Logan - a Preston Brothers Novel: A More Than Series Spin-Off

by Jay McLean

  “Sorry, ma’am,” I shout, my hand up in apology.

  She glares, her lips pursed, finger waving at me. “You fucking Preston Punk.”

  I lower my window. “Yo. Watch your mouth, my little brother’s in here!”

  Lachy leans across me to shout, “You need penis in your life!”

  I wind up the window. “Jesus, where the hell did you learn to speak like that?”

  “Lucy,” he says with a shrug. “That’s what she always says about grumpy old ladies.”

  “You need to quit hanging around Lucy so much.”

  “Funny, that’s what people used to say about you.”

  I don’t respond, because my mind’s already back to Aubrey, and now Old Lady Laura is giving me the finger and refusing to move.

  I honk my horn.

  She jumps, grasps her heart, then starts walking a snail’s pace across the crosswalk. “Bless her,” Lachlan says.

  “So, Aubrey…?” I edge.

  “What about her?”

  “You said she asked about me. What did she say?”

  Old Lady Laura drops her fucking old lady fruit all over the road, and Lachlan says, “Ah, fudge nugget!”

  “Hop out and help her.”

  “No.”

  “Lachy.”

  “Fine,” he whines, but he doesn’t have to because a sea of scarlet appears, and I blink, hard, like I do every time I think I see her. Only this time it’s not my imagination. Within seconds the road is clear and Aubrey is helping the woman across the street and safely on to the sidewalk. And then she looks over at us, or me to be specific, and she smiles. Again. She smiles, and my entire world unfurls, and Lachy says, “Why are you so smiley?”

  I drive to the high school grinning like a fool, and I don’t even care.

  Because Aubrey’s smile is my drug.

  And I’ve never felt so fucking high.

  I want to talk to her, even if talking means standing in front of her, mouth moving, spitting jumbled words and messed-up apologies. I want to talk to her because I’ve fucking missed her and because she asked about me. And even though I never found out exactly what it was she said, she still asked, which means she still thought about me. And that—that has my heart racing and my stomach flipping and goddammit, I’ve turned into Lucas.

  You know those stand-offs they have in old westerns? Where the good guy and the bad guy stand still, opposite each other, guns drawn, waiting for the other to make the first move? Well, yeah, that’s happening right now. Only there is no good or bad guy. There’s me and there’s my dad. And we’re not standing still. We’re walking. And there are no guns.

  Okay, so maybe it’s nothing like those old westerns, but whatever.

  He’s walking toward me.

  I’m walking toward him.

  And right in the middle of us is Aubrey’s shop.

  We meet at the door.

  I eye him confused.

  He smirks.

  “I thought you had something important to do,” I tell him.

  He says, “I did. Then Miss Red called, asked me to come by.”

  “Why?” I ask.

  He shrugs.

  And then we both open the door and try to walk through at the same time: an impossible feat for men our height, our size, but he’s bigger than I am. Stronger, too, probably, and I get shoved back onto the sidewalk.

  His chuckle grates on my nerves.

  When we’re both in the store, Aubrey’s gaze flicks between us. Then she smiles again, and that one gesture sparks a longing I’ve tried so hard to push away.

  “I’m glad you’re both here,” she says.

  “You are?” I ask.

  She nods. “I want to show you something, and I feel horrible for doing this, but I feel like I have to.”

  “Is everything okay?” Dad asks, concern dripping in his words.

  Aubrey chews on her bottom lip, and I’m reminded of what that lip feels like, what it tastes like. I swallow hard, will my mind and my body not to focus on those thoughts. She walks to the corner of the room where a desk is set up, opens a drawer, and pulls out a sketchbook with a black cover. She flips through the pages while Dad and I make our way to her counter. When she returns, she slowly, carefully, as if the book will disintegrate with her touch, places it between us.

  “You did this?” Dad asks, and I can hear the joy in his voice.

  On the page is a sketch of a boy running—Lachlan—the world behind him a blur. It’s in the form of anime, like Pokemon or Dragon Ball Z, and I frown, confused, because I had no idea she drew.

