At the mention of John, Gus’ stomach bottomed out. The nachos sat like lead down there, and her throat was so dry, she couldn’t swallow another bite.
“There wasn’t that one big moment, I don’t think. I remember when he and Stacy started coming around after Tori got back from Tennessee, he was so closed off, he barely said two words to anyone other than his sister or Michael and Tori. It was like he only came around because Michael wanted him and Stacy around. They were all so wrapped up in Michael and Tori’s drama with the trial and all that crap with Michael’s pseudo-brother. John was just a handsome guy that was around because he seemed obligated to be. I was intrigued but nothing more.”
“Okay, fast-forward a little bit.”
“Well, when all that mess was settled, he was…different. At least with me. Still somewhat guarded, but it was like he didn’t always want to be. We had occasional moments that felt completely genuine, where he let his guard down.” Gus savored those moments.
“I started seeing more than just a guy who had walled himself off. I started seeing a guy who had to wall himself off. I would see that look in his eyes that told me he had feelings, sharp feelings. The kind I had witnessed in him with his sister and with Michael and Tori. Once he settled and started getting close to us, he seemed happy and content, but for some reason, he slowly began closing himself back off. It’s as if he would punish himself for being happy. The only people he never seemed to push away were those three.”
“That’s so sad,” January cried.
“Yes, and it’s that sadness that slowly sucked me in. The night with Skynyrd, I saw glimpses of him when he wasn’t guarding and it was somehow even more sad, but also beautiful. Sad because I was able to watch the punishment phase slowly shutter over the beauty. I think it was as I watched Stacy and Dax’s relationship develop, or rather watched John reacting to it, that I was a goner. The conflict he seemed to struggle with pulled at my heart. It was obvious he was thrilled for his sister, but I could see him want to reach for something like that in his life, yet hold himself back.” Gus remembered catching him look at her like he wanted her to be what he reached for. Then, she watched him pull back. There was a moment, after all.
“It was the pull backs. Those were the moments. That longing in him spoke to me in a way I can’t explain. I wanted to see him get what he wanted. I wanted to be the one to give it to him. One time in particular, we were at the Reid’s, and Tori and Erika were finally done with matchmaking. I was playing with Willow and John looked at me like it was the last time he might ever see me. Like he was trying to etch my face into his memory. The heat in his eyes was scorching, and it felt like he wanted me above all others. Just a look told me all that. Then, like a bank vault, I watched as he locked down. I could practically hear him scolding himself. All I wanted was to protect him from him. That was the moment.”
“Wow, Gus, that was…damn.” Jan sniffed and pawed at her face.
“Well, there have been at least two hundred more of those moments, and each time he has pulled back, I reeled him deeper into my heart. Sounds like an epic love story, except it’s one-sided.” Gus took a deep breath. She couldn’t bear to dive into how she came to love him much more than she already had right now.
“On to the summary and the latest, long story short. I am ninety-nine percent sure he is my soul mate, while he has some things that are holding him back from even giving it a chance. I don’t think he loves me…yet, but I do think he cares deeply for me and is stopping himself from possibly loving me for his own reasons.” Gus rose and took her plate to the sink and returned to the table. Jan had stopped eating and was focused intently on hearing every word.
“I cannot fight an enemy I can’t see or even identify, and I don’t know if I would want to if I could. John is all old-world charm and honor. So, I plan to move forward with my life, including socially. Let him see he didn’t break me. That way, he can move on guilt free, and we can all live happily ever after.”
The last was totally bull crap, and Gus knew it, but she believed he could live happily ever after if he was satisfied she’d moved on. She would give him that, and with time, she would find an adequate life with someone else if John never came around.
“Really, sis? You’re just going to snap your fingers and be done, just like that? Date a few randos, have a baby for your friends, find a nice, boring man who doesn’t even wet your undies, and settle down?” Jan had stood and adopted a superior air—hands on her hips, eyebrow raised, and a look of “I call bullshit” on her face.
“Yes, millions of people live a perfectly satisfying life after losing their heart or breaking it or whatever.” What started out with righteous indignation devolved into a flustered panic, but Gus recovered. “Besides, we never even…you know…it wasn’t like we were in a relationship. According to Erika’s chart, I will have no trouble snapping out of this, whatever it was.” Ending with her arms crossed and an adolescence humph was probably the wrong vibe to sell her statement.
“Satisfying? Sounds exciting.” The sarcasm was so strong, it caught Gus by surprise, but she didn’t take the bait.
Hands up in surrender, Jan spoke words that would come back to haunt Gus, “Okay sis, you win. A wonderful satisfying life is waiting for you, exactly as our parents always intended for the both of us. You should be proud of yourself, you’re a true Thorne, after all. Not letting emotions override common sense by putting your head in the driver’s seat and your heart in the back.” Jan hugged her tight, then slid her hands down Gus’ arms and caught her hands as she pulled away. “Mom would be so proud of you.”
With that, Jan stared into Gus’ eyes, and she backed away before turning to head down the hall. There was sadness and pity there. Jan’s eyes seemed to burn a hole straight to Gus’ heart. Her words stung, but it was the look that haunted her most.
