by Eden Winters
At the end of the meal, Seth grew impatient. “You said you wanted to talk to me about something,” he prodded.
Michael didn’t quite meet Seth’s eyes. “Do you remember me telling you about Luther?”
“Luther from New York? The older guy who broke your heart?”
A sheepish smile crept across Michael’s face. “Yeah. I wanted commitment, but he never quite seemed ready.”
“And?” Seth felt certain this story came with an “and.”
“And he wants me back. I’m leaving next week to move to New York. We’re getting married. I wanted to tell you face-to-face.” He reached across the table, grasping Seth’s hand. “I want you to be happy for me.”
Married? What the fuck? Seth bit back a confused jumble of hurt and anger. Married?
Noting the pleading look in Michael’s eyes, Seth swallowed his wounded pride, dreams of getting back together vanishing. “Of course I’m happy for you,” he lied.
“And you’re not angry with me?”
“Angry? Why would I be angry?” Seth ventured, forcing a smile.
“Well, you knew I liked older men….”
And I hoped I’d be the one who changed your mind. “I’m happy for you, I truly am,” Seth managed to say, fighting a grimace.
“Good, you don’t know how much that means to me.” Michael insisted on picking up the tab, despite Seth’s halfhearted protests, and practically skipped out of the restaurant, a weight lifted from his shoulders. Too bad that weight fell directly on Seth. A nearly empty wine bottle (much cheaper than the bottle Michael had ordered at Swanky’s) sat on the coffee table. Seth sprawled a few feet away on the couch. Married. Michael was getting married, dashing any hopes Seth had of them together on a more permanent basis.
Okay, honestly, he’d never actually believed they’d be together on a lasting basis, despite a bit of bliss-induced postcoital pillow talk. Michael came and went like a breeze. And he wanted to get married? He’d never mentioned marriage to Seth.
Just for a moment Seth allowed himself to dream of a large house with a huge front porch, himself and some phantom man sitting side by side, a child or two with them. The perfect little family. Try as he might, though, he couldn’t seem to work Michael into the picture. The mystery man remained a vague shape. Whoever he turned out to be, he’d be honest and dependable. And for some strange reason, he seemed to have red hair. Why would Seth fantasize about a man with red hair? Michael’s hair was blond.
Then again, if Seth paused a minute to think with the right head, Michael had waltzed into his life while on the rebound from the mysterious Luther, a high-powered New York attorney who’d spoiled Michael rotten until Michael had gotten it into his head that he wanted permanence. And now he’d get it.
“Ha! Won’t last a month!” Seth proclaimed to the wine bottle.
His phone chirped, announcing a message. He raised his head and stared at the offending gizmo with bleary eyes. “Not now!” he yelled, dropping his head back to the couch arm. What the fuck would he do? He should be enjoying makeup sex right about now. Instead, he lay on the couch in his tiny apartment, wallowing in self-pity and cheap wine.
I’d better check my messages. Who knew? Maybe he’d gotten an out-of-town job offer. He’d love to get away for a week or two. Or longer.
Eventually he summoned enough energy to unlock his phone and access the message. Smashing the tiny iPhone to his ear, he heard, “Mr. McDaniel? I’m Richard Clooney, of Clooney, Anderson, and Gentry. I represent your aunt’s estate.”
Chapter 3
Seth reread the documents he’d been sent, while crammed into a coach-class airline seat. Some things he understood, others he’d definitely need to speak to his aunt’s attorney about. And while the papers hinted at money coming his way in addition to a house, they hadn’t named a specific amount. The one thing he knew for certain was that he needed to spend time in the South, unraveling the details of his aunt’s will and deciding what to do with all she’d left him. He reread the lawyer’s last letter: “I received your itinerary and an associate of your aunt’s will pick you up when you arrive.” The lawyer hadn’t specified who or how Seth would know them. Oh well, he’d find out soon enough.
He’d demolished the last of his airline pretzels by the time his Samsonite case came into view on the luggage claim carousel at the Atlanta airport. He received a few appraising glances. The curious stares might have been for him, his oversized case, or the distinctive rainbow strap that both announced his sexuality to savvy individuals and made his black, expandable spinner bag easier to find.