  “I wish,” she says, and she’s the opposite of my dad. She sounds sad, and when I find the courage to look up, right into her eyes, they look as she sounds. “This is all Lachlan.”

  “No way,” I whisper, gaze dropping, focused on the drawing again. I lift it to inspect it closer. “No way,” I repeat.

  “He draws?” Dad asks, and he’s no longer joyful. “Did you know, Logan?”

  “Not a clue.”

  “Why wouldn’t he…” Dad trails off.

  Aubrey says, “It takes him days to do one drawing. The first day, he sketches it out, the next he fine-tunes it, and on the last day, he adds color. And once they’re done, he uses the shredder in my office to destroy them.”

  “Why?” I ask.

  “Because…” she starts, then exhales loudly. “I’ve been taking pictures on my phone every night when he leaves, because I feel like they need to be kept and admired somehow. And I fought with myself over and over about whether I should show you, because I feel like…” Her voice cracks, and it’s clear she’s struggling to get through this. “I feel like I’m betraying my best friend.” A calming breath and a slow blink later, and she’s shifting her laptop screen to face us. “This is his work from last week,” she says. I focus on the screen, on the drawing of Lachlan on a track, his hand gripping a trophy while a group of bodies holds him suspended in the air. There are no eyes on his supporters, no noses, just giant smiles. But that’s not what I’m focused on. It’s Lachlan—the drawing of him—frowning.

  “I don’t get it,” I say, my voice barely a whisper. I clear my throat, ready the loudness of my voice. “Does he not want to run anymore?”

  “Look at this,” Aubrey says, switching to the next picture. This one is him, sitting front and center, legs crossed, a smile on his face, a pencil in his hand. He’s holding it up as if it’s a trophy, and in the background, the same supporting bodies, only their backs are turned. And it’s not hard to figure out the hidden meaning behind this.

  My inhale is shaky. So are my hands. “Does he not think we’d support him no matter what? He’s nine years old, for Christ’s sake, he can—”

  “I don’t think it’s that you wouldn’t support him, Lo.” She called me Lo. “It’s more that he loves the attention he gets from running. I mean, with Luke especially. It’s like their thing… something only they share. And he said that y’all are there for every one of his meets, that y’all are proud of him. He mentioned that it’s the only time you’re together when you’re not forced to be. I think he’s afraid that if he stops, or if he’s not as good as he is, all that will end.”

  “That’s bullshit,” I huff out, and then I realize that Dad hasn’t said a word, and when I look up at him, he’s staring off into the distance, color drained from his face. “Dad?”

  He blinks, comes to. “Your mother…” he starts, then picks up the sketchbook. “Your mother was an artist. Like this.”

  “She was?” I knew she crafted. I knew she knit, scrapbooked, crocheted. I had no idea she drew.

  Dad nods, slowly. “It was something she wanted to pursue in college, but her parents—your grandparents—wouldn’t… they wouldn’t support her, so…” he trails off. “So, she got her teaching degree. She wanted to teach art to kids. But then… then she had Lucy and Lucas and Leo and you and… well, we had planned… after Lachlan that—but then… so…” He presses down on his eyes with
his thumb and forefinger, and there are very few moments I’ve seen him like this, and it’s been a long, long time since I have. “I’m going to pick Lachy up from practice,” he says, holding the sketchbook to his chest. He makes a move to leave but stops with his hand on the door. “Thank you, Aubrey, and I promise, no matter what happens, this won’t fall on you. I’ll make sure of it.”

  As soon as he’s gone, I turn back to Aubrey. “So,” I say.

  She sighs. “You mind giving me a ride home?”

  Physically, it feels like the first time we did this: sitting in her driveway, neither of us making a move to leave. Emotionally, though? It’s completely different. We spent the drive in silence. We’re still silent. And I haven’t stopped staring out the windshield. But then Aubrey sniffs, and my gaze moves to her. “I feel like shit, Logan.”

  “You did the right thing.”

  “I betrayed his trust.”

  “For good reason, though.”

  “He’s going to hate me.”

  “He’ll get over it.”

