by Emilia Finn
“She has pretty eyes.”
Sonia smirks and settles back into her seat. “Yes, she does. She has her father’s eyes.”
I jolt, and let my gaze whip back to hers. “You know her father?”
Smiling, she shakes her head. “No. I know of him, and of her mother too, but we’ve yet to speak. Does it bother you that the beautiful woman with nice eyes is also a therapist?”
“Well… no. I don’t know. If you’d asked me an hour ago, I would have said no. But now she’s analyzing me, and she said that thing about Dad.”
“It bothers you that she sees through the façade. She’s been learning for years, studying human behavior, trying to understand what someone is actually saying, even when they’re not speaking. And that makes you uncomfortable, because she’s not so stupid as to believe the act you put forward for the world. She knows it’s not the real you, and it took her only a few minutes to figure it out.”
“So what is the real me, huh?” I lean forward and challenge this nice old lady. “Who am I underneath?”
“A sweetheart.” She grins, and picks up her delicate teacup. “You’re in awe of your mom and dad’s relationship. You see the Hulk that he is, the one who can get overwhelmed or angry about things, and you see her, the balm that helps him settle. What you see is magic, Luke. And my professional opinion is that you’re deathly afraid of missing out on your own magic.” She stops, bounces her brows, and grins. “Am I close?”
“You’re a pain in my ass. And I’m done with today. Can you tell the judge I stayed for my whole hour?”
“Sure.” She sits back and chills the fuck out. “You’ve been ordered here for anger management. But we’ve already established you’re not angry about anything. So I see no harm in you leaving early today.”
“Yeah. Thanks.” I approach the office door, and swing it halfway open before stopping. “I’ll see you next week.”
“Goodbye, Luke.” She smirks and brings that infuriating fucking tea to her lips. “Take care and tell Jon I said hello.”
“Casey!”
I step through my mom and dad’s front door, but stop when the scent of pumpkin and spices smacks me in the face.
“Casey fucking Hart!” My dad stomps through the living room and points at a blanket in earthy browns draped over the couch.
It’s a pretty blanket, of course. As are the candles. And the sign at the front door. But the thing is, I was here only two hours ago, and in the time I’ve been gone, a tornado has passed through the living room and spewed a seasonal change all over it.
There’s a wooden sign hanging above the TV that reads FALL, that wasn’t there earlier. And on the tables beside the couches, candles. Dozens of them. Where there were bright flowers in a vase this morning, now stand dried twigs – dead shit Mom must’ve taken from the forest that surrounds the estate their house is on.
“Casey!” Dad booms. “I’m calling you.”
“What?”
My mom is tiny. The smallest of all the people on this estate besides the babies. Five feet, two inches tall… though if you asked her, she would lie and say five-three. She’s sassy and mean, witty and crazy. She’s got a penchant for high heels – a collection that comes in handy, considering Dad is more than a foot taller than she, then add in that she had twin boys after years of fertility issues, both of whom grew to resemble that father in height and looks. She needs those heels just so she can pretend she isn’t cute when she’s losing her shit.
She stomps into the living room now, and growls when she catches sight of Dad pulling up the brown blanket. “Jon! Stop touching my shit.”
“It’s not fall yet,” he snaps. “It’s still hot outside. The nights are still long, we still use the cooling. So why the hell are you pretending it’s cold out?”
“It’s time to decorate for the change of season.” She snatches the blanket from his hands, and goes to work re-folding and draping it over the back of the couch. “Stop touching my things.”
“I’m not ready for summer to be over!” He grabs my mom, lifts her clean off her feet, and grins when she kicks out like a toddler. “I like the summer, Casey. The sunshine makes me happy.”
“So go outside and sit in it.” She wrestles her way out of his hold and turns back to spar. “You sit out there in the heat. I’ll stay in here and decorate.”
“It’s not time for this yet!”
“I decorate at the exact same time every single year, Jon Hart. You need to stop fighting me on it, and just do as you’re damn well told. Did you get that box down from the attic like I asked?”
