“Been busy today?” He starts off, feigning small talk.
I know my brother better than I know myself. He’s my best friend and the worst liar in the world. The guy is just too honest for faking anything.
“Couple customers. Good for a Thursday. But that’s not why you’re here.”
“I’m here for a haircut.” My brother smiles at me in the mirror hanging above my station.
I grit my teeth. “Out with it, Keat.”
He sighs, relenting just as I begin to buzz the nape of his neck. “Someone saw you dropping Lily off a couple of days ago. It’s around town that you two were in your truck together.”
Fuck Fawn Hill and its rampant gossip line. These were some of the nosiest people in the world, I swear. My lips stay clamped, my breath coming in furious snorts as I work over my brother’s scalp.
After a few minutes of silence, Keaton speaks.
“Bowen, you know why this is a bad idea …”
I throw my electric razor onto the tabletop of my station. “You don’t think I know that? Her car broke down on that back road in from Lancaster. The old farmer’s service road. What was I going to do, Keat, leave her there in a thunderstorm?”
That shuts him up, and I pick up my scissors to trim the longer ends.
“I’m not sure I want you with scissors anywhere near my face right now. I am proposing tomorrow, you know.”
I did know … he’s only told me seven hundred times. I try to wipe the salty expression off my face. I like Presley. I like her a hell of a lot. But I find it hard to get excited about anything that concerns love or marriage anymore.
Probably because mine was decapitated before it could even really get the chance to thrive.
Keaton clears his throat. “That was nice of you. I know how hard that ride must have been.”
Nodding, I try to focus on my work. “Toughest thing I’ve done in almost three years.”
I’m referencing Dad’s death, and the grieving that we were still going through, and Keaton knows it.
“Bow …” Keaton’s eyes stare at me in the mirror, waits until he knows he has my attention. “I need you to be on your best behavior tomorrow. You know Lily is going to be there, and whatever the other night was about … I need you to put a lid on it for now. For me. For Presley.”
Annoyance buzzes around me like a fly I want to swat. “You don’t think I’m going to be as civil as possible tomorrow? Obviously, I’m not going to mess anything up for you. I’m kind of offended you even had to say anything.”
He shrugs. “I know that when it comes to Lily … you can go a little crazy sometimes.”
I’m not sure what he’s talking about. Unless maybe he’s alluding to the two times over the last year that I’ve punched holes in my wall after having to be within five feet of my ex-girlfriend.
Not that I hated Lily … fuck, it was the exact opposite. Being around her, having to ride in the same truck cab as her, feeling those dark denim eyes on me … it tore me apart. Seeing her reminds me of everything we should have had, and all the things that will never be.
Being in her presence is physical torture … all I want to do is touch her. Hold her. Unravel her in only the way I know how … in the way that was only ever supposed to come from me. It’s like a knife to the heart knowing that another man has probably touched her by now. When I think about it, I get nauseous.
Not that I have any right to feel that way. I’ve been with other women … mostly trying to forget about her. It’s never worked, and I’ve always felt worse after.
I sigh, tired of talking. Even to my brothers, more than a couple minutes of conversation and I’m physically exhausted. One time, my mom told me I was an introvert, and it wasn’t until years later that I looked up the definition. And realized that the reason I can barely stand to talk to a loved one, much less a stranger, for half a second is that it does physically take its toll on me.
My body shuts down, and aggravation takes over the energy flowing through me. I can’t explain it, only to say that I don’t people well. I never have. Sure, I can bring the charm or friendliness if I really feel like it, but most of the time, I’d rather sit in my house alone than talk to someone else. Being from a big family has forced me to adapt in the course of my lifetime, but it’s still my natural instinct.
“I won’t let you down, brother. Whatever you need my help with, I’m here for you.” Because I am.
Even if it will gut me to stand in the same room as Lily while my brother gets engaged.
3
Lily
I’m standing in the middle of my worst nightmare.
