Inclusions

by Emily Duvall

  Melanie put her fingers through his hair. “I’m sorry.”

  “I’ve never regretted the decision to leave home,” he continued without prompting. “One night I decided I’d had enough, and I left. I packed a bag and walked out the front door in the middle of the night.” He looked up at her, continuing to talk with distance in his voice, “I slept on a relative’s couch for a few weeks and then I began college. I wanted to start college with a clean slate. My father’s reputation ran deep in our community. The outbursts, the hair-trigger temper.”

  She shuddered at the thought of his pain.

  “This one time, Brent and I stole a bag of chips from a convenience store. My father had locked up all our food in the cabinets because we didn’t clean our rooms. We hadn’t eaten in two days and we tried to find food wherever we could. Our aunt who lived behind us was out of town and my father held the key, even though she’d left it for us, because she knew what he was like.”

  Melanie’s fingers drifted down his neck and shoulders. “I had no idea.”

  “The convenience store owner knew us and when he caught us, he didn’t call the cops. He did worse: he called our father. My dad came down to pick us up and I knew. I knew by the smirk on his face and his extra polite voice that we were going to pay. He took us home and beat us until we couldn’t sit down.” Luke rubbed his chin. “I haven’t been back to the house since I left.”

  Melanie’s stomach turned. “What about your mother?” Melanie feared the worst, thinking back now to the stark absence in reference to his mother.

  “She’s alive. She moved to Scottsdale after he died. I don’t stay in contact with her. She’s not really all there. She’s fragile, she’s afraid of her own reflection. The damage my father did to her made her someone else—someone who can’t come back from where she’d started in life. She lives in a facility. My aunt lived behind us growing up and we spent all our time there, as much as our father would allow until he needed a punching bag.” Luke ran his fingers through Melanie’s hair; then down around her sides and gripped her thighs. “My aunt visits her once a year, but I don’t ask about my mother. She died to me the day she chose my father over protecting us.” Luke’s voice hitched with emotion. He kicked the stone wall. “There, now you know.”

  Melanie took both of his hands, splaying her palms over his. “Thank you for telling me,” she said. “I’ve been trying to understand why you’ve kept this from me.”

  Luke removed his hands abruptly. “I don’t owe you any other explanations.”

  “Luke, don’t do this.”

  “What do you want me say? You want me to tell you how I didn’t attend his funeral? How I’m afraid Vivian will look at me like I looked at my father one day?”

  Her heart broke for him. The aura of bad memories hung in the iris of his eyes, still visible to anyone willing to look past his appearance. “I see the way you’re gentle with Vivian. You care for her so much. You’re not anything like the monster you described.” Forgetting all about her foot, she locked her feet around him and jumped up as if she’d stepped on hot coals. Luke’s quick strong hand caught her before she fell back off the wall.

  “I’m taking you to the hospital,” he ordered.

  “I’m not going in my bathing suit,” she protested. “Spare me a little self-respect, will you?”

  “Stay here and don’t touch your foot. I’ll get your clothes and be back in a moment.”

  * * * *

  The doctor gave Melanie twelve stitches in her foot and as a parting gift, a tetanus shot. The nurse sent her home with instructions on how to care for her foot over the next few days and a prescription for antibiotics. The stitches would fall out on their own within seven days. Luke enjoyed watching Melanie’s stubbornness unfold around the doctor and each time she tried to get out of some instruction, Luke pointed at the bag of bandages, pills, and cleanser he’d picked up at the drug store.

  They drove back to the house and Luke parked the car in the driveway where he went to her side of the car and helped her out, despite her unwillingness to take his help. “I’ll help you to your room,” he said. “Then you’re on your own. I’m meeting my brothers for drinks.”

  He put his arm around her waist and helped her up the long flight of stairs. Luke opened the door and his hand slid off her waist. He switched on the light in the foyer.

  “I can make it to my bedroom.” Melanie glanced at the stairs. “There’s nothing more you can do. Besides, Stevie and Kendra are here if I need help. You know they both live for this kind of excitement.” Melanie laughed a little and Luke didn’t. She dropped the laugh and said, “Thank you for taking me to the hospital.”

