“Me either.” I should say something about last night, apologize again, maybe, but the words don’t come.
He turns to go, his long strides getting him to the front door quickly. “See ya at practice.”
And he’s gone. The door stands open where he left it, but I watch silently as he gets in his truck, not the green one from high school I remember but a newer, black, jacked-up Ford with a dent along the side of the bed.
I like it. It’s a little like him . . . functional, but a little banged up. He pulls out of the driveway, and it growls loudly down the street as he accelerates just a bit too fast. Yep, just like him.
“What the fuck just happened?” I wonder aloud, but as I’m alone, no one answers.
I certainly have no idea.
Chapter 11
Bruce
“Holy fuck, I think you could fry eggs and bacon on the hood out here! A whole damn country breakfast.” Bobby scowls at the sky like the sun’s personally insulting him by shining.
“What crawled up your ass?” I ask but still send a bottle of water arcing his way. Bobby snatches it out of the air, tilting it toward me in thanks before draining it dry. “It’s August and we’ve got zero cloud cover, so it’s not exactly a newsflash that it’s hotter’n balls.”
I chug a bottle myself to rehydrate as I scan how far we’ve made it today. We’ve got a mixture of fields, some that are harvested with big machines where you might as well be sitting in a luxury sedan with air conditioning and satellite radio and other areas that are strictly hand-harvested. That’s where we’re working today.
Shayanne asked us to plant some fancy heirloom tomatoes for this summer, which are now as big as softballs and ripe for the picking, and then there’s a whole row of cherry tomatoes too. They’re all gorgeous and red but fragile and have to be gathered one at a time.
We get back to work, filling another crateful in easy silence now that our hourly bitch fest is done.
“What the hell’s wrong with you?” Bobby bites after a bit.
My brow furrows. “Whaddya mean? Nothing’s wrong.” I keep working, setting a particularly big Brandywine tomato on the top of another full crate.
Bobby sets his crate in the bed of the truck and rests his arms over the edge, squinting as he looks me over. “You don’t even know it, do ya?”
“Know what?” I ask, stopping work to give him my full attention.
“We’re working, it’s hotter than Hades, we’ve got a good couple of hours till dinner, and you . . . you’re smiling.” It’s an accusation, like he’s incredulous because it’s never happened. Although, maybe it hasn’t?
I shove at his shoulder after I set my own crate in the truck. “Fucker, so what if I’m smiling? That should mean nothing’s wrong. Maybe I’m just happy today. Shouldn’t my brother want me to be happy?” I give him my back, heading for the next plant to pluck a few more fruits.
I once heard a saying . . . Intelligence is knowing a tomato is a fruit, wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad. I’m guessing whoever said that had never enjoyed Shay’s cherry tomatoes with watermelon and basil. Fancy looking, but it tastes damn good and probably qualifies as a fruit salad with tomatoes, so take that, chefs of the world.
Shay’s recipes aside, I wish Bobby had some intelligence or wisdom and would leave shit alone, but I’m not that lucky.
“I do want you to be happy, but I’m curious what’s prompted it right now.” He already knows the answer so I don’t bother telling him. He smacks the truck with his palms. “Damn it, Brutal! You said you were gonna avoid her, but she went and got her claws in you again, didn’t she?”
I whirl. “Her claws? What do you think she is? A damn bear?”
“Cougar, maybe?” he snipes.
“That’s a low fucking blow, Bobby. She’s only a year older than me, same as always. And no, she doesn’t have her claws in me.” The denial is sour on my tongue, even though it’s mostly the truth. After yesterday, I don’t know what to think.
“So just being around her, in her orbit, that’s enough to make you giddy as a schoolgirl? You gonna bust out in giggles next? If so, give me a warning so I can put my waders on first.” Bobby’s digging in on this and not gonna let go.
I growl in frustration, hopping up onto the tailgate. “What do you want me to say?”
He leans a hip against the truck, thinking. I appreciate that, at least. He’s not talking off the cuff but considering his words. Or at least I do until he speaks. “I want you to say you hate her, that you’re still mad at her, that you don’t want to see her ever again. But none of that’s true, is it?”
