by Vivian Wood
I was still buttoning up my coat when the car screeched in to the lot of Lowry Funeral home. It had the shiny glaze of newness on it, and the plates were from out of state. I tracked it as it circled slowly before it finally, almost begrudgingly, shoved its way into the last spot in the row.
My heart was already racing. Grief and worry spun around in my head, crashing into each other until a new emotion was born.
Fucking rage.
I threw open the funeral home door, ignoring the slam that ricocheted like a gunshot off the low rolling hills, and tore down the stairs to stand guard. Fuck him if he thought he was going to rush in and interrupt the service like some hero. He could wait til it was all over and live with the fact he'd missed it. Like hell was I going to let him make Gid's funeral all about him.
The car sat silent at the end of the row for a moment. Leaves skittered across the pavement in the chilly breeze, but anger had me warm enough that it may as well have been a blazing hot day in June. I took a breath, ready to storm down to the car and confront him right then.
But finally the door opened and Jonah King leaped out.
His haircut wasn't a surprise. The tabloid that covered it was still sitting in the dentist's office six months after the fact. I'd seen him, even as I pretended to avoid him. He was still working, honing his solo career after the King Brothers broke up two years ago. He'd opened a leg of Wreckage's US tour, played festivals, and showed up for bit parts and cameos in B-movies. His face was as familiar to me as my own at this point. So I knew exactly how upset he was right now.
But anger tightened in my chest all the same. "You missed it," I called.
He stopped short. "Ruby," he exhaled, taking me in. "You cut your hair."
There was a brief flash of pleasure tinged confusion that he would have noticed that, but I crossed my arms over my chest all the same. "The priest is giving the blessing," I went on as if he hadn't interrupted. "Your dad already gave the eulogy, so..." I trailed off. He was fifty yards away from me, across a bitterly cold parking lot, but I could still feel it.
That magnetism. The thing that made him a star at fourteen and had kept him in the limelight all this time.
I fucking hated it.
"So yeah," I went on, stepping into the lot. "You basically missed it all."
Jonah threw up his hands. "West Ridge was closed!" he complained, distress written in every line of his body. "I had to go all the way up to Johnson Bridge to get across."
"It's been closed two years now," I said pointedly. "Ever since the flood."
He pressed his lips together in frustration and hissed out a low breath of pissed off recollection. "Right."
"If you'd come home since then..."
"I got it, Ruby," he interrupted, raking his hand through his dark hair. For one moment, his face was pure heartbreak, but as quickly as it came, he smoothed it away and forced his face back down into its usual arrogant smirk. He shook his head. "Anything else you want to say or can I go in and be with my family now?"
"Yeah I have something to say." I crossed my arms. "You should wait."
"You said it was almost done, I don't want to miss it." He stepped to the side.
I stepped right into his path. He was a full head taller than me now, something I never remembered about him until I saw him face to face. Or rather, face to collarbone.
He glowered a second and stepped to the right. I countered him.
"We should have had you in the band," he muttered. "You're a good dancer. But let me by."
"No."
"Ruby, he's my uncle."
"And he was my best friend!" I blurted.
He paused and looked down at me. "I thought my sister was your best friend."
My voice broke. "She was. I mean, she is." It was hitting me. Tenses were fucking me up. My words got ahead of my brain, coming out in a desperate, angry flood. "Gid is... he was a different kind of friend, like more of a mentor and I can't believe this! Like, he was working on the school play just last week and telling me about the music he was writing for it and now he's gone and.."
The sobs I'd been holding back all through the service suddenly broke free, which pissed me off because the last thing I wanted to do was cry in front of Jonah King. I wanted to rage at him for too many reasons to even count right now, but instead of quailing under the force of my righteous fury he suddenly pulled me into a hug.
I froze. His arms were around me, my nose pressed into his chest. "It's okay," he breathed. "I know. My uncle was a special guy, for sure."