  “What was that?” he smirked and touched his ear.

  “You heard me.”

  * * * *

  Luke’s patience stretched thin. The resolute streak in her prevented him from carrying her up to her bed. The bedroom is after all, where he wanted to take her. Her hair hung loose and messy around her face and her eyes looked alive with the same sort of stirring he felt on the inside. The pink hue of her lips against her creamy, oily skin created an intoxicating effect on him. He’d like her lips roaming around his body, while his hands groped her lush, sun-tan covered skin. Pent-up heat erected in his loins at the thought of taking this further. He wouldn’t, of course. He’d stand by his decision to remain neutral around her, even if such a feat seemed impossible. “We’re going to have to be able to get along for the rest of the summer.”

  “I know.”

  His hand fell to his side and he caught himself staring at her and the space of skin above her neckline. He took in a long, frustrated breath. “I won’t check on you later.”

  “All I want is to sleep.”

  “See you tomorrow.” Luke left her and returned to his car.

  He drove without concern for the speed. The open road wound in front of him and he accelerated. He would find some other woman to fill his bed tonight. Disgusted with himself, Luke stopped that train of thought. Another woman wouldn’t take Melanie’s place. She wasn’t out of his system. The wheel moved under his fingers and he stepped on the gas.

  The obscure bar, Riptide’s, sat off the beaten path. Obscure, crowded, and with an interior unchanged in the last thirty years. Literally, a living time capsule stuck in a decade of hard rock with some of the original dust probably on the ceiling fans. Luke liked this bar the best on the island. He found his brothers inside with drinks in their hand and surrounded by a semi-circle of tanned women. The women on the island were beautiful: bright white teeth, jet black hair, and bodies meant for showing off skin. Luke laughed at the crowd they’d attracted, flipped his keys, and approached them.

  Brent looked up from his conversation with a brunette first and grinned when he spotted Luke. “I didn’t think you’d show,” he said and laughed.

  The brunette turned around and smiled wide at Luke. The blue eyes and red lips accentuated her pretty face. “You’re the third brother?” she said. “I told Brent I’d buy you a drink, if you decided to show up tonight. He seemed to think you wouldn’t.”

  Luke accepted the drink and sat on the barstool next to Brent. The brunette leaned over the bar counter and wore a suggestive grin. “Let me guess: you like your drink stiff and without ice, like your brother.”

  “You guessed correct,” he responded without emotion. The light-hearted mood of the crowd in the bar didn’t match Luke’s impatience—impatience further complicated every time he ran into Melanie.

  “How’s the patient?” Brent passed him the whiskey. “Did they need to amputate?”

  The blonde took her place next to Luke, ensuring he enjoyed the drink. “Whose body are we talking about?”

  Luke ignored the blonde. “The glass is out and the patient is doing well. A few stitches and some rest is all she needs.”

  “How is Melanie these days, still the martyr for her beloved brother?” Damon inserted himself in the conversation. The youngest Harrison, he leaned on
the counter with a grin glossed over from too many drinks—he looked like their father a few moments before slipping into some alcohol-induced zone and becoming unpredictable. “You know she’s always going to see him as blameless.”

  “We’ll see about that.” Luke gulped the rest of his drink and invoked the right to keep his relationship with Melanie to himself. It occurred to him he could make love to her and just not care about what happened. They could come to some sort of an agreement. No, he shook his head. He was through making agreements with her. She was in Maui. She lived under his roof. They couldn’t be together and he wouldn’t give any more than take in the physical aspect of their relationship. He didn’t need to give her anything more.

  “The brunette that bought you the drink is a ten,” Damon egged on Luke. “She’s much better looking than Melanie.” His gaze moved down her shoulder to her rear. “Better body too.”

  Luke clenched the glass. He didn’t want to provoke Damon and get into it in a bar. The one thing about having a father who hits is you learn to fight back, whether you want to or not.

  “Melanie cost us a blue garnet,” Damon said louder at the same moment someone turned up the music.

  “No, she didn’t,” Brent said, leaning over. “We’ll get another one. It’s what we do. We keep looking and we’ll find something better.”