I think just as hard as he did and quietly confess. “We had lunch yesterday.”
“A date?” Bobby barks.
I shake my head. “No, not a date. I was doing deliveries and one of them was to Al. Cooper invited me to stay for lunch and one thing led to another.” He raises a stern brow at me, and I clarify. “I didn’t sleep with her. I meant that we talked, mostly about the old days. Just the good stuff, happy and silly memories.”
“There,” he says, pointing at me. “You’re doing it again. Smiling like a damn fool.”
“That’s probably because I’m thinking about the kiss at Hank’s on Saturday night,” I bait him.
He closes his eyes, huffing and puffing as he talks to the sky like anyone’s listening to him. “What the hell? He says he’s going to avoid her, so what does he do? Take her to Hank’s, kiss her, have lunch with her . . .” His eyes jump to me as he stops ranting abruptly. “So what does this all mean?”
“Nothing, not really,” I admit. I scrub at my hands, bits of dirt falling to the ground.
I go through all of it, from the electricity shooting between Allyson and me to the kiss and her running out. I tell him about the awkward weirdness, the light-hearted memories, and the anger still simmering in my gut. And I tell him about how Allyson seems different, which stops his questions short.
“I want to be happy for you, I do, man. Maybe if this was all stars-aligning easy or some Hallmark movie shit, I’d make my peace with it, but it’s not.” He shakes his head vehemently. “I don’t trust it, don’t trust her. Especially if she’s got baggage she’s dragging you into and has already got you on a string, tugging you in and then letting you out like you’re a damn yo-yo. You’re already hooked and you don’t even know it. And that pisses me off, for you and at you. At her,” he spits out.
He brings up some good points, which I hate to concede, so I brush him off. “Well, shit, man, I didn’t know you cared so much.” I chuckle as I say it, pushing his hat off his head. It’s guy-speak for ‘Thanks, I love you too,’ which he’ll get clearly.
He growls as he bends down to pick the dirty camouflage cap up, slapping it across his thigh like that’d get the dust off it. “Such a dumb fucker.”
He mutters it, but I hear it anyway. He’s right, usually, but about this, I don’t think I’m wrong.
I see Allyson, and even though she ripped me to shreds when we were younger, I don’t know that she did it intentionally. That doesn’t mean she’s not responsible for hurting me, doesn’t mean I’m not still mad at her for it, but she’s not cruelly twisting me up like he says. If anything, I think she’s more lost now than I ever was.
“Maybe our best wasn’t good enough back then. Maybe you’re right and it’s still not good enough now, either. I don’t know.” I hop off the tailgate, heading back toward the rows.
Bobby’s eyes track me, confusion in the lines on his forehead. “So, what are you going to do?”
“Pick some more tomatoes.” I know he’s asking what I’m going to do about Allyson, but I don’t have the answer to that question so I sidestep for now. “Thanks for looking out for me, though.”
“Guess I’ll go ahead and stock up on the Jim Beam just in case. Hell, maybe it’ll be to toast with.” He’s answering right back, letting me know that whether this goes right or totally fucked ten ways from Sunday, he’ll be h
ere for me, celebration or consolation.
“Get the good stuff just in case.” I’m not sure if it’s just in case I need to drown my sorrows or lift it in a toast, but good whiskey is always the right option.
* * *
“Pass me the fried okra, will ya?” Luke begs.
Mama Louise ain’t having it. “You’ll wait your turn and it’ll get around to you soon enough.”
He whines about it being his favorite, but he’s just mouthing. We ignore him and continue passing tonight’s dinner platters around the table family-style, everyone taking what they want because there’s always plenty.
At least now there is. At first, when we all started eating dinner together, Mama Louise wasn’t sure how much to make to feed the additional mouths around her table. Some nights, we had mass quantities of leftovers, and others, we were fighting for the last roll.
Somewhere along the way, she figured it out and now it’s just right. Enough seats around the new table on the back porch under the fans with room to grow, as she calls it, and enough food on the table for folks to eat their fill.
Mama Louise outdid herself tonight with roast chicken, fried okra, and scalloped potatoes. When everyone’s got their plate, we dig in.
