by Gemma Weir
23
Alice
I watch my sister until Phil guides her out of the door. She was crying. I don’t think I’ve seen my sister cry since Dad was arrested and our life started to spin out of control. Why was she so upset? My mind whirs as I try to understand her behavior.
She’s here, which is weird enough to start off with.
She bought her boyfriend who I haven’t met before, but who isn’t at all what I expected.
Now she’s crying.
I really just don’t get it.
Granger wiggles beneath me, his lips finding my neck. “I’m so fucking proud of you, honey. You stood up to her, you called her on all her shit. I love you so much.”
“Was I too mean?” I ask, suddenly worried.
“No. You weren’t mean at all, you were honest. I’m guessing you guys have never talked about her leaving before?”
“Yesterday was the first time I’ve actually spoken to her since she went to basic training,” I say with a nonchalant shrug. “I don’t want her to be upset, I just don’t know what she’s doing here and why she was looking at me the way she was.”
“I’m gonna guess that your sister probably has as many unresolved feelings about you as you do about her. I was worried about her coming here, but now I’ve seen the two of you together, I think you both need this.”
“Shots,” Teddy calls from beside us, taking the huge tray of pink, sparkly shots from the waitress and smiling widely at me. “These pink enough for you?”
I giggle. “Definitely.”
He hands me one, then offers them around the table, smiling widely as he passes one to a reluctant Beau who eyes the pink, glittery concoction like it might actually poison him.
When everyone except Cora, Granger and Cody have shots, Teddy raises his glass toward me. “To our new sister. Now you have six new brothers and two new sisters, know that one of us will always be there to drink pink, sparkly shots with you.”
Everyone cheers and I smile, saluting my new family with my glass before I throw it back, humming in approval as the sweet and fruity bubblegum flavored liquor hits my throat. Lowering my empty glass to the table, I watch as the rest of the glasses are drained, till only a still grimacing Beau is left. “Only for you, little one. This shit smells disgusting,” he says, throwing the shot back. “Fuck, I think I just discovered what unicorn shit tastes like.”
I can’t help it, I laugh and I don’t stop laughing for the rest of the afternoon. We drink, eat bar food and talk, and for the first time it dawns on me that I’m truly one of them now. I’m a Barnett. I have an amazing husband and a wonderful new family. I’m not alone and it feels liberating.
“Come on, honey,” Granger coos, as he reels me in, my fingers entwined with his as I weave down the sidewalk back to the car.
“I want you to fuck me on the hood of your car,” I announce a lot too loudly.
“Woohoo,” one of the guys hoots from behind me, reminding my drunk brain that we’re not alone.
“It’s too cold to fuck you outside,” Granger laughs.
“Don’t we have a garage? You could park your car in the garage and then fuck me on the hood.”
“No, honey, we don’t have a garage.”
“We should get a garage. Hey Cody, can you build us a garage?” I shout, trying to turn my head to look behind me, but every time I do, my whole body turns and I almost fall.
“I’ll build you a garage, sis, I’ll even put heating in it so you guys can fuck in the warm,” Cody says, obviously amused.
I nod, like that makes total sense. “Will it be done by the time we get home?”
“Nah, sorry, you guys are gonna need to fuck in your bed tonight.”
“That sucks,” I say sadly.
“Hey, what’s wrong with our bed?” Granger teases.
“Nothing. I just think it’d be hot for you to spread me out over the smooth metal and eat me, then fill me up with your cum.” I sigh wistfully.
“Jesus, honey,” Granger groans, pulling me to him and slapping his hand over my mouth. “You need to stop talking, my dick is hard and you’re gonna be passed out or puking by the time we get home.”
“Nuh huh, I can hold my drink. I never get drunk,” I protest.
“You’re drunk now, sweetie,” Cora calls. “I fucking hate not drinking, it’s the worst bit about being pregnant.”