A six-foot Valkyrie straight from the Wagnerian opera his grandmother once dragged him to—minus the horned helmet—bore down on Seth as he wrestled his luggage off the conveyor. Had the darned thing put on a burst of speed to taunt him? With one hand on the handle, he followed his runaway suitcase around a bend, chorusing, “Excuse me, pardon me” to anyone in his way. Without slowing down, the Valkyrie swooped in, grasped the strap, and hauled the at-weight-limit-bag to the floor. “You Seth McDaniel?” she asked, extending the handle on his suitcase.
Seth glanced up. And up. And up. He gulped. The woman possessed the body of a professional wrestler and the attitude of a sentencing judge. “Y… yes.”
“I’m here to take you to your aunt’s.” Without another word, she turned on her heel and strode toward the door with Seth’s luggage.
“Wait! Miss! Miss!” Seth grabbed his laptop case and jogged after her, puffing for breath by the time they’d made it curbside. The battle maiden tossed an annoyed Keep up, why don’t you! glare over her shoulder.
“Out of shape, are you, city boy?” she sneered. Her long gold braids and the stern set of her shoulders brought to mind a Girl Scout on steroids.
Everything about the woman seemed built in squares, from her firm jawline to her blunted fingernails. Dressed in worn blue jeans, a “Southern by the Grace of God” T-shirt, and flip-flops, not a speck of makeup enhanced her carved-from-ice complexion.
Without waiting for a reply, she resumed charging toward the parking lot, dragging Seth’s suitcase behind her and forcing Seth to scramble in her long-legged wake. Apparently single-minded in her determination to reach another state on foot, the only time the Amazonian warrior bothered to glance up was when a car approached. Each and every time, she froze in place, shook herself, and then resumed marching across the asphalt.
She stopped next to an ancient blue-and-primer-colored Chevy Silverado and slung the suitcase into the back. The overloaded luggage landed with a solid thud.
“My cameras!” Seth cried.
A glinty-eyed stare lowered down to Seth’s level. “Next time, you can haul your own damned bag.”
Seth narrowed his eyes and bristled. How dare she! “I would have taken it this time if you hadn’t grabbed it. I don’t even know you! Who are you?”
“Jill,” she replied, folding her arms across her chest. “That’s all you need to know.” She stepped in, crowding Seth’s personal space, and then sniffed, her nose buried in his neck. “You smell like passel, but weak. What the hell kind of soap do you use?”
“Hey!” Seth jumped back. “What the fuck? I don’t know what a passel is, but I most certainly don’t smell like one. I’ll have you know my soap comes from an exclusive boutique in Chicago.” And he’d never gotten complaints before, at least not from men.
Goldilocks reared back, teeth bared. “Well, stop using it!” She rounded the truck to the driver’s side, flung the door open, and flumped down behind the wheel.
Seth waited for an invitation to get in, but when Jill fired up the engine and began backing out of the parking space—with his suitcase—he gave up any pretense of good manners and grabbed the passenger door handle, running beside the truck. When the woman braked to shift out of reverse, he hopped inside, stowing his laptop case on the floorboard.
“You might wanna fasten your seat belt,” Jill warned, stomping the accelerator hard enough to slide
Seth’s suitcase down the truck bed to rap against the tailgate. Seth grabbed the “oh shit!” handle, hanging on for dear life.
Had he been abducted by a madwoman? “We haven’t met properly but I’m—”
“—the no-account loser who abandoned his aunt and never even came to visit in twenty fucking years.”
What the fuck? “Now wait a damned minute. My aunt didn’t bother calling me, not once in all that time.”
Jill stomped the brake, sending Seth jolting forward, and tossed a paper ticket at the parking lot attendant. His suitcase slammed against the cab. “Nobody needed to tell you to do the right thing. That’ll be five bucks.”
“Huh?”
Jill jammed a thumb toward the attendant. “My truck, my gas. You pay parking.”
Seth perched on one ass cheek to reach into his billfold, grumbling while digging out a twenty. Jill handed it to the attendant, smiling sweetly. “Keep the change.”