  Luke mulled this over. The varnish on the mahogany wood of the counter showed scratches and nicks as far as the eye could see. The bartender slid Luke his drink, not a splash jumped out of the glass. “Drink’s on me, Harrison,” said Curt, the owner of the bar.

  Luke nodded to Curt and accepted the drink. The dim lights made this an ideal place to get lost for a few hours and re-emerge after hours. The brothers mulled over their drinks in silence while the women around them grew restless for their attention.

  Damon gave in and began chatting with the blonde. She’d grown tired of waiting for Luke to bite her bait. “What’s your name sweetheart?”

  “Tasha,” she responded with all the eagerness of a student on her first day of school. She wedged her way next to Damon, blocking him out of view of his brothers.

  “Are we sure he’s getting married?” Brent said, shaking his head.

  “There’s still time for Felicity to wake up to the reality that our brother is a perpetual bachelor.” Luke clicked glasses with his brother’s.

  “Curt, get Tasha a drink!” Damon shouted. “Get everyone in the bar a drink. I’m getting married.” The entire bar erupted in loud cheers and pounded on the tabletop. The women stood around Damon and gravitated to him, vying for his attention more now that they’d learned he was taken. Luke watched Damon reel in one woman after another, using the same moves he’d used for years. All a woman really wanted was to be heard and Damon excelled at the art of cocking his head a little to the side when interested, looking around the bar when he wasn’t. Luke drank on and on, until he’d grown tired of sitting. The more he drank, the more he thought of Melanie.

  “I’m worried Damon’s on a downward spiral,” Brent confided to Luke. “I need someone reliable to handle our legal transactions and I’m worried his priorities have changed.”

  “Damon is distracted, but he’s also loyal. He’s always handled our legal problems aggressively and swiftly.”

  “He’s becoming unreliable in his personal life.” Brent took a moment to watch his youngest brother lean over and kiss the blonde. “I hope her boyfriend isn’t nearby.”

  “Forget about Damon, he’s our brother and he’s invested in us. Our business is successful because all three of us play our part. We’ve been operating this way since we were children, long before we established our business. Our business back then was to watch each other’s back.”

  “If our disaster-of-a-father taught us anything, it’s to look out for one another.” Brent laughed carelessly at the blonde moving over to sit on Damon’s lap.

  The door swung open and in walked a group of men with thick necks and arms covered in tattoos. The one standing in front nodded at Curt and the bartender got busy grabbing shot glasses and a bottle of Tequila. The muscles on his arms were twice the size of Luke’s arms and Brent’s biceps. “Here we go,” Luke said, feeling in the mood to blow off some steam.

  Brent cracked his knuckles and smiled like the devil. “I hope he’s the blonde’s boyfriend.” He swiveled around in his chair, ordered another drink, and turned back around to find Damon lip-deep with Tasha. “We’ll soon find out.”

  They didn’t have to wait. The hulk standing in the doorway took his shot of Tequila, wiped his mouth like a barbarian, and stomped over to Tasha. Luke and Brent jumped to their feet. The entire bar froze. A woman seated at the table next to Damon and Tasha took out her phone, and got ready to get footage.

  “Tasha, what are you doing?” the man in the doorway said, walking over to her with purposeful, powerful steps.

  She sidled up to Damon, and smirked. “I dumped you a week ago.”

  “You’re a slut.” He laughed from his belly and turned to gesture to his friends. “You’re pathetic.”

  “He’s a lawyer.” She talked about Damon like a trophy. “Get lost, Sam.”

  “You’ll regret this.” Sam reduced his gaze to two slits and hurled expletives at Damon. “The second you step out of this place, I’m going to smash your face in.”

  “You can’t touch me,” Damon said back with a sneer. He wrapped his arm closer around Tasha. “Where were we?”

  Sam lunged at Damon at the same time Luke and Brent jumped out of their seats. Luke got to Sam first. The patrons in the bar responded in disorderly hoots and by pounding their tables. Someone shouted for the men to take it outside. Curt ran over trying to hold back the impending fight without success.