“No! Because it has candles and heavy shit. I don’t wanna get it down.”
Mom looks to me. Arches a single brow.
And I’m off. “I got it.”
“Luke!” Dad calls after me as I jog out of the room. “Don’t listen to her crazy. She doesn’t need the candles. She just got a whole new fucking delivery today. She’s fine!”
“Get me the damn box, Luke. Then help me decorate, and while we do that, you can tell me about your day.”
I climb the stairs and head toward the second floor, but I call back in answer, “I saw Sonia today. She said hey.”
“Sonia?” Like the name flipped a light switch, Dad changes tack and leaves his wife in the living room to fix what he messed up. He follows me up the stairs with a gleeful grin. “She’s well?”
I stop in the hall between the bathroom and my childhood bedroom. Pulling the string attached to the attic door, I let the timber structure slide down until it touches the floor, then, giving it a shake to make sure it’s stable, I start on up.
“Yeah, she’s well. She said to say hello. I think she misses the shit out of you.”
“She said that?” Dad follows me up the ladder, but stops at the top while I climb into the attic. “She misses me?”
“I’m fairly certain she considers you her son. So yeah, she misses you. Fuck.” I look around at the mess; boxes stacked on boxes, old and broken toys tossed haphazardly, like someone thinks Rob and I plan to come up and play with that shit like we’re still seven.
Groaning, I look around in search of a box labeled ‘the candles Dad doesn’t want displayed all over the house.’ “There is so much shit in here, Dad.”
“It’s your mother,” he growls. “Fall decorations. Then Christmas. Then spring, since I guess the weather outside isn’t enough indicator for us.”
“Valentine’s Day,” I read the words scribbled on the side of a box. “She’s got Valentine’s stuff.”
“Yeah, because if we don’t wipe our hands on a red towel littered in hearts in February, then we’re all doomed.”
I snort and make my way through the boxes. “The Christmas tree decorations are by the summer stuff.”
“Hide it,” he grumbles. “Rip the tag off and hide it. Then we can watch her search in a few months.”
“Your ass knows it won’t be her up here searching. It’ll be us, so no, I’m not ripping tags off. With stupid ideas like that floating around your head, I’m surprised she hasn’t killed you yet.”
“Ha.” He chuckles. “Same. Don’t worry, she likes it when we argue. It’s like foreplay for us.”
“Dad! I didn’t need to know that.”
I grab the box labeled Fall Candles, and make my way back through the mess. Dust covers every surface. Spiderwebs dangle from the rafters. The bottom of the box I’m carrying sags, which means we’re going to have to pack these things away in a new box, or risk it all disintegrating by next year.
But I ignore all that and set the parcel down in front of where Dad stands at the hatch. “Take this. Careful the ass doesn’t fall through.”
He grabs the box easily, holds it in one arm, and begins his descent. “So Sonia’s well? How does she look?”
“She’s fine.” I follow him down, one slow step after the other, and drop onto the floor when I reach the second to last ladder rung. Brushing dust off my shoulders, I lift the ladder again and pac
k it all away. “She’s still as sharp as always. I actually feel bad for you.”
“Me?” He adjusts the box in his arms and waits for me to finish with the ladder and door. “Why?”
“Well, she’s witty and suffers no fools now. I can only imagine she was sharper twenty years ago.”
“She was always so mean to me,” he jokes. “She didn’t let me make excuses about any damn thing. It was some new-fangled bullshit about taking personal responsibility and not making excuses.”
“Blah blah blah.” I snort and follow him to the top of the stairs, then down. “Her and her ‘stop being a little bitch’ hooey. Must’ve been frustrating as hell.”
“She really said hey?”
“Lord, Dad. She really did. Do you seriously doubt her love for you?”
He shrugs.
He tries to act cool, but inside, I’m certain there are parts of him that thrill at the idea of his former therapist loving him. He’s the grown man with epic mommy issues, because his own was a piece of shit.
