Everything I Shouldn't / Everything I Need (Nashville Nights #2-3)

by Stacey Mosteller

  "Please stop arguing over me. I'll do whatever you guys decide." My voice is small and I sound defeated, but right now, I just want the arguing to end. This week has been awful, and I'm so tired.

  David's face softens before he walks over to take my hands in his, "Sarah, you don't really want to move away do you? You don't have to leave this house, or your friends. You can finish school here. I'll move back home to take care of you, we'll be together." He's pleading with me to say yes as I look around the room at all the people who want me to choose them.

  Turning back to my brother, I try to explain what's going through my head. "I don't want to leave here, but you can't give up your life. You have a job, friends, a girlfriend. I'll be fine."

  With a shake of his head David bends so that he's eye level with me. "SB, I won't be giving up anything to move back here. I don't care about a job, or a couple of friends. Not even a girlfriend would stop me from wanting to take care of you. This is what I want to do. I want you to stay here, in the house we grew up in, with the friends you've known your whole life." He pleads with me, "Please, let me do this. Let me take care of you." Tears I didn't know were there waiting begin to course down my cheeks as I try to comprehend the fact that he is being completely honest. He wants to come home to be with me.

  Jeremy clears his throat, "You won't be coming back alone D. If you're moving home to be with her, I'm coming with you."

  "No!" Granny says forcefully. "Absolutely not! Sarah is almost sixteen years old, and the last thing she needs is to see how twenty-six year old men act." Leveling a glare at my brother, she points at him and continues, "You will not raise your sister alone in a house with a grown man who isn't related to her."

  David rolls his eyes, "Gran, Jeremy has been around SB her whole life. She's as much his little sister as she is mine. We both love her, and isn't being surrounded by people who love her what you want for her?" He knows he's won at this point. How can she argue with that?

  "I don't why you call her that god-awful nickname. Your parents gave her a beautiful name and you refer to her by her initials," Granny grumbles. David smiles at her, knowing he's won now. She hasn't got an argument that can go up against the love he and Jeremy have for me.

  The next day, David and Jeremy leave to go back to Charlotte for the rest of their belongings, leaving me with Granny and Pops. I'm expecting her to try to dissuade me from staying here, but whenever she starts to say anything, Pops shakes his head and she sighs and says nothing further. My brother is gone for three days, and when they return to Nashville, Jeremy starts looking for a job immediately, while David discusses plans for opening his own bar with PawPaw. I miss my parents every single day, but I'm thankful David chose to come home for me and brought his best friend with him.

  Jeremy

  SB is finally (her words - not mine) sixteen, and she's been waiting for over a week for David to take her to get her license. Unfortunately, all of his time has been spent looking at potential places to open a bar with the money his parents left him in their will. David figured that since he enjoyed the bar scene and bar tending so much in Charlotte, that he'd open a bar in Nashville, a place where there's practically a bar on every corner. Their grandfather is an extremely successful businessman and was happy to help David come up with a business plan, find investors, and find a location to start this venture, but David drew the line at outside investors. He wants the bar to be all his own; the location, the name, the logo, he didn't want help with any of it. The only part I was involved in was the architectural aspect. Any design decisions to be made were on me. But, I couldn't do anything until he made a decision and at the time he was looking at three properties and could not make up his mind.

  I'd found a job at Moriarty, Stanbridge and Westlake pretty quickly thanks to a recommendation letter written by my old firm, even though I left with no notice. The fact that I finished the project I was working on at the time by telecommuting and short trips back to Charlotte helped them understand that, for me, family came first. With David so busy, he had no time to take SarahBeth to get a license and I couldn't take her because I wasn't her guardian. Finally, after the third time he'd promised to take her after school, only to call me because something came up, SB had had enough.

  When she sees me in the car line at school instead of David, her eyes narrow, her mouth turns down into a frown, and she practically breaks the door on my poor car. Muttering under her breath, she slams her book bag onto the floor between her legs and sits back in the seat crossing her arms over her chest. "I guess he's busy again isn't he?" She's trying to sound pissed off, but instead she's almost in tears.