  Sam swung first. Luke ducked and moved with agility and strength. His closed fist hit Sam square in the jaw. The result shocked Sam still for a single moment; he blinked, hit back, and his fist got Luke in the side of his face. The punch hurt like hell and Luke staggered backwards into a wooden beam. Luke got back on his feet in time to dodge Sam’s next attack.

  Brent had been busy taking on Sam’s three friends. The exchange of near misses and knuckles swinging in the air got the crowd more involved. They cheered and yelled. Damon did nothing except sit and watch with pleasure as Tasha fell all over him.

  Curt ran over and put himself between Luke and Sam. “Get out!” he screamed at Luke and the instigator. “Tasha, go home. This is the second time you’ve brought trouble here this week. Next time I see you or Sam at my bar, I’ll call the cops. Leave.” A thick vein on his forehead pulsed.

  Tasha clung to Damon’s hand. “We’re leaving together.”

  “I’m engaged,” he said, suddenly the face of fidelity.

  “If your last name is Harrison,” Curt continued, “I want you out of this bar.”

  Luke dropped a wad of cash on the counter and nodded at a visibly upset Curt. “We’re going,” Luke said. Already he could feel the stiffness in the right side of his jaw.

  Luke and Brent waited in the parking lot for Damon to say good-bye to Tasha. They exchanged phone numbers, to Luke’s annoyance, and Damon sauntered over to Luke’s car. “You’re an asshole,” Luke said.

  “So are you,” Damon bit back. “Is anyone else in the mood to go have another drink?”

  “No,” Luke and Brent replied together.

  Luke drove home, having only had a few drinks. The fight had pummeled any buzz he’d felt. Alert and awake, he drove his brothers back home safely. They arrived to a house lit by the lights on either side of the stairs.

  Damon proved to be the biggest problem. Their brother was a sloppy, wet drunk without much coordination. He rambled too. Luke and Brent laughed and cursed their brother at the same time, trying their best to get Damon up the stairs without falling down and breaking his back. “Don’t tell Felicity,” Damon slurred near the top of the step. The stench of alcohol stained his breath. “I can’t lose her. She’ll leave me
when she finds out.”

  “When have we ever tattled on you?” Brent said, taking a heaving breath and helping Damon up the last step.

  “She won’t forgive me.” Damon’s head bobbed and he snapped open his eyes like he remembered he should be awake.

  Luke shook his head. “I have no idea what he’s talking about.”

  “Hey, buddy,” Brent said to Damon, “you bought the girl a drink. Don’t call her and you can clear your conscience.”

  They got Damon up the stairs and into his bedroom on the third floor. Damon fell into the bed with the clothes on his back and the shoes on his feet. Loud snores echoed in the room as Luke closed the door.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” Luke said to Brent.

  The fight in the bar left Luke nowhere close to sleep. He decided to go to his office. Inside, he flipped up the light switch, closed and locked the door, and walked over to the shelf with the two candle holders above the fish tank. The fish swam up to the glass and nosed the pane hoping for an extra meal. The left candle holder Luke moved to approximately ninety degrees and the vault opened like clockwork. The stacks of cash lined up the right side and he reached past them to the back, to the stashes of velvet bags.

  The one bag, bigger than the others, he felt around for and pulled back. He untethered the small cord and opened his palm. A green sapphire fell into his palm. Five carats, emerald cut, and with a green sheen bright enough to wink at him in the light. This particular stone, product of a corundum mineral variety rich with aluminum oxide and iron, had been sitting in his vault for years. The first stone he’d ever got on his own. Long before Melanie, before he’d formed a company with Mark, he’d been stranded in another part of the world in danger and scared—afraid for his own mortality the first time in his life. There had been a lot of running, a lot of hiding, and eventually, a trip to an out-of-the way mine. Luke held the stone up to the light and admired the brilliant depth of green not comparable to anything else in nature. This was the first and last stone Luke had ever stolen. He’d escaped out of Burma with his life, without money, and the gemstone in his pocket. When he’d returned back home weeks later, hungry and ten pounds lighter, he decided this stone would be the cornerstone of his future. He’d build his own company.