. A wave of whistles and cheers rang out when she slammed the empty glass back down on the table, cringing and shaking her head against the burn.

  “Atta girl, Laurelei!” Betty yelled, throwing her hand into the air for a high five.

  Mom slapped it, smiling victoriously. “Now that that’s settled, who’s ready for cake?”

  A unanimous show of hands went up, and she laughed, waving us off as the chatter kicked back in and she escaped to the kitchen to retrieve the massive graduation cake she’d ordered for Mikey.

  My younger brother sat on the opposite side of the table from me, an easy grin on his face — and the closest thing I’d seen to his full smile since the fall. He’d changed since he and Bailey broke up. He’d grown quieter, more serious, and he preferred to be alone more now than he ever had before. Still, he seemed relaxed that day, and happy — and he was surrounded by everyone who loved him most to celebrate his accomplishment.

  His best friend, Kylie, sat to his right, laughing at a story Betty was telling. Betty was a relatively new friend of the family, one Ruby Grace had brought with her when she and Noah started dating. Ruby Grace had worked down at the nursing home where Betty lived, and through that connection, she’d become one of Mom’s best friends — and like a grandmother to all of us.

  Ruby Grace was there, too, sitting next to Noah, who had his arm around her and a soft smile on his face as he watched her listen to Betty’s story, too.

  Jordan was on the other side of Mikey, currently holding his shoulder firmly as he bent low and whispered something meant for just the two of them. I was sure it was something similar to the advice he’d given me on my high school graduation day — advice that I still carried with me every day.

  Fight for what’s right, stand up for those who can’t stand for themselves, give yourself permission to love and to lose and to be loved and lost in return, and above all else, family first — always.

  And, perhaps my favorite addition to that family table at Mom’s was the woman sitting next to me.

  Mallory sipped on her gin and tonic, smiling at Betty while her fingers drew circles on my knee under the table. Her hair was a neon mix of orange and pink, bright colors that set her blue eyes aflame against her pale skin, and she had a fresh tattoo healing behind her ear. It was a small lotus flower, a symbol she’d told me reminded her that, like the lotus flower born from the mud, we must embrace the darkest parts of ourselves to become our most beautiful selves.

  I reached down and covered her hand with my own, giving it a squeeze. She smiled, tossing me a wink before she turned her attention back to Betty, chiming in with her own story next. And I was content to sit back and listen, to watch her fit in with my family just like I knew she always would. It seemed she’d grown on everyone — even Jordan, who was perhaps the most hesitant. Once she moved in with me, they had no choice but to accept her as part of me.

  That’s what family did.

  And it seemed like everyone was beginning to love her.

  Well, everyone except for Mom.

  She’d been quiet when I’d told my family that Mallory and I had made up, that we were in love, that she was moving in with me. She’d been quiet the first time I brought Mallory to dinner, too — but polite, of course. And though she hadn’t warmed up much over the past five months, she hadn’t disowned me, either.

  I guessed that counted for something.

  As for Mallory’s family, they’d kept their word of disowning her. She hadn’t spoken to any of them since that day she’d told her father off in his office, and though she tried to hide it, I knew it hurt her sometimes.

  But I was her family, now. We were her family.

  And unlike what she’d been used to before — we’d be a real one to her.

  “Mallory, can you help me in the kitchen?” Mom called, and the table went silent for a moment.

  Betty was quick to kick the conversation back in gear as Mallory stood, squeezing my shoulder. “Of course.” She disappeared into the kitchen, and I worried my cheek wondering what Mom was saying to her.

/>   “It’s getting pretty serious with you two, isn’t it?” Jordan asked, nodding toward the kitchen.

  I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but I kept my eyes on the women inside those walls, anyway. “Serious as the last two minutes of a tied Super Bowl.”

  Jordan chuckled, lifting his glass of whiskey. “Better hope Mom doesn’t eat her alive, then.”

  I cheersed my glass to his, taking a long sip and letting it burn on the way down. Watching Mallory in the kitchen with Mom, I couldn’t help but feel a surge of pride at the woman she was, the woman I loved, the woman who would someday be a part of our family. I knew it without a single doubt in my mind, especially after all we’d been through.

  If the first month of our life hadn’t been enough of a ride, the last five months would have sealed the deal. Between learning how to live together — her perpetually a mess, me perpetually a neat freak — and adjusting to a new way of life with each of our new careers, it had been a whirlwind. Mallory was spending every hour of her day creating, whether it was painting or sketching or crafting or photography. Anything she could make and sell at the craft fairs around the state, she made. It was all part of her plan to save up to buy a shop of her own one day, and I helped her in whatever way I could — even when she asked me to pose nude for an exotic series of black and white sketches she sold for fifteen grand at a romance novel festival.

  As for me, I was working longer hours at the distillery, turning the tour guide department into what I’d always envisioned it could be. We had more tours being booked than ever before — more than we had people to give tours — which meant I had my hands full trying to figure out how to accommodate the new demand.

  And while I loved chasing my dreams with her, my favorite moments with Mallory were the quiet ones, when we were on the couch, Dalí curled up in a ball between us, a book in our laps, soft music playing in the background. I loved reaching over to close her book, to kiss her, to pull her into our bedroom where we made love.

  I loved sharing my life with her.