  Running a hand through my hair, I sigh, "You know he's doing his best. Getting Drench up and running is his top priority right now." That is obviously the absolute wrong thing to say because her lip quivers and she turns to look out the passenger window.

  "Why did he even come back here then?" she asks, her voice thick with unshed tears. "I barely even get to see him, Jeremy. I've spent more time with you this month than I have him, and he never does what he says he's going to. He should have just let me go home with Granny."

  I reach over to pat her leg, not sure how to comfort her, but silently cursing David to hell for putting her through this. She needs her brother, not me, to be there for her, to do the things he said he was going to. I know there is going to be one hell of an argument tonight over this shit because I can't let him keep disappointing her. She's hurting, and I hate it. At the moment, I hate my best friend a little for treating her so callously. Between trying to get the bar going, and dealing with Amy and her long-distance drama, SarahBeth is the last thing on David's mind when she should be the first.

  "I'll talk to him tonight Little Bit, I promise." Hearing the vehement tone of my voice, she relaxes slightly, uncrossing her arms and wiping the tears from her cheeks. "How about we go practice your driving? I can't take you for the test, but I can make damn sure you're going to ace it when you get there."

  A smile blooms across her face, and it's the first time I feel a pang in my chest because of her. Seeing her so happy makes me smile "Really?" she asks excitedly, turning slightly in the seat to face me. "Are you sure you want to take me driving?"

  "I wouldn't offer if I didn't Little Bit. I just want to see you smile." I tug her ponytail lightly, returning her smile with one of my own, happy she isn't crying any longer. This is one thing I can do; entertain her and take her mind off of everything that is going on.

  The first Thanksgiving without her parents is tough. She is bound and determined that she's going to make dinner for David and me. Talk about a disaster. Liz was an amazing cook, and she'd been trying to teach SB before she died. Unfortunately, SB was more interested in clothes, her friends, and boys to pay much attention. Boy, does it show today.

  SarahBeth spent the two weeks leading up to Thanksgiving going through her mom's recipe box to figure out everything she would need to make the "perfect" dinner. After dragging David to the grocery store to get supplies for Turkey, Mashed Potatoes, Sweet Potato Casserole, and her grandmother's homemade stuffing, she realized she'd forgotten to get the stuff to make Pumpkin and Pecan pies. She didn't want to ask him again, so I get to be the lucky bastard to trail behind her at the store. Unfortunately, this is the night before Thanksgiving, so there isn't much to pick from. SB is determined that she isn't going to use canned pumpkin in the pie since Liz never did, but there aren't any pie pumpkins to be found.

  I'm not sure who created hormones for teenage girls, but after living with SarahBeth, I'd really like ten minutes alone with them in a dark alley. Seriously. It's like living with a ticking time bomb and all the wires are the same color. I can say something to her one day and she finds it hilarious. The next, it pisses her off and then she's crying. I don't know how anyone puts up with it. I'm going to have grey hair before I'm thirty at this rate.

  When I tell SarahBeth that she'd have to use canned pumpkin, providing they even had any of that left, s
he loses it. A normal person would have sucked it up and went looking for canned pumpkin. Not SarahBeth though. Nope. Instead, SarahBeth sits on the floor, her head in her hands and cries like she just lost her best friend. And of course, I have no idea which wire to clip to stop the bomb. My only choice is to sit down beside her on the grungy floor and pull her into my arms.

  "Shhh, Little Bit. Using canned pumpkin really isn't that big a deal. David will never even notice." I'm so lost when it comes to comforting a young girl.

  Sniffling, SarahBeth looks up at me to whisper, "But, I'll know it's not the same. I just wanted everything to be perfect Jeremy, and now it's all ruined!" Burying her head in my chest, her tiny hands clutch my shirt in her fists and she begins to cry harder. The only thing I can do is continue to murmur nonsense to her about how everything will be perfect, and her canned pumpkin will taste just as good as the real thing while rubbing my hand up and down her back.

