Fleeting (Nash Brothers Book 1)

by Carrie Aarons

  I eye her, because I’ve honestly never thought about being a mother. I guess in a someday sense I have, but I’d never been in a relationship, which I think makes you really consider the possibility of children. And now that I was …

  It would be lying to say that I didn’t picture more little Nash boys running around.

  “Is having kids really that bad?”

  Penelope sighs. “It’s not, I know I’m sarcastic and cold-hearted most times, but they are my biggest blessing. They’re just a handful, and I was so young when I got married to Joshua. And then losing him … my two oldest remember him. They ask about him constantly. So on top of grieving myself, I have to deal with children who are grieving. Plus, they’re just rambunctious in general. I don’t wish I had a different life, but sometimes, I wish I had two hours to myself.”

  “Well, we’re here if you ever need to get out. I’m happy to watch the kids, you already know that. Except for that one time they locked me in a closet and threatened to use said closet as a Nerf Gun target.” Lily laughs, but reaches over me to squeeze Penelope’s hand.

  The death of her husband wasn’t something she talked about often, if at all, but I knew he’d been in the military and died overseas. They’d been married since she was nineteen and had babies shortly thereafter in rapid succession. I couldn’t fathom what it was like to lose the man you thought you’d grow old with.

  “Enough with the pity party, back to the sex talk.” Penelope takes my own spray bottle and squirts me with it.

  I laugh. “What do you want to know?”

  “How big is his thing?” Lily squeaks.

  “Lily, I’m so proud of you.” Penelope chuckles.

  “And I may kiss and tell, but I don’t draw pictures. Just know, he’s both a show-er and a grow-er.”

  They both hysterically laugh, and I flop down with my face in my towel.

  I was smiling too, but for a completely different reason. I’d had friends, homes, summer days in bikinis … I’d had all of these things in the past.

  But I’d never felt as comfortable in my setting or in my skin than I did right now.

  That was something to smile about.

  30

  Presley

  And just like that, summer is over.

  The first day of September marks a change in the seasons, but also in my life. I’ve now lived in Fawn Hill for an entire quarter of a year. I’ve been through the hottest of days and wake today with the scent of autumn and orange leaves on the breeze.

  Anxiety bubbles in my chest, leaving me with an unsettling feeling that at best feels like acid reflux and at worst feels like something I don’t even want to put a name to.

  Most of the day passes with much of the regular routine; breakfast with Keaton, my ten-minute walk to the bookshop, helping customers, eating lunch with Grandma, and meeting Keaton on the corner of Main Street so he can drive us home to start dinner.

  It shouldn’t be different than any other day … but it is. I can’t put a finger on this turmoil inside me, or maybe I don’t want to. Because the creeping fingers of a toxic friend I thought were long gone are tightening around my neck, and I’m running out of air.

  The suffocation started when Grandma came to me this morning with a document that I didn’t want to read. The sale listing for McDaniel’s Book & Post. She’d done it, the thing she’d said she was going to do about a month ago. The shop she’d spent her whole life building, this family business that had existed in Fawn Hill for decades … she was selling it to help me start my own business right here in the town she loved.

  And I couldn’t put my sneakers on fast enough. My hands were itching to tie those laces, to run. It was instinctual, a knee-jerk reaction that had me silently breaking down in the tiny bathroom of the store so that she couldn’t hear me. I was trying to get a grip on myself, but I was slipping.

  This happened every time. Every time shit got real, or life took on another layer, I got going. It’s not like I wanted to be a quitter or a coward … it was just something inside me that wouldn’t be extinguished. Maybe in a past life, I was a gypsy. The thought made me hiccup as I’d sobbed in the McDaniel’s bathroom and I knew I was only trying to gloss it all over with sarcasm.