“Maybe you should call the office,” I suggest. “Ask Calla to give you a slot. Sonia would flip to spend an hour with her baby. Plus, you’ve got all these new issues that need resolution.”
“Not wanting to decorate for a new season when the old season hasn’t ended isn’t a fucking issue.” He dumps the box on the couch and turns to Mom. “It’s not fall!”
“I’m gonna knock you the hell out and make you fall, Jon Hart. Shut up and check the box for spiders.”
“Check the box your damn self, woman.”
Mom drops her hands to her hips. She taps her foot on the floor. And lifts a brow.
“Yeah.” He rips the box open. “I got it.”
He’s such a fucking sucker.
Pleased with herself, Mom comes around as he bends over the box and searches its contents. Wrapping her arms around his hips before he realizes she’s there, she makes him her little spoon, and presses her cheek to the middle of his back until his pretend-scowl turns to the peace and love I grew up knowing.
My parents don’t fight. Not real fights. What they do is bicker, they test each other, they send each other crazy, and then they take pleasure in hugging and making up.
“I love you, Leo.”
“Love you too, Sunshine.” He stands tall and spins in her arms so fast that her cheek touches his back one moment, then his chest the very next. “I love you so much that I’m gonna tolerate pumpkin spice candles for the next three months. And dead flowers in a vase, and weird shit on every surface.”
She closes her eyes and smiles. “That’s a lot of love.”
“Yeah.” He buries his face in the top of her hair and inhales. “And it’s really easy. Luke, go away. Mom and Dad wanna talk grownup stuff.”
“Fuckin’ sick,” I grumble. I’m sent into the attic to save a box of crap, and then I’m dismissed like I don’t matter.
Shaking my head and pretending like their love doesn’t thrill me, I move through the living room and out onto the front deck until a blast of heat smacks me in the face and reminds me it’s not fall. Not even close.
She’s in there fighting for spices and candles, when out here, it’s still ninety degrees, and the sun burns.
I stop on the edge of my parents’ porch for a moment, and simply stare out at the home I was raised in.
I grew up, not on a regular street with regular neighbors and a regular life, but rather, on an estate, with seven homes, a homemade skate ramp, a swimming pool, and a billion cousins all within spitting distance. Of those seven houses, one of which we live in, Dad’s best friend lives in another, his best friend’s brothers live in two more, with his baby sister, my Aunt Iz, living with one right across the street from us. Next door is my Uncle Aiden, and the house on the end is Uncle Jack.
This entire estate is made up of family, the best friend kind, and though all the rest of them have blood to bond them, there has never been a moment where the Harts felt out of place while living in a wonderland of Kincaids – as in, world-title-holding fight champion Kincaids.
Around here, family is family, and anyone who wants to argue differently will find their asses booted out and sent packing.
Glancing down at my watch, I study the time and frown for no reason except that it’s five o’clock and no one is here to play. I might be an adult now, but still, walking out onto the porch, my whole life, has meant playing with my friends. But now we’re all older, and we’re starting to leave the estate. New homes, new families, new adventures. The treehouses in the forest are going abandoned, and the go karts we built over the years lay stacked and forgotten in garages.
My brother and I are the younger cousins of the group, the twenty-one-year-olds, when many of the others are closing in on thirty, but despite the age gap, we were never excluded from the craziness. Perhaps, if you asked them, they’d say Rob and I were the ones who brought the crazy.
It’s not entirely factual, but we’re mostly okay with that reputation.
Stepping down off the porch when there’s no movement from any of the houses, I make my way to my two-door, beat-up SUV. It has a bench seat in the front, no seats in the back. The weather has wreaked havoc on this old thing, so the leather is torn and cracked, the floor is dusty and edging toward rusted out. But the engine purrs, and because I had off-road wheels put on the moment I bought it, I can take the Bronco places the law tends to frown upon, and Rob and I can have fun four-wheeling and defying death.
It’s what we do.