A Nash brother is down on one knee, in front of all of my closest friends, asking the woman he loves to be his wife and spend forever with him.
She is smiling at him through tears, so much hope and love on her face it’s touching the souls of everyone in the room.
That is, except for mine.
Sure, I smile, say “awwww” when everyone else does as Keaton pulls out a velvet box and presents it to Presley. I even cheer when she says yes and they begin to kiss. But inside, I’m dying.
Certainly, I’m happy for Presley, the woman who’s become a very good friend since she walked into my library. And I can separate those feelings of love and excitement for her from the ones swirling inside my gut.
Sorrow, so much that it overflows in my blood, pierces through me. Because … I always thought this would be us someday. Bowen and I, returning to Fawn Hill after the baseball season wrapped up. Him getting down on one knee inside the gazebo in Bloomsbury Park. Our gazebo.
He’d ask me to marry him, and I’d dissolve into a puddle of sobs as I said yes. As all our dreams came true. We’d put an announcement in the paper and get married in the church I’d attended as a girl. I’d walk down the aisle to him, being his and his only.
That dream is long gone though, for him and for me. I won’t pretend I haven’t been with another man out of spite, and I can’t turn a blind eye to the floozies he’s paraded in and out of the Goat & Barrister for a decade.
We’re ruined, both for each other and other people. Shells of the heart-eyed teens we used to be.
Once upon a time that would have been me standing in front of a kneeling Nash man. But not anymore.
“You okay?” Penelope turns to me, whispering.
Tears glisten in her bright green eyes, and I know that I’m not the only one in the room mourning what should have been.
I hug her tight, our embrace a coverup gesture. To the outside observer, we’re just so happy that our best friend is getting married. But the secret between the two of us is that watching that proposal was like taking a bullet. For me, because the love of my life was standing in the same room, hating me. And for her, thinking about the husband who was now buried in the cemetery five miles away from where she and her kids went to visit him.
Penelope sighs against me and we finally let go, knowing that when we do, we’d better have our best poker faces on.
“Oh, my goodness!” Presley holds up her hand to show us, and we both nod emphatically, smiles at mega-watt volume.
I am truly happy for her. She and Keaton have been through their struggles, both together and separately, and deserve to come out on the winning end.
But, I need a minute. I walk to the back of Presley’s brand new yoga studio, a place I feel like I’ll now be spending a lot of time at. I grab a plastic flute of champagne that someone passes me and sip it as I walk along the mirrored wall.
Inspecting my reflection, I try to see beneath the petite, brunette librarian that everyone always says is, “so pretty and intelligent … a real nice girl.”
Before I know what’s happening, Bowen has cornered me in. Not wanting to make a scene, I stand there, his sullen eyes watching me.
“What happened the other night …”
I cut him off, so sick of his wrath. “I know. You’re going to say it can’t happen again. I get it, Bowen. You don’t want me
anywhere near you. I’ve only been getting the message loud and clear for ten years now, thanks.”
“I don’t hate you.”
And then my world stops turning. Noises bounce off my ears, but I don’t hear them. The hair on my skin stands on end with the awareness of his body close to mine. My eyes water from not blinking, from the sheer shock of his statement.
“I don’t know why you’d think that.”
It starts turning again, fury busting full force out of my chest.
“Um … what? You don’t understand why I’d think you hated me? Bowen … you’ve avoided me for ten years. Oh, and before that, you broke up with me with a mere text after I’d just woken up from a coma. Every time we’re in the same room, the sneers and disgust rolling off you somehow tipped me off to your loathing me. Please, don’t stand there and lie through your teeth.”
Now it’s his turn to be shocked. I’ve never really talked back to him, not in the decade we’ve been broken up. Also, neither of us has ever brought up our breakup or the accident so bluntly. Come to think of it, I don’t think we’ve ever talked about them.
