by Finn, Emilia
I turn away from Mitchell, since I’m certain it will annoy him, and smile for who I assume is a nicer brother. “Nixon, the youngest of all Abby’s brothers. Lieutenant, firefighter straight out of high school, started on a volunteer basis as a teen. It’s so nice to meet you.”
I offer a hand, and breathe easier when he smiles back and pumps once, twice.
“And you too, Miss Reynolds. I gotta say, while Mitch is much less subtle about his distrust of the general human population when it comes to our sister, I can’t tell a lie and say I’m pleased Ab has gone out and grabbed herself a full-time employee. That shop runs on dreams and unicorn farts, not actual currency, so either you’re plain crazy for accepting the position, or you have ulterior motives, in which case, we aren’t gonna be pals for long.”
Two for two on overprotective brothers who are sexy as hell.
“Orrrr,” I drag the word out, “your sister is smarter than you give her credit for, and more competent than you allow her to show. Perhaps, and hear me out,” I whisper, “Abby has good taste in friends, and chose a good assistant. And this good assistant, who just so happened to spend a couple hours in the shop today, already knows that place has more income and potential than you realize. Maybe there are no rainbow farts in sight, but certainly a couple boss-ass-bitches who weren’t made only to sit on a shelf and look pretty. What a concept, huh?”
I glance over my shoulder to Mitchell. “How strange it must be for a woman to be pretty and smart. Careful, gentlemen. Be sure to wear shoes. There’s glass all over the floor.”
“Pretty girl thinks she gets to mouth off at us, and that’ll put all our suspicions at ease.” Mitchell grabs the end of my cart so I can’t move. “Brains and beauty,” he questions. “Humility too?”
I flash a wide grin, and snicker as I face him. “When I said pretty, I meant your sister. But sure, thanks, I’ll take the compliment.”
Nixon snorts behind me.
“I think you’re pretty too, Mitchell. I like this thing you do with your hair.” I reach up to my own, and slide a finger in the place where Mitchell has his shaved. Long on top, close to the skin on the back and sides. “Honestly, I’m surprised you attend a hair salon often enough to maintain that look. You don’t seem the type.”
“He shaves it himself,” Nixon supplies. “First couple times were iffy, but he’s really got the hang of it now.”
I glance over at Nixon and smile when he watches me with teasing admiration in his eyes. It’s a warm sensation in my stomach, a flutter of my heart, that at least one of these guys is nice.
Looking frontward at Mitchell, I drop a little of my bravado and lower my head a little. “Enjoy your movie night. Tell Abby I said hey, if you want. Or don’t. Whatever.” I snag a bag of popcorn with the maple syrup and toss it into my cart. “Maybe I’ll see you around.”
I battle with my cart; its heavy contents, its busted wheel, and the Rosa standing at the end giving me no room to move. But I get free with barely a shred of dignity lost, and continue on along the aisle.
“Nadia, wait.”
It’s not Mitchell’s voice that calls me back, but Nixon’s. Which is… well, disappointing, I guess.
I slow fifteen or so feet away from the brothers, then come to a stop before I foolishly knock an entire display down.
“You’re new to town, right?” Nixon asks. “Made any friends yet?”
“Only Mitchell Rosa,” I reply with not a small amount of snark in my voice. “When you got friends like him, you don’t need anyone else.”
Nixon chuckles under his breath and leaves his brother behind for a moment. He makes his way closer, slows, then stops with six or so feet between us. “Wanna come to movie night? Abby is gonna be there, and I bet it would set Mitch and me both at ease to watch you girls interact. We’ll know pretty quickly if you’re a fake or not, and once we decide, you’re either in or you’re out. If you’re in, then you won’t have to worry about Bitchy Mitchy anymore. He’ll be nice.”
Bitchy Mitchy, I say it in my mind, only to end on a snicker. “I know my refusal to come will only convince you guys I’m a bad person, but still, I’ll take the risk.”
“No movie night?”