  Then, just as quickly as it started, the crying is over and SarahBeth wipes her eyes as she stands. "Okay, let's go find canned pumpkin," she says, like the last ten minutes never happened. She quickly walks away, leaving me sitting on the floor, my jaw dropped open, staring after her.

  Once we've gotten everything she forgot the first time, we head back to the house to start getting things ready. SarahBeth starts peeling vegetables and boiling water on the stove while studying her mother's recipes for instructions on how to do everything. She won't let me help, and heaven forbid I offer a suggestion, so I quickly get out of her way. Watching a movie in the den is a much safer way to spend the rest of my night.

  David gets home late, so SB is still in the kitchen muttering to herself and making a complete mess that I am sure one of us will be cleaning up for her later. After looking over at her, he comes over to sit beside me on the couch. "What the hell is she doing now?"

  "I have no fucking idea. I tried to help her, and it only got me yelled at. You couldn't pay me to go back in that kitchen tonight." At that point, it was every man for himself. If Dave wants to know what she's doing, he will have to go it alone. My ass is sitting right here on the couch.

  David rubs the back of his neck while watching her move around the kitchen determinedly. "Do you think I should check on her?" Lowering his voice, he says, "She really has no idea what she's doing in there. Tomorrow is going to be a fucking catastrophe. You know that right?"

  "Oh yeah, I'm not looking forward to whatever's going to happen tomorrow. You realize we're going to have to grin and bare it, and act like whatever she makes is damn delicious." David groans, and I feel a modicum of satisfaction that I'm not the only one that is going to have to fake it tomorrow.

  Thanksgiving morning, SarahBeth is the first one up. David and I stumble out of our bedrooms at what feels like the ass-crack of dawn because of all the noise coming from the kitchen. She has the turkey in the oven and is struggling with the recipe for her grandmother's stuffing. After shooting me a wide-eyed look, David heads into the kitchen to offer assistance, but she immediately declines, telling him that we should be hanging out watching football. That would be great, except it's only eight in the morning so there aren't any games on yet.

  David offers an escape plan; we can look at the plans for the renovations to Drench that we are going to start after the weekend. We both have put so much time into making sure the place got off the ground and started bringing in money that renovating anything has been put on the back burner until this point. We spend the majority of the morning in what had once been Dave Sr.'s office making sure everything was in place before venturing back out to check on SarahBeth.

  When we come out of the office, she's nowhere to be found and the kitchen looks like a bomb went off in there. David looks at me, silently asking if I know where she is, and I just shrug. How the hell am I supposed to know where she went? I'm not her damn keeper. He starts up the back stairs to look for her, calling her name as he goes and leaving me to search the ground floor. After searching the kitchen, den, living room and even the pantry, there's no sign of her. Based on the fact that David isn't back, I know he hasn't had any luck finding her either.

  The only place left to look is outside, so I open the French doors that lead out to the back deck and walk outside into the frosty November air to see her sitting in one of the Adirondack chairs with her knees pulled up and her arms wrapped around them. She looks so small, even smaller than her petite 5'1" frame normally looks. She's wearing an oversized sweater and leggings, and the sweater swallows her whole body. Sticking my hands in my pockets, I slowly walk over to her, unsure if I'm going to get rational SarahBeth or the psycho that seems to take over her body at the slightest provocation.

  I take a seat on the chair next to her, and stretch my legs out in front of me looking at her out of the corner of my eye. She isn't crying, and she doesn't look ready to pull an Exorcism neck spin, so I think maybe I'm safe. "What're you doing out here Little Bit?"

  She sighs, "I've ruined everything."

  "I'm sure that's not true," I start, but she cuts me off with a bitter laugh.

  "Oh trust me, it's true. Did you know that you're supposed to take the neck and giblets out of the turkey before you put it in the oven? Because I didn't. I cooked it the entire time with all of that inside it."