By the time John landed back in town, he had waffled back and forth so many times, he thought he should run for public office.
The drive home didn’t prove much different than the flight had, which bothered him to no end. He was normally a very decisive person, and after talking to Tori, Michael, and Erika over the last few days, he had felt he finally had a handle on things.
The decision to just tell Augusta the reason for his hesitation and to start slow was made, but now that he was in the same town as her, she already seemed to be short-circuiting the reason center of his brain.
This is why I have such a hard time when it comes to Augusta. She makes me feel out of control. What the hell will it be like if I fall for her?
There it was—the answer, the question, and the problem. Control was one thing he prided himself on, and he would be hard-pressed to purposefully enter any situation in which he knew control would be out of his, well, control.
Hello Augusta, goodbye control.
Shaking his head in disbelief had become a regular thing with him since he and Stacy moved to Florida and hooked up with the Reids. They were good people, but like any family, they left you scratching your head more often than not.
This time, however, it was his sister who had him puzzled and amazed.
Stacy had given him hell over his need to control a while back. She pointed out he had needed it to get through their parents’ death and Troy’s, and even to manage the heartbreak of what Deborah did, but he didn’t need it anymore. She begged him to see that before it was too late, spouting something about, “if passion and adventure were the spice of life, love was obviously the dessert.” Sweet and decadent, but it came with a price.
The lawyer in her had dissected his entire existence, laid it out before him piece by painful piece and explained in vivid and gut-wrenching detail how it all fit together to form his “Cloak of Control,” as she dubbed it.
It was a cloak he used to hide his heart from any more breakage and abuse and to separate him from people…from love, thus protecting him from pain. He called bullshit on her little foray into psychoanalysis, but in a way, he took noti
ce. If anyone on the planet knew about hiding away their heart, it damn sure was Stacy.
“You can call bullshit all you want brother, but the difference between us? I knew I was wearing armor. Hell, I donned that shit with purposeful intent, shined the fuck out of it every night, too. But you? You are more like the opposite of the Emperor. You think you are naked, but you are really dressed in so many layers, you have no idea what the temperature is around you.”
After Stacy left that night, John had just stood there in his drive long after her tail lights faded, listening to the sounds of the night, replaying her words in his head, and wondering how true they were. Had he closed himself off to the point which he was that delusional about it? And that destructive? No answers came that night.
And here I sit tonight, alone in the dark on my patio, drinking a perfectly aged Scotch and holding a lit cigar that I’m not ever remotely interested in. “Damn it, I’m not even enjoying the little things,” John complained to the cicadas and the bobwhites.
Maybe they weren’t bobwhites at all but mockingbirds pretending to be bobwhites. The sun had been down for a bit, and he couldn’t remember if they were nocturnal or not.
John didn’t give two figs about birds, but something about it being a mockingbird instead made him feel a certain kinship to the damn thing. He understood pretending to be one thing to cover up what you really were.
“What kind of bird is it?” he asked himself again, because now the kinship had faded, and he was feeling deceived. Deceived? By a damn bird? He must be losing it, but even through all the ridiculous feelings he seemed to be investing in birds, he still really wanted to know if it was a bobwhite or not. Deflect much?
“Argh, it’s not like it fucking matters.”
“Wow, I don’t believe I have ever heard you use that word before, so whatever doesn’t matter must either matter a lot or something else does, so which is it?”
John startled at the voice, dropping his cigar and reaching for his waist.
Francis threw her hands up in mock surrender as she stepped up onto the deck from the side of the house. John was amused by her fake fear; it had to be strictly for his sake. If that woman really felt threatened, she’d shoot first and ask questions later. “Don’t shoot me, son, just offer me a bit of that Scotch, neat, and listen to me ramble on for a bit. How does that sound?”
Her southern drawl and sparkling eyes would put anyone at ease instantly, him included. Listen to her ramble, huh? More like get me to talk about my troubles like you do everyone else. Fat chance. John didn’t need any more advice. He was still trying to digest all that he had gotten in the last week alone.
He pulled out a chair and nodded for her to have a seat. “You are always welcomed in my home, Mrs. Reid. You know that. Let me grab you a glass.” Francis sat. “And you don’t have to call me, son, you barely have five years on me, if that.”
That wasn’t completely true, she had a few decades on him, but he was taught that complimenting a woman’s age was standard southern behavior.
“Oh, you’re good, son, really good. You flatter all the ladies like that or just me?” They shared a laugh. “I’m sorry to surprise you like I did, but you didn’t answer the bell, and I saw the light on back here, so I took a shot.” John stepped inside to grab a glass.
He returned, sat, and poured his company a drink, which she accepted with a perfectly manicured hand. “Thank you, John.” She made short work of the drink and presented the glass for a refill. “That’s the good stuff. And call me Francis, already. You are as much a member of this family, as all the others, even if you do distance yourself.”