I stiffened but for some reason I couldn't push him away. I hated that I didn't start hitting him. I hated that I wasn't yelling at the top of my lungs for him to let go, that didn't need his comfort.
Apparently I did. Because as he pulled me to him, my tears came harder and faster. I gulped great breaths, trying to stop my sobs and in the process filled my lungs with the smell of Jonah. He smelled fancier somehow, but I still could detect a little bit of something familiar there, the same scent that lingered in the air when he would pass through the room where Claire, Willa, Sadie and I were playing. I knew that scent and I knew him too, which was why my body sagged into his and I allowed myself to soak his shirt. But I hated him, and hated myself, the whole time I was doing it.
"It's okay," he said again, more hesitant this time. I felt his arms tighten around me, his fingers sinking into the wool of my coat. Clinging, even. Like he needed my comfort as much as I needed his.
His familiar scent was playing havoc with my memories, steeped in tender nostalgia. My body didn't feel connected to my brain anymore.
To my shock, I felt my own arms reach up and squeeze him.
He exhaled in a rush and pulled back. The corner of his mouth tugged into that same studied smile I'd seen on posters and magazine covers my whole fucking life. "Thanks, Ruby. I think I needed that." And in one smooth motion he stepped around me and bounded into the funeral home.
I watched him with my mouth open, wanting to say something but not knowing what the hell it was.
He was such a fucking asshole.
I followed him back into the vestibule and it was only then that I remembered I hadn't gotten Izzy shoes.
Chapter Two
Jonah
I ran inside, convinced Ruby was deliberately making a scene to get sympathy. And I'd obliged her, enjoying the feel of her little body pressed against mine a lot more than I was expecting. But when I stepped into the vestibule, I realized she'd actually been telling the truth.
I'd missed it.
I'd fucking missed it.
I felt the sick realization settle into my limbs, weighing me down. And then right after it came the dull detachment as I pulled back from that awful feeling, unready and unwilling to feel it fully yet. This was Gid's funeral and I'd fucked up and missed it. I knew the despair was going to hit me soon enough, but right now all I could do was sigh as I opened the second set of doors and entered the funeral home.
The sickeningly floral smell hit me first - nothing natural or fresh smelling about those flower arrangements, they all smelled like they'd been spritzed with old lady perfume - and then the sound of scraping chairs and stretching bodies. The service was over and everyone was making to leave and no one seemed to be looking for me, or towards me, at all.
It was odd. I couldn't remember the last time I entered a room without all eyes on me.
The pissed off adrenaline over the closed bridge was slowly draining away, leaving behind a muddy sort of unreality. Half because I was in a funeral home and that was my Uncle Gid in a box over there. And half because I was back in Crown Creek and I hadn't seen any of these people in almost two years. I stood there for a moment, trying and failing to collect myself, to call on the years of being in front of an audience to pull myself together, but the old creeping anger was still raising the hairs on the back of my neck. And it only got worse when I caught sight of my brothers. I touched the flask in my back pocket. I'd filled it with the good shit when
I'd left very my hotel in Ohio very early this morning, knowing I might need a lot of help to get through this day.
Beau had been the one to call me, and at first I thought it was some kind of sick joke. Maybe a cheap trick to get me to come home and force a reconciliation with my brothers. I'd even been hoping that the closer I got to Crown Creek, because the alternative was too insane to bear. Uncle Gideon, dead? That couldn't possibly be true.
That last hope had drained away when I pulled into the parking lot and saw my parents' car in the lot. Now all I had was detachment, and fucking despair.
My sister Claire was the first to notice me hovering in the background. "JoJo!" she cried, in that voice of hers where you don't know if she's going to hug you or slug you.
I let out a laugh that was more like an exhale than anything else. "Hey," was all I managed to say. The casket was looming there in the front. I couldn't take my eyes off it.