  I'm not really sure what to say to that. The obvious, "didn't you read the directions?" won't go over well, and I damn sure don't have a death wish, nor do I want to detonate the ever-present human bomb, so I decide to play it safe. "Well, I'm sure it's still safe to eat?" I mean it as a statement, but since I've never cooked a turkey, I really have no idea if you can still eat it after that. "But, even if it isn't, I'm sure there's chicken or something in there to make instead." I give her what I hope is a reassuring smile, but based on the glare I get in return, it must not be.

  "Okay smart guy. I also burned the sweet potatoes when I was boiling them on the stove, the mashed potatoes look grey instead of white, and the pumpkin pie is runny. I'm a complete failure." SB's shoulders sag, and she rests her cheek on her bent knees, looking at me like she's completely lost.

  I have no idea what to say to that other than, "Well, I can call my aunt and see if we can go over there for dinner if you want me to." Truthfully, going to my aunt's house for dinner is the absolute last fucking thing I wanted to do, but if it will make her happy, I'll suffer through it.

  SarahBeth knows just how much my family sucks, so her eyes grow as wide as saucers at my suggestion. "I'd rather go to a restaurant to eat before going over there."

  "Thanks for that Little Bit," I tell her, putting an arm around her and pulling her close so I can lay a kiss on the top of her head. I rub a hand over my heart, which squeezes at her sudden worry about me. This girl has a way of making me feel things I never thought I would. "Glad you're getting some perspective. There are definitely worse things than cooking the giblets in the turkey or grey potatoes."

  Jeremy

  "Come on, Jer!" SarahBeth whines as she pulls me along behind her. Why am I shopping for prom dresses? Oh right, because she came home the night before upset and when I asked her why, she told me, "I need a dress for prom and my mom isn't here to take me." Her lip quivered, her eyes glistened with unshed tears, and I felt a sharp pang in my chest at the thought of her hurting. SarahBeth squeals as she holds a pale pink, floor length dress in front of her while looking in the mirror, her cheeks full of color and her eyes sparkling. Obviously, this is the dress she wants. It has very thin straps to hold it up, and there are sparkly stones along the waistline of the dress that travel down the fabric that pulls across in a wrap style. Jesus, I've definitely spent too much time with SB and her friend Olivia if I'm able to remember what any of that means.

  Hurrying into the dressing room, she puts the dress on and is back out in front of the mirror in record time. It makes me all kinds of an asshole that the first thing I notice about the dress was how nicely she fills it out. I'm going straight to hell for not being able to look anywhere but
her chest. She's a tiny little thing and lives in t-shirts, hoodies and jeans, so I don't see much of her body normally. But it's all on display in that dress. The way the dress wraps around leaves a space for a hint of leg to poke through with every step she takes, and I know David would shit himself if he saw her in that dress. She definitely doesn't look like a teenage girl, even if she is only seventeen. Fuck. She's only seventeen. I have got to pull it together.

  The rest of the shopping trip goes by in a blur, and not just because I'm trying desperately to erase the picture of her in that dress from my mind. She's quick to pick out shoes and accessories to go along with it, and all too soon we're heading back to the house and she's telling me all about the guy who was taking her to the prom. I don't pay much attention, barely even registering his name or the fact that he is a senior while she's just a junior. Instead, my mind is thinking up all the ways I can scare him off and ensure he doesn't attempt anything with her. That's what any good brother would do, right?

  By the time prom night arrives, I've done everything I can to expunge the sight of SB in that dress, just in time to see it again. Whose bright idea was high school prom anyway? SarahBeth has been planning and preparing for this night for weeks and I'm not sure I'll survive. Over the previous fourteen months, I've watched her go from a sad, unhappy fifteen year old to a moody, insecure sixteen year old and now a flirtatious, almost grown seventeen year old young woman. It makes me both proud, and terrified to the point I want to lock her in her room and never let her out. These are not the feelings a twenty-eight year old man should have for someone so young. If David knew, he'd kill me. There's no need for torches and villagers with pitchforks, I don't need to be run out of town on a rail, it's not like I'd ever act on these feelings, I'm just well aware that the way I'm feeling isn't the way I should be.