John happily refilled her glass. Francis was a tiny, southern force of nature. She took in every stray, and not so stray, person she came across. If you knew one of her kids, blood or otherwise, you were family. She and Frank always had words of wisdom to offer on damn near any subject, all one had to do was listen. Even if everyone thought they didn’t have a clue what was going on, chances were good they did. They were just particular about how they inserted themselves.
Apparently, this was Francis’ way with him—sharing drinks. John refilled both their glasses this time. “Do you have a ride home? Because like you said, this is the good stuff. Cheers.” The clinking of their glasses was like a signal to his heart to open or maybe his mind, he wasn’t sure. Perhaps, he had a few too many already and was just more receptive. No matter the case, he was thankful for it, because he was getting nowhere on his own.
Returning his salute, Francis took a large pull from her glass with a sign of appreciation. John recognized the look that overtook her slightly aged face—the almost euphoric experience of having the Scotch awaken everything on the way down, and the damn near perfect moment when you exhale after, enjoying the warmth as it rose to kiss your tongue and lips. That was the moment to savor with a smooth, smoky Scotch. John tagged it “the breath of the dragon.” It wasn’t a sensation that could simply be explained, it needed to be experienced.
“Frank dropped me off on his way to the discount store. I’m so glad we had one open here in town finally. He likes being able to shop at night when fewer people are around.”
A few more moments of silence and Scotch appreciation followed. After another refill, Francis broke the silence. “So, what is it that doesn’t matter so much it’s got you sounding more like Walker or Stacy than the man I’ve grown to adore like my own son?”
It took a minute for John to realize what she meant. “Oh, that. I was trying to decide if I was hearing the call of a bobwhite or a mocking bird.”
“That passionate about birds, are you?” To an onlooker, it might sound as if they were having a casual conversation, but John knew better.
“Not really, I couldn’t care less, but for some reason, tonight, it seemed important. But I realized it wasn’t.” It was true, it frustrated him, not because of any bird, but because it was just one more thing he couldn’t seem to get a handle on. Control…he was out of control. He wanted to scream and beg for someone to help him get it back, but it didn’t work that way.
“Humph.” John didn’t like it when Francis made that sound. It usually preceded something you needed to hear but didn’t really want to. “Did I ever tell you why my parents spelled my name with an I instead of an E?”
Really? After I built it up in my mind and prepared for the hard truth, we’re going to talk about your name? John was stunned silent, and Francis continued without his answer.
“Well, I was a difficult child, even before I was born. My mother was an amazing woman, she worked right up until her labor sent her to the hospital. She had a degree, a family, and a doting husband. Everything a woman could possibly want. My dad, well, he was a good man. Hard-working, devoted, but not highly educated. Most folks considered him simple compared to my mother. Her parents even disowned her when she took up with him. He was older, didn’t go to college, and he worked in a local diner. She was young and beautiful and had a nine-to-five office job with all the trimmings.” Francis reached for the bottle.
“Sorry, I got sidetracked, how they met is a whole other story that I don’t have time for tonight. Frank should be headed back this way soon. My parents had a difficult time conceiving. The doctor told my mother she was lucky to have conceived me and carried me to term. Anyway, simple man, newborn child, and a wife who was knocked out on drugs from the birth. They had decided early on that if they were ever to marry and have children, their first son would be a Francis. When Mom got knocked up with yours truly, they decided son or daughter, I would be Francis, only Dad didn’t realize there was a different spelling for a female, or so the story goes.”
Francis stopped speaking and took another drink then cocked her head to the side. “Well, I’ll be damned, that is a bobwhite. That is a territorial call too, so that explains what it’s doing up so late.” Another drink accompanied a nod of her head. “Yep, anyway, the story that stuck all these years is that the minute Mom announced she was expecting, D
ad had the owner of the diner teach him how to spell Francis. So, with Mom out like a light, it was up to my father to fill out the paperwork, spelling Francis the only way he knew how.”
John was completely lost as to where this story was going or how it related to his situation. What he did know? Sitting here drinking Scotch, listening to a bobwhite, cicadas, and Francis’ voice was helping all the same.
“After all the paperwork was filed and my birth certificate showed up in the mail, my mother cried, in secret, of course. At first, it broke her heart that I had a male name, but she refused to make my dad feel bad about it. He was called stupid too many times, and my mother never thought less of him. After I was born, my mother became pregnant again years later. She told my father then that if that baby was a boy, he would be Francis too, and that meant she’d have to change mine to the traditional spelling. She made it sound like a stylistic choice instead of an error on his part. But my brother never came home, and they had to take mother’s uterus with him.” John absently poured them another drink. This story may not apply to his life, but it was fascinating all the same.
“When my mom was dying, she confided in me how that was one of the moments where she knew, beyond any doubt, that she chose right when she picked my father over her family. She said to me, ‘My precious Francis, with an I, any man who can humble himself like that for the sake of the woman he loves, well, he is worth a thousand other people who would just have someone else do it for them. Your I may have been an accident, but it was no mistake. We needed a Francis in our lives, and well, we had you. It was meant to be. And your I means more to me than all the Es in the world. And your Frank, your Francis, well, he is an I in a sea of Es.”
Inevitably Yours (Imagine Ink Book 4) Page 9