  * * *

  The feeling only intensifies over dinner when Keaton tells me his mother’s house has sold in a matter of weeks. He’s called it the end of a book and took hold of my hand and said we’ll be able to start a new chapter. He says that his mom was going to take a small portion of the money she received from the house sale and split it between the boys. I could tell by the glimmer in his eye that he had an idea for what that money could be used toward … and the butterflies born of nerves in my stomach grew tenfold. They’d already been placed there the day she offered me her china at the house, and now they were swarming.

  By the end of the meal, all I want to do is get out of the house. I am jumpy, anxious, my palms are sweating … it is as if I’ve been arrested for a crime I didn’t commit and am about to confess just to make it stop.

  “Do you want to go out for a drink? Maybe put all of this change aside for the night, get totally blasted on a bottle of wine and do unspeakable things to each other?” I wrap my arms around Keaton’s neck and attempt to give him the sexiest grin I can muster.

  If we can just get back to the flirty banter we’d had going at the beginning of the summer, maybe I could relax. Today was too serious for me, too much heavy adulting going on and I couldn’t cope.

  Keaton’s smile is far away, and when he looks down at me with those mocha eyes, I know he isn’t thinking about alcohol and heavy petting.

  He unwinds himself from me and crosses the room, setting his hand on the countertop, almost bracing himself.

  “Remember Gerry, that old bartender that I had words with the first time you went to the Goat & Barrister?”

  I nod. “The one you said is the father of your ex-girlfriend. Yeah, now that I’m not drunk and your brother isn’t trying to fight someone, your interaction did seem odd.”

  That beautiful head of dirty blond hair bobs with his nod. “He snapped at me because he believed I was the one who trapped her here. Who made her not follow her dreams for so many years. Katie, the one who broke my heart the first time and did a damn good job of it.”

  My flesh bristles, the hairs standing on end. Something in me wants to stop him, wants to pause the tape right where it is so I don’t have to hear about this. And I’m not exactly sure why.

  Keaton continues without looking at me.

  “We met when we were young. High school sweethearts, turned college couple, turned real-world partners. I thought I’d spend the rest of my life with her. We bought a house together, I was getting ready to propose. But I guess I never noticed how much she’d grown through the years. The long nights I was in medical school, the weekends spent away from her studying, and then when I went into my father’s practice, I worked so much that we barely spent time together. She became a different person; where we once functioned as a unit, my schedule and life choices forced her to thrive on her own. Looking back now, the breakup was as much my fault as it was hers. We were too young when we met … this town put a lot of weight on our shoulders. And Katie, she wanted more. She wanted more than to be the wife of the town vet, to be married to the only man she’d ever been with. Her interests changed, she started to dream. And one day, she left. Loaded up a truck and left town … and I haven’t seen her since. I was so angry, so heartbroken. I didn’t understand it and I blamed her for a very long time. And I blamed her father, Gerry, for not helping me bring her back. I thought my life was going down the path that I’d always planned for it to go, and in one day, it was completely obliterated.”

  So many emotions roil in my gut. Heartache, for a younger Keaton. Jealousy, for some woman who could leave a man as good as he is. Apprehension, because I can tell where this is headed. And for all of my boasting about planting roots and feeling okay as a woman settled in once
place, something in my chest begins to stir.

  There it is, my old friend flight. From a young age, my flight instinct has been ultra-sensitive. It’s sent me running anytime life gets murky, or complicated, or conflicted. It’s the thing I couldn’t put my finger on earlier, and now it’s here full force.

  I hate that this is part of who I am. I hate being the wayfarer, the one who can’t buckle down in tough times.

  “I thought she took my heart with her. But now, I know I was wrong. I was waiting for you to come into this town like the breath of fresh air, holding my heart right there in your hands. Katie didn’t take my heart with her because it was never hers to have. Presley … I was a fool for thinking that I ever loved another woman. Because that comes nowhere close to this. I’ve told you from the beginning that I’m a straight shooter, an honest man who plays no games. And it might be early, and lord knows it could get me in trouble with you, but I’m going to say it.”