  “But what if he doesn’t?” she says, facing me, those sad, sad eyes on mine. “He’s, like, the only thing keeping me here right now. If he…” She exhales loudly. “Never mind.” She gets out of the car, and I follow after her, walk her to the door. With her key in the slot, she turns to me leaning against her house, my head resting on the brick. “You okay?” she asks, poking at my stomach.

  I muster a smile, but it’s fake, and I shouldn’t. So, I wipe it clear. She deserves more. “I used to spend a lot of time with him. I was just thinking, maybe if I still did, I’d know this stuff about him.”

  “He calls you his best friend, you know? He says you’re his favorite sibling.”

  I nod, because I knew that. “If he came to me with this, I’d make it known it wouldn’t change the way we feel about him. I just—I don’t understand how he got to that headspace… and then my dad—hearing him talk about Mom like that…” I stop there, and push off the wall, tug on her sleeve. “Make sure you lock the door, okay?”

  I stand up Mary, and instead, I go straight home, wait on the porch steps for Lachy to come back. It’s more than an hour after his practice finishes when Dad pulls up, and Lachlan hops out, his head lowered, feet dragging. He looks up when I whistle, and he looks like he’s been through the ringer. Dad, too. I stand when he gets close enough to touch and scruff his hair. “Grab your camping gear.”

  “But it’s a weeknight!”

  I look at Dad. “What say you, old man?”

  “You make sure he gets to school in the morning?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Lachlan rushes up the steps. “Can we bring Chicken?”

  “Whatever you want, buddy.”

  His frown reverses, his smile flipping my insides. Dad slaps my shoulder as he passes. “You’re all right, kid.”

  29

  Aubrey

  Lachlan doesn’t show up the next day. Or the next. The weekend passes, and nothing. I start taking photographs of my furniture to list online. I’ll call my previous employer, see if they’ll take me back. By Monday afternoon, all hopes of a future here begin to die. I look out the window, watch people walk by, and reminisce on all the ideals I had before I got here: the waves, the smiles, the warm welcomes that never came. I’m too lost in those thoughts, I don’t even realize the door opens until Lachlan appears. I stand taller, hold my breath. My stomach drops when his eyes narrow, his glare directed at me. “I’m sorry,” I rush out. “I just thought that they should know—” He busts out a laugh and drops his bag, practically runs toward me.

  “I’m just messing with ya, Red!” he shouts, wrapping his arms around my waist. When he releases me, his smile is huge. “Dad’s so proud of me. We spent all yesterday at the kitchen table, and he tried to draw like me, but, Aubs,”—he rolls his eyes, giggling as he does—“he’s soo bad. And Logan—I don’t know what’s gotten into him, but he wants to spend all this time together. Like, seriously? Give me some room to breathe, bruh!”

  My laughter feels foreign.

  “We went camping and four wheeling and fishing and everything. That’s why I haven’t been to see you!”

  “Oh, my God, Lachy, I thought you were angry at me.”

  “Sorry.” He shrugs, removes his backpack and unzips it. “Anyway, while we were fishing, Logan asked me to draw something for him.” He reveals a scrunched-up sheet of paper from his bag. “Here.”

  It’s a drawing of me, my hair up in a bun, my eyes a bright green.

  “It took forever for me to draw it. He made me change your nose, like, eight times. He kept saying it’s more upturned! And then… oh, my God, don’t even get me started on your freckles.”

  “My freckles?” I whisper, unable to take my eyes off… me.

  Lachlan deepens his voice to mock his brother’s. “It has to be half the shade of her hair.” Lachy sighs. “It’s, like, I’ve hung around you way more than he has, but he’s memorized every detail about you!” He’s talking loudly, his voice filled with excitement. “Anyway.” He grabs the picture from me. I try to take it back, but he hides it behind him. “No. This is his. You can’t have it, and he’ll be here any second.”

  “He’s finishing work early today?”

  “He started trade school today.”

  “Trade school?”

  “Electrical.”

  “Electrical?”

  Lachlan tilts his head to the side. “I don’t know why you guys don’t just sex again. This whole middleman thing is getting old.”

  “You’re not the middleman.”