“I’m glad I’m not pregnant, pink shooters are fun,” Bonnie says from where she’s being carried over Beau’s shoulder, her hair hanging down over her face.
“Don’t worry, baby girl, we’re gonna work on changing that when we get home. I want your belly full with my kid,” Beau growls, reaching up and smacking her ass.
“Can we just do anal instead? I don’t wanna get pregnant when I won’t remember the sex,” she whines.
“No. I’m gonna fuck you over and over till I knock you up,” Beau snarls, spanking her again.
“If finding your woman means turning down anal, then I hope I never fucking find mine,” Bay says with a dramatic shudder.
We reach the cars and the conversation quiets as Granger bundles me into the passenger seat, leaning over me to clip my seatbelt into place, taking care of me the way he always does. “I really love you,” I tell him, my words sounding a little slurred, which is weird.
“I love you too. But I need you to tell me if you’re gonna puke, so I can pull over.”
“I’m not gonna puke, I’m not that drunk,” I protest.
“Honey, you’re as drunk as a skunk. Just remember to tell me if you’re gonna get sick.”
I nod, wiggling in my seat to get comfortable, my eyes starting to feel a little heavy. Maybe I am a little sleepy. I should have a power nap, that way I can be awake and refreshed for all the sexing.
Sexing with Granger is fun.
His soft chuckle is the last thing I remember as sleep pulls me under.
I’m hot, my mouth tastes like ass and my stomach is churning when I wake up, disoriented. I’m in bed, my head rested on Granger’s lap, the low hum of the tv playing softly.
“Morning sleepyhead,” he says from above me, his fingers stroking my head as I blink the sleep from my eyes.
“Morning.” Pushing myself upright, I shuffle over so I can curl into his side, instead of lying with my head resting on his dick.
“Here,” he says, holding out two tablets and an open bottle of water for me.
Taking the pills, I swallow them down with the water and try to piece together what happened before we got home last night. “Teddy was right, pink shooters are dangerous,” I say, my voice gravelly.
“They are when you have six of them between rounds of beer. I’m actually amazed you didn’t puke.”
“Is everyone else okay?”
“Bonnie’s in bed, she started throwing up as soon as we got back last night, Beau’s taking care of her. Teddy and Penn looked a bit worse for wear this morning, but this isn’t any of their first hangovers.”
“What time is it?”
“Just after eleven.”
“Weren’t we supposed to have breakfast with Serenity and Phil?”
“I text them already, they’re coming for lunch instead.”
“Oh,” I say quietly, burying my face into Granger’s naked chest and trying to ignore the anxiety that bursts to life in my stomach.
“It’s gonna be fine. Come on, let me take care of you before they get here.”
I nod, my eyes closed as I nuzzle a little deeper into his chest.
Laughing softly, he lifts me into his arms and carries me to the shower, climbing in with me once the water is warm enough. He washes my skin, then my hair, running conditioner through it and even offering to shave my legs, which I’m happy I can decline, before he lifts me from the shower and wraps me in a huge fluffy towel, sitting me on the counter while he brushes my teeth and combs the knots out of my hair.
I’m more than capable of doing all these things for myself, but my hangover mixes
with the need to have someone care for me the way he does, is too much temptation to resist.
“I love looking after you like this,” he says as he helps me slide my feet into the panties he’s picked out for me.
“Do you, or are you just saying that to make me feel better?”
“No honey, I fucking love it. I hope you always need me like this.”
“I love it,” I confess. “I love you.”
“I love you too.”
When I’m dressed, he offers to blow dry my hair, then laughs when I wince at the thought of the noise. “Come on, let’s go make brunch. I’ll make you one of my hangover smoothies, you’ll feel better in no time.”
“It doesn’t have raw eggs in it, does it?” I ask, feeling queasy just from the thought.
“No,” he chuckles, leaving me at the breakfast bar while he pulls ingredients from the refrigerator, chopping stuff and dumping it into a blender. “Cover your ears.”