  Please don’t, I try to tell him with my eyes. This will ruin us.

  “I love you, Presley. From the minute you brought that goddamn dog into my practice, I was head over heels. You balance me out in every way, and I don’t know that I could have gotten through this summer without you. I am in love with you, and I know now that this kind of love was the one I was waiting for all along.”

  His confession feels like a bullet. Straight to the chest, mutilating my heart. I have to actively try to keep my feet planted to the spot, and words have escaped me.

  Keaton just broke us, and he has absolutely no idea.

  31

  Keaton

  I knew when I decided to tell Presley I loved her that she may not say it back.

  Hell, I knew she probably wouldn’t. But stupid me, I’d given her the benefit of the doubt, just like I gave everyone.

  And now she was acting weird. She’d said she wanted to have dinner with Hattie instead of coming back to my place as the week started, and now it was Wednesday and she hadn’t slept over the first two nights of the week. She’d barely spoken to me when I brought lunch over to the bookshop and had shrugged off with some vague excuse about needing to see Lily when I asked if she wanted to see a movie tonight.

  Inside, my gut roiled with regret and fear. I’d rushed things … me and my stupid, small-town heart had told the adventurous, city-girl wanderer that we were in love with her. Which was basically the exact thing I knew would send her packing, and yet I’d done it anyway. Presley was distancing herself, and waiting for the other shoe to drop, waiting for her to tell me she couldn’t do this anymore … the anxiety was eating me alive.

  “Keat, you’ve got to calm down.” Bowen put a forceful hand on my kneecap, stopping my leg that had been shaking a mile a minute.

  “You’re asking this man, who’s only ever been with two women in his life, to calm down? Do you even know our brother, dude? He’s going to work himself up into such a state, I wouldn’t be surprised if he gives himself an ulcer.” Forrest laughs at my misfortune and walks to my fridge, helping himself to whatever is inside.

  “Hey, do not eat my leftover shrimp scampi!” I yell at him, chewing a fingernail. “And I have not only been with two women in my life, no matter how boring you think I am. I just … the suspense is literally killing me. I wish she would just do it already. Break up with me. The avoidance or ghosting as you kids are calling it these days, is really messing with me.”

  Forrest walks back to my living room, a cold piece of pizza halfway to his mouth. “I could hack into her email or her texts. We could see what she’s saying about you.”

  I glare at him. “No, thank you. And seriously, I mean no. Don’t do it behind my back because you’re bored.”

  He shrugs, already bored about talking about me.

  “I get it, man, trust me I know what it’s like to feel left in limbo. But you’ve got to just relax. And if you can’t … I guess you can track her down and make some grand gesture but something tells me that Presley isn’t that girl.”

  How come in situations that don’t apply to him, Bowen can be so articulate and supportive? Ask him one question about himself and he’ll shut down.

  “How’s Fletch doing?” I change the subject.

  I pick up the remote to have something to do with my hands and flip to Planet Earth. On the television, monkeys romp around in what looks like a tropical forest.

  “He’s actually doing well. Showed up for work this entire week, I checked his punch card online,” Forrest tells us.

  “I’m not going to ask how you did that.” I stare at him.

  But hearing that Fletcher showed up for work at the grocery store he took shifts at was encouraging. Maybe he was finally going to get his act together this time.

  Forrest, however, was going to land himself in jail. My brother was too smart for his own good, and there were rumblings that he was attracting attention from the wrong kind of people. The cops were one thing, but Forrest stuck his nose everywhere it shouldn’t be just for the sheer fact that he could. If he wasn’t careful, he was going to get caught in a place he really shouldn’t be one of these days.

  “Hasn’t been at the Goat, either. I checked with Gerry.” Bowen leans back on the couch, checking his phone.

  Who the hell is he waiting for? I don’t think I’ve ever seen my brother remember his cell phone from the drawer he kept it in, in his bedside table, much less check it.