  He haphazardly shoves the drawing back in his backpack just as the store door opens. Logan smiles first at Lachy, then at me. “Red,” he says, and it truly is a shame he’s so repulsive to look at.

  I say, nodding, “Lo.”

  Lachlan groans, so over-exaggerated it makes me giggle. He steps between Logan and me, points to his brother. “Logan.” Then to me. “Miss Red.” Then to himself. “Middleman.”

  30

  Logan

  Last week, Lucas had to leave for a meeting during the day, which meant he had to change from his work clothes to a suit and tie in the office. While he was gone, Will, Dumb Name and I—The Fearsome Threesome—took the opportunity to create some Mayhem. I don’t really know why Lucas had become our go-to target, but he’s just too damn easy. Besides, it’s his own fault for leaving his boots in the office to begin with. Removing the inner soles, screwing them down to the floor, and then replacing the inner soles is Mayhem 101. Child’s play, really. But Luke must’ve been in a rush because when he came back and got changed, he shoved his feet in his boots, went to walk away, obviously couldn’t, and then fell face first into the corner of Dad’s desk and chipped his front tooth.

  Oops.

  He hasn’t spoken to me properly since, and his girl, Laney—well, to say she’s pissed is an understatement. I took the fall (credit) for the entire thing, not wanting Dumb Name or Will to get in trouble. But, somehow, Dad must’ve found out they were involved, because it’s now first thing Monday morning, and all three of us are in his office, and my accomplices… they’re sweatin’. Dumb Name keeps giving me these looks—like sad puppy eyes—and I keep shaking my head at him. I got this. Besides, the worst thing Dad’s ever done is suspend my pay for a week for that time I covered Luke’s truck with “I love cock” decals.

  Dad sits in his chair, shifting papers on his desk. Without looking up, he says, “You boys are off the site starting today.”

  “Sir, I need—” Dumb Name starts, but Dad cuts him off.

  “You’ll be working a retail job. Logan, you’re in charge.”

  The combined exhales of relief from Dumb Name and Will make my dad smirk, though I’m not sure the other two see it.

  “Since when did we do commercial?” I ask.

  “Since now,” Dad replies, looking up at me. “Problem?”

  “No, sir.”

  “It’s a simple shop ref
urb.” He hands me a piece of paper. “That’s the address. Go.”

  “Now?”

  “Yes, now,” he says, his voice louder, deeper, sterner.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Swear to God, I’ve never seen two grown-ass men try to leave a room as fast as Dumb Name and Will do. Dumb Name gets as far as opening the door before Dad’s voice cuts through the air. “Gentlemen,” he says, and it feels like the exact moment of calm right before the storm.

  Will says, “Yes, sir—boss—Sir Tom—Mr. Preston Sir?”

  “Kiss-ass,” I murmur.

  “Next time you want to pull that shit, don’t do it on my time,” Dad says. “I know my son’s supposed to be your supervisor, so I’m putting this on him. Logan’s getting his pay cut for a week. I’m splitting it between two charities of your choice.” He puts pen to paper. “Name them.”

  Will and Dumb Name share a look. Then Will says, “RAINN, please.”

  Dumb Name scoffs. “Weather isn’t a charity, bruh.”

  “It stands for Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, idiot.”

  “Oh.”

  Dad says, “And Dumb Name—I mean, Garray—your charity?”

  Dumb Name doesn’t skip a beat. “National Coalition Against Domestic Violence.” For Laney.

  Dad’s lips press tight. “Good men,” he says, then focuses on me. “You’re paying for Luke’s dental work.”

  I suppress my chuckle. “Well worth it, sir.”

  “Don’t be a smart-ass, Logan.”

  Aubrey looks like autumn: tan boots, black leggings, dark green, oversized sweater, and a bright orange scarf. Want to know how I know? Because the retail joint we’re working on is right opposite her shop. I’d say it was a coincidence, but I know the truth. Preston, Gordon and Sons have never worked a commercial site before. We’ve never even quoted for one. This is all Dad’s doing, and he’s doing it for me.

  The following day, she sees me working, smiles and waves. I wave back.