"There you are!" my mother cried, immediately stepping past my blank faced brothers to fold me into her arms. She had a way of pulling you down into her hugs, trapping you in a hunched over posture that quickly grew uncomfortable, but there'd be hell to pay if you tried to wiggle out of her embrace. You had to let her hold you for as long as she needed.
She needed to hold on to me a long while now. I sort of got it. I didn't mean to let two years go by without returning to Crown Creek. I really didn't. Not intentionally, anyway. It was just a matter of having a lot of work to do, being so damn busy carving out a solo career, rebuilding from the ashes of the King Brothers.
"Hey there," I said to her, because what else was there to say? I tried to straighten up without disturbing my mother's hug and caught my father's eye. "Dad," I sighed. "I'm so sorry."
My father blinked once and then nodded. He was never one for outward displays of affection, that was my mom's job. "You drive here?" he asked me.
"There's really no other way to get all the way out here, right?" I replied, standing up as my mother finally released me. "Crown Creek isn't exactly a hotbed for public transit.
Dad let the snarky comment slide. "How's your rental?"
"It's fine, Dad."
"Did you check the air pressure in the tires?"
I blinked. "It's a rental. They do that for you."
"Jonah's used to having people do things for him." Gabe piped up, managing to smile wide enough that everyone laughed except me.
"It's a rental," I repeated.
But my Dad was already putting on his coat, mumbling about checking the oil. As he stepped aside, the casket came back into view again.
I ducked past my sister's eager smile, my mom's sad one, and my brothers' uniform glowers. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the funeral director hovering, like a black-suited shadow. The service was most definitely over now, and they were probably waiting to whisk my uncle out of sight, down to the crematory to reduce him to nothing more than gray ashes.
I swallowed back the bile this thought raised. Fuck it. They could wait. "I'm going up there," I told them all. "To say goodbye." If my brothers wanted to give me any kind of shit - whether about being late, being successful without them, or maybe just about the shoes I was wearing - they were going to have to do it while I was saying goodbye to my uncle.
There was a kneeler set up by the side of the casket. I supposed it was there in case I wanted to say a prayer for Gid's soul, but he didn't need that from me. Better or worse, he was already headed to where he was ending up. This moment was all for me.
I forced myself to look down at the body. The set of Gid's mouth was all wrong, and his hair was combed straight back all neat and proper like instead of falling all over the place like a gray-maned lion.
"You look like shit, man," I said under my breath.
This would have normally earned me a smart retort, maybe a smack on the back of the head and then an invite down to the shed for a jam session and a sip - "just a sip so your dad doesn't kill me" - from the 'good Scotch.' I'd had all different kinds of Scotch by now, but none had been so smooth, so perfectly balanced as the stuff my uncle would slip me.
I blinked and then blinked again. Gid was the dad I should have had, I'd always secretly believed it. He was the one who'd given me my first guitar. He was the one who'd taught me to watch people's eyebrows so eye contact didn't freak me out, a trick I'd used in countless interviews since then. Gid had sat there quietly and listened to my dreams, and more than that, he'd told me I'd make them happen. Instead of telling me to be practical and have a back-up plan like the man I'd actually called Dad. Gid was my cheerleader, the only one who understood the all consuming ambition that drove me, and instead of calling me crazy, he'd celebrated it. Maybe he thought the music I played was shit - he'd definitely told me that once or twice or twenty times - but he always admired me for devoting my life to playing it.
I blinked again. The tear fell before I could catch it and landed on Gid's navy-blue lapel where it pooled for a moment before soaking in to the fabric.
I reached back and pulled out my flask. My hands were shaking, but I managed to get it unscrewed. The quick sip burned the tears away and I took a deep breath. It was good Scotch. Just like Gid liked.
The funeral director cleared his throat, I had half a mind to give him the finger, but an idea occurred to me.
Quick, before I could think about it, I slipped the flask in next to Gid's arm. "Here, Uncle Gid," I whispered. "In case you get thirsty."