  While I’d been buried up to my eyeballs in my infatuation with Presley, my brothers and our world had continued turning. I’d missed things, and annoyance begins to simmer in my chest. I was supposed to be the leader of this family … I’d always known what everyone was up to and how everyone was doing.

  I’d actively chosen, in the last couple of months, to take a back seat from my responsibilities. Something I’d never done before. And now that I’d confessed my feelings to Presley and she was shying away, maybe I’d temporarily walked away from my duties for nothing.

  “Well … that’s good.” There is nothing else I can say because, clearly, they have our brother handled. Without me.

  “Listen, brother, can you see your life being any different if Presley up and leaves town? Like, you got by without her. Sure, you’ll be butthurt for a while, but then you can get over it. And on top of someone else.”

  Forrest’s question hits me right between the eyes. My life would be different if she left. Honestly, the idea of her leaving makes me want to punch something … and I am not a guy who’s ever resorted to physical violence. Hell, I’m even a wimp when it comes to using Bowen’s punching bag he keeps in his basement.

  “You haven’t been in love, man. You just don’t get it.” I smile at him in that sad, know-it-all way.

  Because someday, the love he felt for some girl was going to slap him upside the head and shake all of those superior ideas out of that big brain of his.

  “If that isn’t the fucking truth.” Bowen’s eyes go stormy.

  And it isn’t until right now that I realize there are two breaking hearts in the room.

  32

  Presley

  Two huge duffels lay open on my bed, their bodies are full of clothes as I meander through the disaster that is my bedroom.

  I’m a coward. I admit it. The past week, I’d felt like I was living in someone else’s life. My body didn’t feel my own, I couldn’t process things. My anxiety was maxed out at the highest level, and nothing—not work, or yoga, or walking through Fawn Hill—made me feel any better.

  And so, I knew it was time to leave. I could go back to the city, get some waitressing job, crash on Ryan’s couch. I’d be safe in that bubble, the fast, desperate lifestyle where no one could get too close and nothing was really tying you down. Everything was replaceable there; if you got fired, there were thousands of bars or restaurants who would pick you back up. Dates and men were a dime a dozen, nothing special could fill the void for a short period. There was no one who relied on you, no adult decisions that had to be made.

&nb
sp; I needed that. Because I couldn’t hack this. Sure, right now I was doing great. I had a steady job and the promise of a future in Fawn Hill. I had a man who loved me. But eventually, I’d screw those things up. Everyone around me would realize just how big of a fuck up I was, and it would all go south. So instead of sticking around for that, I was packing.

  I was so wrapped up in my own thoughts and attempting not to burst into tears at any second that I didn’t hear Grandma when she propped herself against my doorframe.

  “Jesus, you scared the shit out of me!” I jumped as I turned around, spotting her from where I stood at my closet.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Her eyes were angry, narrowed buttons.

  My heart was threatening to beat out of my chest, both from the fright and from her scrutiny.

  “I … it’s a long story …”

  “Well, you best start talking, because I don’t want to see what I think I’m seeing.” She entered the room, threw one of my duffels sharply on the floor, and took its place on the bed.

  When I didn’t speak for a full two minutes, she threw her hands up.

  “You’re just doing the same thing you always do, Presley. I may not have been around for much of your life, but it doesn’t mean I don’t know what kind of person you are. You create busy work. You quit things before they’re finished because it’s easier. When life threatens settling or permanence, you shake like a leaf and run. Commit to something, dammit. You have a good thing going here, so pull up your big girl panties and do the work. You don’t have to be a doctor or a lawyer … but jeez, be something. If I had a dying wish, that’s it.”

  Her words hit me right between the eyes and travel down to form an ache in my breastbone. They’re harsh, they bite like a rabid dog … but they’re true.

  “You’re not dying. Don’t go using that card to get me to do something.” I roll my eyes at her.