“Sure is good, Mama,” James says as he shovels his food in his mouth. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think he’s afraid someone’s going to steal his plate right off the table with how fast he’s inhaling his chicken, swallowing with barely a second to chew. Truth is, he and Sophie have to eat in shifts, one eating while the other feeds their little girl, Cindy Lou, and then trading so they all get a chance to eat.
The sentiment is echoed around the table, and as hungers begin to get fed, conversation starts back up.
“And I’ll be able to bring back organic dried lavender from the farm we’re going to. I think I’m going to do a line of sleepy time products, soap and lotion. Maybe that’ll help with Cindy Lou?”
Shayanne’s been giving her daily plan for her trip just like I knew she would, so my missing her ‘big news’ was actually no big deal. She was over the moon to discover there’s a small family-owned lavender farm near the horse Luke’s going to see.
Sophie looks at Shay gratefully. “That’d be great. Can you put a rush order on that?”
Cindy Lou is the cutest baby ever, I reckon, but she’s never been a good sleeper. And with James having to get up early to drive out to the ranch and Sophie being on call all the time for Doc Jones’s vet practice and finishing up school, they need their sleep and have resorted to trying any and everything. Desperate times call for desperate measures, I guess.
But as they switch roles and James takes over feeding Cindy Lou her pureed baby food, he coos at the blonde little thing whose hair sticks straight up no matter what they do. “It’s a good thing you’re cute, isn’t it? Isn’t it? Or Daddy’d have to put you in the back yard so he could get some shut eye.” His threat is delivered with the sweetest smile in high-pitched baby-talk, so I’m pretty sure he’s kidding.
“She’ll sleep eventually,” Mama Louise predicts. “Nobody goes through life on a few hours here and a few hours there.”
Sophie mutters, “I am.”
I can see the tiredness settled on her shoulders and the faint blue tint under her eyes. But even so, she laughs at her own joke, her smile genuine.
James puts his arm around Sophie’s shoulders and pulls her in to lay a sweet kiss to her forehead. She closes her eyes, melting into him for the quick moment. When she opens them again, his eyes lock on her though he talks to his mother. “Mama, you think you might be up for babysitting tonight? Or tomorrow? Or anytime soon?”
Katelyn answers first. “We can! We’d be happy to have her over tonight and get those baby snuggles.” Her husband, Mark, seems to have a different definition of ‘happy’ because there’s a rumbling in his chest that sounds like an actual growl. But Katelyn bats her eyes at him and he quiets. She’s a full-on magician, I think.
I grew up with Brody and am therefore inordinately used to grunts and glares as a form of top-notch communication, but Mark Bennett is a whole ‘nother level of Neanderthal. If I were a betting man, I’d wager that Katelyn has a tattoo somewhere that says Property of Mark Bennett—Touch & Die.
Not that I’d ever gamble after Dad’s shitstorm with that particular vice. Or see Katelyn naked to know what marks she might have. But Mark, for all his gruffness, is transformed by the slightest look or softest touch from Katelyn.
Katelyn blows Cindy Lou a kiss with a big “Mwah! You wanna stay with Auntie Katelyn tonight, sweet girl?”
Cindy Lou smiles, kicking her pink-striped sock-covered feet, and then returns the kiss. Except it’s more like she blows a raspberry, and orange baby food goes everywhere, getting all over James and dribbling down Cindy Lou’s chin.
“Sum of a bifch!” he shouts in shock, disgust wrinkling his brow. “Oh gawd, it’s in ma mouf! I ’eed a ’apkin!”
We’re all fighting back laughter as Sophie, who hasn’t missed a beat of her own dinner, hands him a paper towel. To his credit, he wipes his daughter down first then scrubs at his own face.
“Language,” Mama Louise corrects.
You’d think she’d give up on that by now. We’re all pretty rough around the edges, even though we have some decent manners. The language rule just doesn’t seem to be one that stuck . . . to any of us. Hell, I’ve even heard the girls go off worse than any of us boys before, depending on the topic and their level of excitement or fury. Mama Louise’s fighting a losing battle on a sinking ship, but she combats every instance in her presence and says what we do when she’s not around is something we’ll have to make our own peace with.