Sure, there were the first few months I was healthy enough to hunt him down … this was about six months after the accident. But by that point, he was in a technical school after he could no longer play baseball. He’d moved an hour away, and after the year he’d done that, he went to a firefighting training camp closer to Lancaster. I barely saw him in the two years after he flipped us in a car and shattered our life together.
It wasn’t as if I hadn’t tried though. As often as I could sneak away without my father catching on to where I was going, I’d try to get to Bowen. I’d either seek him out, leave letters under his windshield wipers, email him from fake accounts that my parents wouldn’t notice. It sounds stalker-ish now that I say it out loud, but we were in love. And there was absolutely no closure.
Maybe that’s why I’ve never been able to move on with my life.
Bowen’s glower intensifies. He’s always worn that broody glare, but for me, when we were together, it used to have a layer of smoldering painted into it. When he looked at me, all those years ago, I could literally combust on the spot. Bowen Nash was bad boy charm personified, and we lived fast and loose together. Him, the cocky baseball player who’d fallen for the good girl, and me, the innocent pixie he’d spun around his finger.
“I … I don’t mean to be like that. It’s just … life moves on. I don’t want our bad blood tainting Keaton and Presley’s engagement, or marriage.”
“As if I’d ever do anything to spoil their happiness. You know me, at least give me that,” I say quietly.
Bowen looks down at his boots. “I know you wouldn’t.”
It’s the kindest thing he’s said to me since we stopped being us.
We’re interrupted when Presley comes bounding over, and I slap a smile on my face even though I feel like crying. “Oh my goodness, congratulations! I’m so happy for you two!”
She embraces me hard, and I try to give her the same enthusiasm back.
“I can’t even believe this. On my soft opening, too! You guys knew all along, didn’t you?” She gleams.
I look at Bowen, nodding. “Guilty. Keaton wanted help to make it a total surprise. You deserve it!”
Presley hip bumps Bowen. “You helped? Damn, I’m surprised, brother. A declaration of love in a yoga studio … and Bowie was in on it? Pigs really must be flying.”
“I told you, don’t call me that.” He bares his teeth at her.
I chuckle because she’s started to call him by the nickname Fletcher dubbed him with.
“Well, any who, I know it’s super early, but I just can’t help myself. Technically, it’s been like five seconds since we got engaged. Remember that? And I know I can speak for Keaton when I say he wouldn’t mind me asking. So … will you be our best man and maid of honor?”
Someone probably needs to get an ambulance over here and check my pulse. Because I’m pretty sure I’m flatlining.
Hopefully, I’ve managed to wipe the look of horrification that my mind is sure reads all over my expression off of my face.
Because how the hell am I going to organize a wedding with the love of my life, who no longer loves me?
How the hell am I going to stand across an altar from the man I was supposed to be standing there with?
4
Bowen
“I don’t understand why Keaton chose you to be his best man?”
Fletcher throws the ball at me, my glove catching it with a nice thud that ripples the leather covering my hand.
After the last rainy week of May, we’re finally into the warm June sunshine, and it’s the first chance we’ve gotten to come out and toss a ball around. Even if baseball isn’t my career, it’s still my passion. My fingers itch to touch that first hint of leather and laces as soon as April comes around, and the World Series is like a religious holiday in the Nash household.
Growing up, all of us played. Keaton was decent while Fletcher and Forrest had fun with it but weren’t ever really serious players. I, on the other hand, ate, slept, and bled the sport. I had been a shortstop; I was quick on my feet, could react in a split second, and whipped that ball so hard when I needed to make a play that scouts called me a dynamite. My bat was just as hot as my hand.
All that disappeared the night of the accident though. After the crash, the doctors discovered I’d broken my right arm, my throwing arm, in three places. My collarbone had a number of breaks and fractures. I’d almost punctured my lung, sprained my tailbone, and fractured my left ankle. I was a fucking mess for a while after that night, and even though everything properly healed and I’d done every inch of rehab asked of me …
I just wasn’t the same. The game didn’t click for me like it had before. My mind knew how to move, my heart still had the same passion, but my body was sluggish. The control I’d once exerted over my arm and hand wasn’t there anymore. My timing was off, I could no longer hit the way I once had.