She floored the gas pedal, cutting off Seth’s, “Hey! I got fifteen bucks coming back!”
He’d never met this woman before and yet somehow had managed to piss her off—not that he’d ever understood women, particularly his dour, demanding grandmother (God rest her soul!). However, usually he had some inkling of his error whenever one grew physically violent with a vehicle or other inanimate object on his behalf.
No denying Jill was right on one account. He really could have made an attempt to call Auntie Irene. With his grandmother no longer around, he didn’t run the risk of unleashing her hysterics. Somehow her warnings of “You’ll end up like my daughter!” or “Please, please don’t go there!” hadn’t instilled confidence. For all her faults, she’d raised him. While lacking warmth, she had provided for him. He supposed she loved him, though she’d never been demonstrative with her affections. Yet she’d never once allowed him to call anyone with a Georgia area code.
Regardless of Nana’s talk about “Irene McDaniel doesn’t care about you,” Seth had memories of being sung to, read to, and being allowed to help bake cookies. And when Aunt Irene died, she’d left him everything. That hardly seemed like the behavior of someone who didn’t care.
Despite a handful of happy memories, why his aunt had never once contacted him remained a mystery. She’d told him she loved him the last time he’d seen her, and then… nothing.
“I—” he began, at a loss for words.
“Can’t hear you,” Jill yelled over the radio she flipped to full volume.
Seth winced. A forced discussion at this juncture might prove dangerous. With time on his hands and the ride having smoothed enough to allow letting go of his death grip on the grab handle, he pulled his iPhone from his pocket, desperate to communicate with someone familiar.
He punched the icon for his favorite site, sighing when he read message after message from his so-called cyber friends, congratulating Michael on the upcoming wedding. Adding insult to injury, Michael had hired a second-rate photographer to record the ceremony. A man who used a secondhand camera and hadn’t a clue about proper backlighting.
Seth scrolled through the list of well-wishers, finding no love. Traitors. He pulled up short at seeing his own name: “Better keep Seth from showing up to ruin things. What you ever saw in the loser is beyond me.” What? Oh, Michael’s sister, Angela. Michael’s social-climbing sister hadn’t considered Seth good enough for her brother.
Screw them. Seth tried another media site, one more devoted to who did whom, and sighed again at his “friends” boasting of hookups and near misses. Not a single person mentioned him or even commented on his leaving. Didn’t he have any true friends? Thumbs clicking across the phone’s tiny keyboard, he wrote, In Georgia, back soon.
He let out the breath he’d been holding, relief washing through him when he received a response from some guy he knew only by a purple penguin icon, a screen name of “Squeaky,” and a penchant for online gaming. Nice hearing from you. Was worried.
I’m okay, he typed back. Settling aunt’s estate.
He received: O good. Worried you jumped off bridge after M’s engagement.
Did his friends think him that distraught over Michael? Michael’s getting married? he asked. No rejoinder came back, though he waited a few minutes.
Once the usual posters presumably assumed he’d moseyed off, they recommenced their prattle about who slept with whom, who wanted to sleep with whom, etcetera.
He shoved his phone into his pocket, more depressed than ever.
“You might try talking to somebody in the real world. You know, flesh-and-blood people. Folks who use actual words and not text-speak.”
Seth hadn’t even noticed the volume on the radio dropping enough for them to converse without yelling. And though Jill’s arctic tones didn’t actually approach anywhere near an open invitation to chat, at least she wasn’t hissing through clenched teeth now.
“Thought you weren’t talking to me.”
“I meant you should have called your aunt every once in a while.”
“She never called me!”
“The phone works both ways. Did you ever even try calling her?”
No sense in denying the truth. “No, but maybe I should have. Happy now?”
“I don’t do happy.”
Seth wouldn’t argue the point. After turning off the interstate, they traveled a few miles on a state road, and then turned once again onto a much less cared for stretch of blacktop, weeds encroaching on either side. After a small eternity, they passed a town limit sign. Welcome to Possum Kingdom, population…. Whatever number had once graced the sign now hid behind a blob of black spray paint, replaced by a smearily scrawled, How long you staying?