I shake my head. “No movie night. No fraternizing outside of work until I get my move and new life figured out.” I chew on my bottom lip for a moment, and sigh when my phone chirps.
Leaning a little in Nixon’s direction, I meet his eyes. “You obviously can’t know this about me, since we literally just met, but I’m kind of at my wit’s end right now. I’m stretched thin, and don’t have a single spare minute in my day for something extra. That ‘something extra’ would be you and your brothers trying to grill me and catch me out on some nefarious plot I’ve yet to be notified of, while I’m simply trying to enjoy a movie and a night of comatose nothingness.”
I smile for Nixon, and glance around him for a fast peek at his brother. “I’m going for the tighty-whitey slob look tonight too, and no self-respecting woman needs witnesses to that. It was good to meet you, Nixon Rosa.” I nod in farewell, spin back to my cart, and leave the fun aisle behind.
Those guys are protective to the point of toxicity, assumptive until the point of hurt feelings, and yet, they smile enough to keep a girl on the hook and wanting just a little more.
* * *
I spend my weekend working around the house, buying what I can in town, and ordering online what I can’t. Which means my oven has arrived—installed by me, thank you very much—and my new couch now sits where the old one did.
The ugly, floral monstrosity was put on the curb for collection first thing this morning, after a whole lot of unladylike grunting and bitching by me, but before it could be removed by the people who were supposed to take it, some entrepreneurial spirit with no eye for design swooped in and hauled it away.
Works for me.
A trip to the local hardware store chews up a couple hours of my time, a whole bunch of money, and results in aching legs and feet. But it also gets me new deadbolts for the entire house, new chains and latches, a new screen door that isn’t ready to dissolve under a small wind, and several cans of paint.
I got gray for the interior walls. It’s a sexy gray, shimmery and beautiful. And I picked up a few quarts of stark white for the shutters and my new front door. Plus new brushes, new rollers, drop sheets so I don’t ruin my new couch so soon, and a cute wall hanging, because every girl deserves to impulse-buy sometimes.
My car isn’t very big, so my limitations in this remodel are purely the weight I can carry and the volume my car can transport in any one trip.
I spend all day Saturday with a paintbrush in my hands. Placing tape, painting trims, small details when it comes to painting around windows and doors. I fight with Milo when he asks for it, and steal back the things he tries to hide away; my brushes, my roll of tape. I clean up a million wrappers from foods I spent my youth eating: granola bars and candy bars, fruit sticks and sticks of gum.
My previous squatters like sugar and empty carbs, I guess.
I toss garbage bag after garbage bag onto my curb for collection, scratch my floors when I move the oven out to make room for its replacement, and when I get it onto the porch and prepare to roll it off the edge and onto the grass, I discover a rotted section of porch.
I discover it when I fall straight through it.
Note to self: re-do the porch.
My pile grows steadily over the weekend and possibly annoys the neighbors, but not one of them comes out to introduce themselves. There are people home all around me, of course—proven as cars come and go—but no one lingers out front.
The majority of cars here are newer than mine, though that’s not to say they’re crazy expensive or obnoxious. Regular cars with regular price tags putter on by. Except for one; a Humvee passes a couple times over the weekend. It doesn’t slow, doesn’t stop. It’s noticeable only because of its size. And, well, because it’s a Humvee. That’s not something I wou
ld expect to see on a residential street in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere.
Other than that, this street remains blissfully quiet. No looky-loos, no nosy old ladies who insist on knowing my every move, no cousins who demand their share of an estate they’ve yet to earn, and no Rosa brothers… intriguing as they may be.
I hang new curtains while I eat Nutella sandwiches and take a break from painting, and lay down fresh sheets when I get tired of hanging curtains. The existing washing machine, while old-fashioned and ugly, still works, so I don’t toss it out, and because I have that, I’m able to start washing my new towels and things I’ve bought for myself.
The old towels and sheets in the linen closet aren’t as eroded as I expected after decades of moth infestations, but they are ratty, so I toss them onto the curb pick-up pile without hesitation. New sheets and towels are laundered, dried, and folded, then they’re placed in the newly cleaned space.