“I think it was warranted, Mama. Do you know how gross those carrots are? Blech,” he argues his case, but Mama Louise isn’t swayed in the least as she purses her lips at him.
“Bet you’ll feel differently about your language, and everyone else’s” —she doesn’t look around the table, but we all hear the admonishment— “when that little girl starts repeating every word you say like a magpie.” She reaches over with a bare finger and wipes a bit of orange gunk out of the babe’s hair, smearing it on the paper towel James laid on the table. “And I’m happy to babysit. Not to be too crass, but I’m happy to get those baby snuggles myself so that maybe I can get another grandbaby soon. Cindy Lou wants a sibling or a cousin.”
She looks around the table this time, measuring each of us.
Mark steps up to the plate first. “Mama, you know we’re not ready so quit pestering us. You make Katelyn feel pressured.” I glance at Katelyn, whose eyes are deceptively steady. I don’t think she’s the one feeling pressured.
Mama Louise tsks. “Don’t be pawning your own nerves off on your sweet girl. We all know you’re too much of a stubborn mule to share her with a baby just yet. But I have hopes that one day, you won’t be such a selfish boy.”
I can’t help but crack the smallest of smiles at Mama Louise calling Mark a boy. He’s not as big as me, but he cuts an intimidating figure at over six feet of ‘I’d rather kill you than talk to you’ attitude.
But Mama Louise is right. I don’t know the dynamic Katelyn and Mark have, but they are deeply wrapped up in one another. It’d be cute if it weren’t so sickening.
Of course, then there’s James and Sophie, who are playful and sweet and so in love, it’ll make your teeth hurt from sugar overload. James takes the wind out of Mama Louise’s sails too. “Mama, one day . . . maybe. But right now, if you’ll take Cindy Lou tonight, I have grand plans of taking my wife to bed, curling up under the sheets, and sleeping for eight hours straight.”
Nobody thought that was where that sentence was going to go, but Sophie looks at James like he just promised her a trip to the moon or a night filled with orgasms.
Mama Louise looks at Luke but then winks at Shayanne. Mama Louise is a good mother figure for Shay, one I don’t think any of us really knew she needed. She was so young
when Mom died, but Shay has always been one to tackle the world so we all thought she was fine. Really, she was, but she’s gotten close with Mama Louise and it’s done her good. I know they talk a lot about Shay’s businesses and her plans and dreams. So whatever Mama Louise already knows must answer her question about Shay and Luke.
Which leaves her with us Tannen boys as options.
Technically, any kids we may or may not have wouldn’t really be her grandchildren. But I don’t think she’s ever met someone she didn’t instantly take under her wing, whether they want it or not. As evidenced by the three tall, dark, and handsome assholes perched around her dinner table, she’s pretty much adopted us. She isn’t Mom, but I suspect that the next generation of Tannens will call her Grandma . . . and that won’t be a bad thing.
I don’t even see it coming, but Bobby throws me under the bus like he planned the schedule and route himself. “I guess you could call the Wildcats your latest additions, if you want? Those boys would probably love for you to fuss over them and cheer them on. You know what they need? Zucchini bread with chocolate chips.” He nods like he solved all my problems, even though the asshole knows he just created one.
I cut my eyes to him, killing him a thousand times with the daggers I’m throwing and warning him to sleep with one eye open. One of the benefits of still living at home, in our childhood house, is that I know where all the squeaky boards are and can sneak into his room silent as a ninja to exact my revenge.
Mama Louise claps. “Oh, that would be fun. I won’t bother you for practices, but I can make zucchini bread for snack on Tuesday. And we’ll all be at the games, of course.” She glances around the table to make sure everyone heard her decree, and I see heads bobbing in agreement.
“You don’t have to do that. Any of you. It’s not a big deal. Just Peewee Football.” I shrug, downplaying it. I don’t want them all there to see me fail, to see how soft I am with the boys, to see me not knowing what the hell to do about Allyson.
Rough Love Page 11