“The last get-together pretty much cleaned Irene’s kitchen out. If you plan to stay at her house, you’re going to need provisions.” Jill parked the truck in the parking lot of an unremarkable mom-and-pop grocery store. They still made those? A vague recollection tickled Seth’s memory—Auntie dropping quarters into the mechanical horse out front, Seth and his friend taking turns riding. Seth recalled red hair, crooked front teeth, and the laughing eyes of the best friend he’d ever had. His heart lurched. Could it be possible that Dustin still lived around these parts?
Before he could ask, Jill stormed out of the truck and into Phil’s Grocery and Sporting Goods. Supposing he ought to heed her advice and get some food, Seth scrambled to keep up with her, straining his legs to match her ambitious pace.
“Grab a cart,” Jill barked. She leaned beside the front door, mouth stretched in a yawn.
Irritated as much at his natural inclination to bend to her will as her surly demeanor—which he attributed to years of training from his overbearing Nana—Seth disentangled a shopping cart from its intimate embrace of a fellow and tried to keep up when she bounded off, squeaky, shuddering wheels notwithstanding.
“You’re not one of them there vega-met-tarians, are ya?” she asked, with the same amount of disdain she probably used for the question, “You don’t kick dogs and children, do you?”
“No.”
“Good!” Jill proceeded to fill the shopping cart with broccoli, cauliflower, and other items Seth normally didn’t include on his grocery list. What the hell? He’d said he wasn’t vegetarian, hadn’t he?
She bypassed steaks and ground beef to toss packs of chicken and fish on top of the veggies, apparently at random. “Jill!” called a female voice. A woman passed by, nodding at Jill and Seth.
“Jill,” Jill replied in turn, wearing what Seth supposed passed for a smile on her otherwise stony expression.
“Her name’s Jill too?” Seth asked.
“No, idiot. Her name’s not Jill. She is a jill. I’m the Jill, for now, thanks to your sorry ass.”
What the hell? Seth was so confused, it took a moment before he noticed he was alone. Once more, he pushed the cart after a shopping mercenary, who now approached the dairy section.
“Jill,” a man greeted, inclining his head, the gesture, like the woman’s, appear
ing to be a mark of respect rather than friendship.
“Jack,” Jill replied, nodding to another man a few feet away. “Jack.”
“Let me guess—they aren’t named Jack, they are jacks, right?”
Jill snorted, rolling her eyes. “Right. Their names are Hank and Buster. But they’re jacks.”
Not understanding but game to adopt community traditions, Seth inclined his head toward the next lady who passed. “Afternoon, Jill.”
The woman glowered and hurried away.
“No, she’s not a jill, dumbass,” Jill said, accompanied by an overly dramatic sigh. “Didn’t your grandma teach you anything?”
“Apparently not,” Seth replied to her retreating back.
He gave thanks that Jill bypassed the fly rods and camo sections of the store, and caught up with his abductor/personal shopper/tour guide at the checkout. A harried-looking woman beat them to the conveyor, huffing bangs out of her eyes. The source of her obvious frustration, three teenaged boys so close in appearance they must have been triplets, tussled with each other while wrangling groceries out of the cart. “Noogie!” one cried gleefully, capturing another in a headlock and scrubbing knuckles against a buzz-cut scalp.
“Wedgie!” shouted the unoccupied youth as he reached inside noogie-boy’s board shorts and hauled his briefs’ waistband up to his shoulder blades.
“Jill!” the weary mother pleaded, her shoulders slumped.
The Valkyrie snapped into drill-sergeant mode right before Seth’s astonished eyes. “What the heck do you boys think you’re doing?” she barked. “This ain’t no playground! Now you better cut out the crap and help your mother with the groceries!”
“Ma’am, yes, ma’am.” As if someone had flipped a switch, the teens stopped antagonizing each other and carefully piled foodstuffs on the conveyor, where a gum-chewing teenaged girl methodically swiped items across a scanner.
“Hey, Lis…,” one of the boys began, leaning across the counter into the girl’s personal space.
She whapped him with a can of peaches. “Oopsie! Didn’t see you there.” The girl’s eyes danced with mischief while the other two brothers sniggered. Yeah, Seth remembered his high school days. Young love was never pretty.