During my cleanout, I discovered an old safe—one of those fire-proof, flood-proof kind—bolted to the floor at the bottom of my closet. But I have neither a key nor a passcode, so I walk away and leave it alone, and while I continue to work, I ponder what may be inside.
Wads of cash, or Pokémon cards? Diamonds, or dead bug bodies?
Guessing is a fun game I play with myself to keep my mind busy, though it’s possible I’ll never know for sure. Tracey is gone, and there’s no mention of the safe or its contents in any of the documents she had delivered to me.
So there it sits, taking up a large portion of my new closet; an ugly, black box with unknown contents and no way to get it off the floor and onto the curb.
Moving on.
4
Mitchell
Suspicion
Monday morning arrives despite my willing it not to. I’m due on shift at two, Nix is back on at the station at the same time, and Abby… continues on as normal.
“You are not coming into my shop today, Mitchell Rosa!” Abby storms around her apartment and works on getting dressed between bouts of shouted protests. “You are not coming in to watch that woman like she’s some kind of criminal.”
“She might be a criminal!” I sit at her dining room table and nurse a piping hot cup of coffee. “You have no clue who she is, Abigail. You didn’t do a background check. You didn’t have anyone run her driver’s license. For all you know, she has a thousand parking violations and no way to pay them.”
“And if that were true, how horrible would I be to deny her a job and a way to pay those fines?”
“It’s not your responsibility, Abby! Jesus fucking Christ.”
“Mitchell Rosa!” In jeans and a loose-fitting blouse, my baby sister storms into her kitchen the way a bear cub might storm toward a tree during play. “You do not say that word in my home! I no longer live with you guys, and this place you stand—”
“I’m sitting.”
“Is mine! This is my home, where I have ultimate say on who comes and goes. If you say that word again, I am kicking your behind out.”
“Wow,” I roll my eyes. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”
“And I will invite my lovely new assistant over for a fun girls’ night in. I’ll probably even give her the wi-fi password.”
“Abigail!”
“Zip it, Mitchell. Then go and find out when Troy is coming home.”
“Troy?” From one topic to another, I watch on helplessly as Abby turns again and heads back into the hall. “What about Troy?”
“Exactly!” she calls from her room. “He’s my oldest brother, I miss him so much that I want to be sick, and he never calls home anymore. Your job,” she stomps back in holding a pair of shoes in her hands, “is to find out where he is, and when he’s coming home.”
“My job? How the he—” When Abby’s brows shoot up high, I grunt from the frustration of having to censor myself. “Heck! How the heck am I supposed to do that?”
“I don’t know! Use your brain and come up with a plan. But I’m telling you right now, I want to hear from him soon. I want to know where he is, when he’s coming back, and I want a picture—a smiling picture—to prove he’s well and happy.”
“Abby. You know I can’t do that. He’s busy, away, and isn’t inclined to share those private details with us.”
“Usually, I’d agree.” My sister swoops in and snags my coffee cup from between my hands. “But I’m telling you that I want to know. I don’t often pull rank, but this time, I am. I want to know.”
“You have no rank, little sister. You’re a florist, not an army general.”
“And you’re but a man. Everybody knows women outrank you fools.”
“Abigail!”
“And while you’re busy doing this, you will have absolutely no time to harass the nice new lady in town. Sounds like the perfect solution to me.”
“I’m too busy for this nonsense.” Pushing up to stand, I swing an arm out when Abby attempts to pass with my coffee. Hooking it around her neck, I pull her in for a hug, and with deft movements, snag the coffee before I wear it on my shirt. “I don’t have time for you to be dropping orders around here, you know?”
“You know what would make me stop?” She wraps her arms around my hips, but arches her back so she can peer up into my eyes. “Do you, Mitchell? The Hail Mary, the ultimate way to buy time and grace?”
“I’m not bringing a girl home for dinner just so you can plan our marriage and six kids.”