Climbing into the driver’s side and stabbing the keys into the ignition, I grab my phone and hit dial, put it on speaker, then tossing it to the passenger seat, I pull out of Mom and Dad’s driveway and head toward the security gate at the front of the estate.
“Yeah?” Rob answers with panting breath. The sounds of fists hitting muscle thud in the background, and beneath that, a stereo blasts and helps everyone train harder.
“You’re at the gym?”
“Nope. I’m at a ballet recital. You?”
“I’m at the house, but Mom and Dad just fought over fall decorations.”
“Dad asked you to leave?” he questions with a sneer in his voice. “Now they’re doing it?”
“Yup. They’re totally doing it, so I needed to skedaddle. You nearly done at the gym?”
“Nah, I’ve been working with clients all day. I had to wait for Bry and Ben to be free, so now I’m working with them. By the way; Bry’s being weird. He’s keeping secrets.”
“Get the fuck off the phone,” Bryan snaps from somewhere nearby. “I have places to be. You’re wasting my time.”
“He’s grumpy too,” Rob laughs. “I’m sparring with them both, since they’re heavyweights and annoying.”
“It’s easy to hit someone who’s annoying.”
Totally rational, it all totally makes sense. Never mind the fact Bry is our cousin and we love the hell out of him.
“Exactly,” Rob answers. “You coming over here?”
“Um…” I pass through the estate gates and onto the road while they close up behind me, and though I move toward town, I shake my head before I even consciously make the decision. “Nah. I’m not into it today, so I might head on over to the lake to work on the pier. Put some more hours in and get that bitch done.”
“I can come over when I’m done here. I’ll help you check out the beautiful women in bikinis.”
I snort and turn right, toward the lake, rather than left, if I was planning to go to the gym. “What the fuck was that judge thinking, huh? Here, delinquent, let me plop you into a sea of beautiful women. Do whatever you want while there, but make sure you lift a few nails while you’re staring.”
“She clearly had no clue who she was working with,” he grunts out. “Okay, I gotta go. Ben’s giving me the beady eye.” He laughs. “He’s grumpy too.”
“Ben’s always fuckin’ grumpy. You know where to find me later if you decide to come out this way.”
“Yup. I’ll be anot
her couple hours.”
“Alright. If I don’t see you here, I’ll catch you at the apartment.”
“Deal. See ya, Pukey Lukey.”
I scoff. “Later, Fart. Fuckin’ lame-ass name, by the way.”
He hangs up, blocking my immaturity out easily – anyone would think he’s had practice at it – and so while he goes back to sparring with heavyweight champions, I head toward the lake and pull up on the dirt about thirty or so feet from the water’s edge.
Large stone cubes have been laid down as a perimeter, so we can’t drive closer to the water, and beyond those blocks of stone, grass grows, lush and green.
Killing the engine and snatching my keys from the ignition, I slide out onto my sneakers and take a look at the diamonds sparkling on the water’s surface as the sun slowly begins its descent toward the horizon. There are still a couple hours of sunlight left, but while it goes, I’ll be treated to a show of brilliance, of sparkling colors reflecting off the lake, and since there’s a gentle breeze, but not so much that it’s annoying, I intend to spend a couple hours baking and soaking up the vitamins that, two months from now when all of the trees have dropped their leaves and snow threatens, I’ll be dying for.
Slamming my car door, I drop my hands into my pockets and head toward the pier I’ve already had blocked off. Yellow warning tape surrounds the space to keep looky-loos away, but seriously, yellow warning tape is like a beacon for guys like me.
If it says stay away, then you can bet your ass I come closer. If it says danger, then it’s guaranteed I need to find the danger and test it.
It’s in my DNA.
So I cross this line now, the warning tape, and I shake my head, because I know for a damn fact someone would have come looking overnight, both last night and the night before. There will be someone here every single day until the tape is removed.
But hell, who knows, maybe my trespassers will remove a couple nails while they’re here.
Ally
It’s Me. I’m the Looky-Loo