For eighteen years, I’d harbored a dream. And in one night, I robbed myself of it.
The thoughts eat me alive daily, so I box them up, choosing to compartmentalize instead of talking about the rage. If a team came calling, I’d pack up my things, sell the barbershop and never look back. But that was a pipe dream … even if it had been hammering on my brain harder than ever since Keaton had proposed.
His moving on seemed to spark something in me. What was I doing? I lived in a town that was the epitome of my worst nightmare, cutting hair and fighting fires. Not because I particularly liked to, but because I was average at it and it made me good money. Was that really the kind of life to live?
I wind up, aiming for Forrest, who stands at the plate holding a bat. He whacks the air, connecting with a piece of the ball, but not the full meat of it so that it soars. Fletcher jogs about twenty feet to catch it, and it lands in his glove. He holds his closed fist up and smiles.
“Got it. You suck, Forrest!” he taunts his twin.
I chuckle, just glad to be out on the field again, even if it is little league size.
“Shut the fuck up, Fletch. If Bowen wasn’t actually pitching at me, I’d be able to hit. Ease up, old man.” He points at me with his bat.
“Can’t help it that you’re the worst out of all of us,” I half-joke.
“Yeah, clearly Keaton sees you as the best man.” Fletch sulks again as he tosses the ball back.
I toss it to him, playing a little catch, while I talk. “Oh, come on, Fletch. You two will be each other’s best men, and Keaton asked me to be his with the intention of him being mine someday. Not that it will happen, but we’ve all got each other covered.”
Fletcher nods, looking at Forrest. “You better ask me to be your best man, or I’ll give you an Indian burn so hard, your arm will catch fire.”
These two are actual children. Seriously … they’re practically children compared to me. Four years might not seem like much, but they’re the babies
of the family and have always been treated as such. They’re goofballs, troublemakers, and general pains-in-my-ass.
Mostly Forrest, whose mouth and brains land him in hot water more times than I can count on a daily basis. But Fletcher is the one I worry about. He’s the brother who keeps me up at night, the one whose name I listen for on my firefighter-issued police scanner. He’s almost ten months sober, and he’s doing great. But before this? He was a mess.
“Don’t worry, dipshit, I’ll be your best man. But I won’t ask you. Not because I wouldn’t, but fuck no am I getting married.” Forrest makes a face as if he’s just sucked on a lemon.
“Why not?” I’m curious as I lob him an easy pitch, and he thwacks it, sending Fletcher running after the nice hit.
My reasoning for never having to ask Keaton to be my best man is that I won’t ever love a woman the way I love Lily. Why would I get married if my whole heart wasn’t in it? I’ve never thought marriage and a family were stupid … as I suspect Forrest does. I just know it’s no longer in the cards for me.
Forrest shrugs, tapping the bat into the orange dirt on home plate. “Marriage isn’t for me, bro. I don’t need to be tied down; I don’t need someone nagging at me. Kids?”
He shudders, and I laugh because this is just so Forrest.
“Hey, if that’s what you want, there is nothing wrong with it.”
Only my two younger brothers can make me smile anymore. Their antics and opinions are just too funny not to.
“What’re we talking about?” Fletch asks, winded from his jog to the middle of the park to retrieve the baseball.
“How Bowen and I are never shacking up with a wife.” Forrest grabs the water bottle he set by the fence.
“Oh, why, because he can’t marry Lily?” Fletch asks.
I stop, my heart ricocheting in my chest at his question. “No, who ever said that?”
“Come on, brotha. We’re not fucking blind. We mighta been in middle school, but we remember the accident. We also remember how much sexual tension there is in a room with you two. Jesus, even the other day, I thought you might rip her clothes off with your teeth in the middle of Keaton’s proposal.”
Forgiven: The Nash Brothers, Book Two Page 2