“Bring a girl home to dinner!” she bursts out before I can truly finish my sentence. “Why do I have five brothers and zero sisters-in-law?”
I spin out of her hug and over toward the sink while I sip my coffee. Setting the half-full cup on the counter, I turn back to Ab and grunt. “You need to think about your own business and stay out of mine.”
“Rich,” she scoffs, “coming from you.”
“I do not want a wife yet, Ab. I do not want a girlfriend. And I sure as heck don’t have time for kids.”
“I bet you’d be a lot less grumpy if you had one of the above.”
“Highly doubtful,” I drawl. “Women stress me out. Which leads me to think that sharing a home with one would be an epic mistake. Plus, you’re all the drama I’ll ever need.” I make my way across the room so fast that Abby has no time to dodge. I plop a kiss to her forehead, roll my eyes when she smacks my stomach, then I release her and turn toward the door. “I have to get ready for work.”
“You should be asleep!” She drops down into the seat I was just sitting in, and goes to work putting her shoes on. “You’re on night shift, Mitchell, which means your butt should be in bed so you can rest.”
“I did rest. Now I’m awake and ready to come buy some pretty flowers from my sister. If Mom and Dad were in town, I’d visit them and eat a meal, but since they’re not—”
“Stay out of my shop, Mitchell! If you harass Nadia and force her to leave to escape the crazy, then I’ll shave your head while you sleep, and make you look stupid for all the girls I know you spend time with.”
That brings me up short with my hand on the doorhandle. “What?”
Abby laughs, though I swear it’s more ‘evil genius’ than humor. “I work in a flower shop, Mitchell. You think women don’t walk by, slow to touch the pretty displays, and pout about that Rosa jerk not calling them back?”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Uh huh. Sure you don’t. You’ve gotta pick one eventually.”
“No, actually, I don’t. And thank God this isn’t eighteen-fifteen Britain. You’d have already had me married off to some annoying little nit, all for the sake of cute babies to snuggle with.”
“You’d be a handsome duke,” Abby announces with a sly smirk. “You wouldn’t settle for an annoying anything. You’d have found the single remaining unwed woman with a sailor’s mouth and bad attitude.”
My lips creep up into a grin. “That, I can get on board with. Is she good in bed?”
“Mitchell Rosa!” Abby sp
ears up from her chair, but I bound out the door with a laugh before she can attack.
“Have a good day, Abby! Love you.” I slam the door closed before she can toss a shoe at my head, and then whistling under my breath, I skip along the hall and down the stairs until I emerge into warm sunlight and only a small amount of fog in the air.
Taking out my phone and ignoring the fact I have absolutely zero missed calls or texts—that’s what happens when you’re antisocial, like me—I open my text chat and start typing.
Troy. Dunno if you’ll get this, since you’re not even stateside right now, but Abby’s getting pissy about you being gone so long. She wants you back, and what she wants, she usually gets. ETA of your homecoming? I kinda miss you too, so hurry back and take over for a bit. Ab moved out of the house, and now she’s in this big-ass apartment all on her own. The guys and I are taking turns being at her table each day, but having you here would make that a little easier.
She grew up, and I’m not sure any of us were ready for that.
And while we’re on the subject, she also hired an assistant. Nadia Reynolds. Wanna check into that? I know you have friends who can. Nadia is snarky and quick-witted, and I figure, she’s either perfect for Ab, because she’s social and outgoing, or she’ll rob Ab blind, and we won’t even know till it’s too late.
I’m passing the baton to you to find out which it is.
Get back to me soon. I miss your face.
I hit send and watch the progress bar on my phone move slowly across the screen. Once the text is gone to fuck knows where, I slide into my slate gray truck and jam the keys into the ignition.
I should go home and grab another couple hours of sleep before my shift tonight. I need to be sharp for work, I need to bring my A-game every single time I step into my boots, but still, I pull out of my parking space and head left instead of right.
The beauty of living in such a small town is knowing where most people live.