I do as he suggests, lifting my hands to cup my ears as he turns the blender on, turning whatever he’s put in there into mush. A couple of minutes later he turns it off and pours the purply, green liquid into a glass and hands it to me.
Taking it, I lift it to my nose and sniff cautiously. “What’s in it?”
“Best not to ask, just drink it, it tastes good and it’ll make you feel better. I’ll get lunch started.”
Exhaling, I lift the glass to my lips and take a tentative sip. It tastes weird, but not bad, so I keep sipping it while Granger moves around the kitchen. “Do you want me to help?”
“Can you cook with a hangover?”
“No, but then I can’t really cook without a hangover either,” I shrug.
“I’ll teach you when you’re feeling better.”
An hour later, I feel almost human and Granger has cooked up a feast. The guys have a schedule for the chores around the house, which I haven’t been added to, but according to Cora and Bonnie, it took them months to get the guys to add them to it, so it makes sense that I haven’t been given any weekly jobs just yet.
Bonnie and Beau left to go over to her dad’s ranch a while ago, so it’s just Granger and I in the house as we wait for my sister and her boyfriend to arrive. I’m nervous, but not as fearful as I was yesterday. I think Granger is right, we both need to have this conversation that’s been brewing for a decade. I’m just not sure if it will end up with us trying to reclaim our relationship or ultimately cutting ties for good.
A knock at the door pulls me from my thoughts as I jump up from my spot on the couch and move to open it. “Hey,” I say to my sister and her guy, opening the door wide. “Come on in.”
Granger wipes his hands on a towel and moves to me, curling an arm around my waist as they move into the living room, their eyes moving over the space and taking in the details of the house.
“This is some place.”
“Thanks,” Granger says, reaching out to shake Phil’s hand. “My daddy built this place.”
“Wow, is it just you guys that live here?”
“No, we all live here, we’re just renovating and creating private living spaces and extra bedrooms for any kids that come along.”
“So like a mountain commune,” Serenity snips.
Granger’s laugh is soft and amused. “No. This is our home, and none of us wanted to move out. Once the girls started to move in, we figured it made more sense to just build on to this place rather than knock the house down and build seven separate homes. This way we all have our own space, but this will be communal space so we can all spend time together as a family.”
“How many of you are there?” Phil asks. “I know you introduced us yesterday, but it was a big day.”
“Beau is the oldest, he’s married to Bonnie, then Bay, Cody and me, then Huck who is engaged to Cora, Penn, and Teddy is the baby.”
“Wow, I’m an only child, the idea of having six siblings is crazy to me,” Phil says, obviously trying to fill the silence.
“Can I get you a drink?” I ask, suddenly feeling like I need to play hostess. “Coffee or juice, soda? I’d offer you a beer, but honestly I’m still hungover and I don’t think I can handle smelling any alcohol for a while.”
“Coffee would be great.”
“Cream, sugar?”
“Both for me,” Phil says.
“Serenity?” I ask, looking at my sister for the first time since she came into the house.
“Black please.”
Granger releases me and I pad over to the coffee machine, pulling mugs from the cabinet and adding cream and sugar to Phil’s, then making mine and Granger’s how we usually take it. They’re all sitting at the dining table now, and I place the drinks down in front of everyone and then take my seat beside Granger, opposite Phil and my sister.
“This table is amazing. Did you have to have this commissioned? It’s much bigger than you can buy from a store,” Phil asks, running his hand across the smooth polished surface.
“I made it, I’m a carpenter, I make bespoke furniture,” Granger says.
“Wow, that’s fantastic, and this is just beautiful,” Phil praises again.
“What do you do? Alice said she thought you were in the military too?”
“I’m a civilian contractor, I’m actually an accountant. Serenity and I met when she moved to Camp Dawson seven years ago.”