I stepped back quickly before I lost my shit completely. The hovering shadow got closer and I nodded. "Yeah," I said, clearing my throat. "I'm done."
I was done. Gid was gone.
I felt like a part of me had died alongside him.
I blinked away so I didn't have to see them close the coffin and wheel it out of sight, and that was when I saw my sister's friend Ruby watching me and realized she had seen the whole thing.
Chapter Three
Jonah
Ruby was looking at me like I'd just undone my belt and taken a shit on the carpet. I lifted my hand in salute and she turned back to talking with my sister's friends like she was done with me.
But that was all an act, because she clearly wasn't done yet. She caught up with me again in the vestibule, as we all stood there arguing about who was driving who to the wake.
"You've got a lot of nerve," she said. It came out in a hiss between her teeth as she tugged her coat on so hard she popped a seam.
I looked down at her. I usually hated short hair on girls, but I had to admit this new haircut worked for her. Made her huge, dark eyes look even huger, and her delicate, heart shaped face even more doll-like.
Ruby Riley had always seemed like the most level-headed of my spoiled little sister's best friends. I'd picked up her story here and there, how her dad had died of a heart attack when she was ten and her mother had to work two jobs all the time. It meant she spent a lot of time at our house, underfoot, but I'd never thought she had any reason to dislike me.
Of course, she'd never seemed to really like me either. Not like Claire's other friend Willa who was forever trying to bring me snacks.
But she also wasn't an airhead like that girl Sadie, who was always mooning over something and spent a frightening amount of time pretending to be a horse.
No, of the four of them, Ruby was the least annoying, and I included my sister in that count.
Which was why I couldn't figure out why she was being so annoying right now. She'd said something about Gid being her friend, but he was my goddamn uncle for chrissakes, so it wasn't like she had any right to get her panties in a twist about me being late.
So I smiled. That usually worked pretty well for me. "I know," I told her. "People say that a lot."
"People say you have a lot of nerve, a lot?" Now instead of looking at me like I'd shit on the carpet, she looked like she'd smelled it.
"You've got to have a lot of nerve. In my line of work."
That earned me a huff and an eyeroll, but at least she sto
pped trying to zap me with her eyeballs.
Claire was doing her bossy-baby-sister routine, walking around informing everybody how to get to our house as if the entire town didn't know where its most famous residents lived.
"And don't forget that West Ridge is closed!" Ruby piped up, letting her eyes flick over to me.
I didn't have time to respond before my mother had me by the elbow. "You're staying with us, right?" she asked. Her fingers dug tightly into my arm,
I took a deep breath. Half of me wanted to protest that I was staying at a hotel, that I needed to get going in the morning. But that's what Gabe and my brothers would expect me to do, and fuck it, it was my home too. "Is my old room okay?"
She looked worried. "I might have some stuff in there. Storage and all. I'll have to move it around, get some sheets on your bed."
"It's fine, Mom," I told her, gently lifting her fingers from my arm. "I'll meet you over there, okay?"
That same sense of floating unreality I'd had in the funeral home only got stronger as I followed the knot of cars back to the house where I grew up. Everything seemed smaller, and the watery gray of the weak November light gave everything a flat, two dimensional feel.
The King house, as it was known even before it became known as the King Brothers' House, was a big rambling yellow farmhouse situated at the top of a small rise. The creek took a sharp, ninety degree turn right at the corner of our yard, forming a natural barrier between us and the next house over. The yard -if you can call seven acres a 'yard' - sloped sharply down to the creek and was dotted with the various sheds and outbuildings my father had erected to house his tools and projects.
The biggest one - nearly the size of a two bedroom house - was situated right alongside the bank of the creek. It was where Gid and Izzy had been living for the past nine years. The unreality sharpened as I pulled into the driveway and stared at it. Even thought I had just seen him laid out in his casket, some small part of me wanted to head down there right now to say hello,