My eyes flit to Serenity. Her boyfriend is an accountant? For some reason, I expected her to be with a marine or something. The idea that she’d settle down with a guy who looks at numbers all day, probably in a cubical or something just doesn’t seem right.
“Phil, wanna help me grab the food?” Granger suggests, pressing a kiss to my temple as he moves from beside me, obviously giving me a little space to talk to my sister.
“So what do you think of Montana so far? Is this your first time out here?” I ask in an attempt to make small talk.
“It’s pretty.”
“Yeah, and it only gets prettier the more snow there is. This would have been my third winter in the mountains, but I broke down before I got a chance to get to one of the bigger ski resorts.”
“You worked at a ski resort?”
“Yep.”
“Doing what?” she asks.
“One winter I was a maid in a hotel, another a barista in a coffee shop.”
“So you don’t have a job?”
“No, not really, there’s always casual jobs available in the winter.”
“So that’s been your life for the last five years. You’ve just moved from place to place working as menial labor?” There’s a sneer in her tone that I really don’t appreciate.
“Look, I don’t appreciate your attitude, you don’t get to judge my life.”
Clenching her jaw, she looks away, breathing deeply. “Look I had to leave. I had to. I couldn’t stay any longer else I’d have never gotten out.”
“I get it. I don’t blame you for leaving,” I say simply, because I don’t. It devastated me at the time, but I understand.
Her brow furrows, and she examines my face like she’s searching for the lie in my words, but she won’t find one. “I left you.”
I shrug.
“You were a kid and I knew that mom wouldn’t take care of you, and I still left you.”
“You were a kid too. I don’t blame you for going, it wasn’t your responsibility to take care of me, to shoulder that burden.”
“You weren’t a burden, you’re my sister.” The words sound like they’ve been ripped from her, but I don’t understand why this seems hard for her. It was ten years ago, and her leaving did me a favor.
“Look, I don’t think we need to drag up things from ten years ago. Why are you here now? If this is some misplaced guilt, then please know you have nothing to feel guilty about. You leaving helped me. It made me realize some stuff about myself that I might never have figured out if you hadn’t. I haven’t spent the last decade miserable, I’ve seen the country, literally driven through almost all fifty stat
es and worked in some of the most beautiful and interesting places in America. My life’s been good,” I shrug.
She gapes at me, like I literally have two heads. “How can I not feel guilty? I left, and you decided you’re this terrible person who is clingy and needy and toxic.” She practically chokes the words out. “I did that, I left, and you blamed yourself and you should hate me, why don’t you hate me?” There’re tears falling down her cheeks again and I can’t stop staring at them. My sister doesn’t cry. She didn’t cry when Mom made us leave Gram Gram and Pops, she didn’t even cry when Mom left us in the trailer in Florida for two weeks after she moved us there and went cross-country with her new boyfriend. She didn’t cry when we moved again and again. No, it was me that cried, and she was the one who comforted me. So why is she crying now?
“Look, it wasn’t fair of me to expect you to put your life on hold and take care of me. You were a kid too and I stole that from you and I just kept doing it. You didn’t get to be a normal kid, you didn’t get to be a teenager, I took all that from you and the more you gave, the more I took. It’s me who should be the one feeling guilty, not you. So let yourself off the hook. I’m fine. I’m here, I’m happy, I’m married. Go and be free and live your life. You don’t owe me anything.”
I expect to see relief, an unburdening in her expression, but instead she starts to cry harder, until Phil finally moves to comfort her, while I stare on in confusion.
“I don’t know what to do,” she says to Phil between sobs.
Plates of food are set out in front of us on the table, but I didn’t even notice them arriving. Granger sits down beside me, placing his hand on my thigh and squeezing.
“Alice, Serenity has always felt a lot of guilt over leaving to join the army,” Phil says.
“But she shouldn’t,” I say quickly.
“She’s pushed it down and not dealt with it all these years, until Granger called the other day and some of the things he told her, coupled with the things you’ve said have just brought everything to the surface.”