Dear Everly,

by London Casey

  She stayed asleep.

  I left the bedroom and went out to the garage. I set up the monitor and got some tools together.

  I set out and walked across the yard and stepped over the little white fence. I grabbed the damn dining room table, growling under my breath, and carried it into the garage.

  An hour later, when I had the broken leg mostly fixed, secured, and ready to be stained so you’d never know it was broken, I stopped, wiped sweat off my forehead and shook my head.

  What the fuck was I doing? What was I trying to prove?

  I had no idea.

  I really had no idea.

  But I just wanted to do this. For Emily.

  I didn’t want to go upstairs. I didn’t want to climb into that fucking guest bed and be alone. I didn’t want to stare at the now blank spot on the wall where I took that fucking clock down.

  (“I’m just so excited to decorate the entire house together, Jake. You know? We’ll go room by room. Take our time. Just enjoy every little bit of it. But I promise, I won’t touch the garage, okay? That’ll be your baby. Not mine. I won’t even park my car in it. It’s all yours. I just want to go to flea markets and antique shops and find things we can buy, fix, clean up, things that really make the house ours. It’s THE house, Jake. We’re going to be here for the rest of our lives. It’s so exciting…”)

  I shut my eyes tight.

  I put my left hand out and felt the wooden bench. My hand touched something metal.

  I saw the scene playing out some more.

  (I touch her cheek, knowing she’s going to cry. Fuck, she’s so hormonal. I won’t bring attention to it. She’ll get mad at me. How can I tell her without pissing her off that her baby bump is showing and that it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. That my heart is twisted wondering if it’s a boy or a girl. You know? A boy and I get a mini-me. My little man. To work on the car with. Teach how to throw a baseball and shit. But if it’s a girl… I get that connection. I get to be the ultimate protector for the rest of my life.

  “Ev, we can get anything you want,” I whisper to her. “Anytime you see something you let me know. I’ll walk around any flea market, any shop, anywhere you want to go. Don’t hesitate. The guest room and shit can stay empty until you’re ready. Even the baby’s room…”

  “No. I want to get that done as soon as we can. I don’t know how to say this, Jake, but it’s a girl. I just know. It’s a girl. So can we do it? Decorate now?”

  “All the pink and purple?”

  “Yes.”

  “What if…”

  “Do you trust me?”

  She moves my hand from her cheek to her stomach. I can feel that little hardness. I feel like I’m going to throw up but it’s with a fluttering feeling. The craziest feeling I’ve ever felt.

  “I trust you, Ev,” I say.

  “Then…”

  “Pink and purple,” I say. “Let’s do it. Anything you want. For my queen and my soon-to-be princess.”

  She smiles.

  Man, that smile is…)

  I turned and threw the wrench in my hand. It flipped through the air and hit a small window in the back of the garage. It shot through with ease, the glass exploding. I grabbed another wrench and lifted it up into the air. The room went blurry for a few seconds. I tried to take a breath but I had nothing. I felt my knees buckle a little. That’s when I turned, dropped the wrench, and put my head down to the bench.

  I made a fist and started to pound it against the bench, making all my tools jump like they were under a jumping bean spell from one of Sadie’s damn little kid books.

  When my head popped up, I saw the hammer. I reached for it.

  My plan was simple.

  Undo what I had done.

  That dining room table?

  Fuck that table.

  I was going to smash that leg into a million fucking pieces and place every piece back in Emily’s yard.

  I turned and froze.

  My hand opened and I dropped the hammer.

  I wasn’t alone in the garage.

  Chapter Nine

  The Man, Broken

  (Emily)

  I heard the sound of glass shattering as I sat on the deck with a beer in my hand. I was sort of hoping Jake would end up on his deck and we could try and talk for a second. I hadn’t seen him since the shirt incident and I wanted to apologize again.

  The sound of the shattering seemed like it was right next door.

  I jumped up and ran to the end of my deck and looked around. I saw a flood of light coming from Jake’s garage. I told myself he must have just dropped something. Maybe broke a mirror or something by accident. That I didn’t need to investigate anything.

  I heard the sound of something pounding. Really hard.

  I looked up to the house and it was dark.

  All I could think about was Sadie. If something had happened and she was in trouble.

  I opened the side door and climbed down the steps to the grass. Barefoot, I walked along the side of my house in the dark. I stepped over the small white fence, avoiding a few rose plants so I didn’t get a thorn in my foot.

  I walked across Jake’s driveway, my heart pounding.

  I didn’t know what I’d find.

  What I found was Jake hunched over, reaching for a hammer. I couldn’t speak a word. He stood up and turned, hammer in hand. A second after he saw me, the hammer fell from his hand and smacked on the concrete floor.

  “Emily,” he said in his rough voice.

  His eyes looked a little glossy.

  “Jake. Are you okay? I heard glass…” That’s when I realized my dining room table was in his garage. I pointed to it. “That’s my table.”

  “Yeah. So?”

  “You stole it?”

  “You were throwing it out,” he said.

  “I…well, yeah…”

  “So what’s the difference?”

  “You want it?”

  “I took it,” he said.

  The broken man I had witnessed was now standing taller, cut from stone, his defensive wall so high I’d need an oxygen tank to get to the top. This was the shit Carrie had warned me about. Yet I didn’t walk away. I was stuck there. Wondering. Worried.

  “Where’s Sadie?” I asked.

  “Why does that matter to you?”

  “Just asking, Jake.”

  “I’m capable of raising my daughter.”

  “I never said you weren’t. What’s your problem?”

  “You know what? Nothing. In fact, I was going to take that hammer and take care of the table. Finish it off.”

  “Break it more?”

  “Yeah. That a problem?”

  “You’re an asshole,” I blurted out. “Whatever your deal is, I didn’t do anything to you. We have to be neighbors, Jake. We have to find common ground.”

  “You could sell your house.”

  “You sell yours first,” I said.

  I watched his lip curl.

  The house is probably all he has left of her. You just insulted him. Pissed him off even more. Way to go, Emily. Way to fucking go.

  Jake bent and grabbed the hammer. He slowly put it on the bench. He picked up a small white monitor and stuck it in his back pocket.

  “Jake, I’m sorry…”

  He grasped the top of the table and lifted.

  It made my stomach flutter that he was so strong. I wasn’t a superficial woman, I swear, but muscles, tattoos, a bad attitude matched with a broken heart… that was a deadly combination for me.

  He walked toward me, carrying the table.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Taking it back to your house, Emily,” he said.

  “What?”

  “I fixed the damn legs on it,” he said. “What did you think I was doing?”

  “I don’t know… I heard the noises…”

  “I was fixing your table,” he said. “So you don’t have to buy a new one. Just trying to be a friendly fucki
ng neighbor.”

  My eyes went wide. “Oh yeah?”

  “I’ll just do this myself then.”

  Jake walked right by me and kept going. Down the driveway and across the sidewalk. I watched in awe as he cut up to my sidewalk and kept going. Right to my porch. That’s when my senses kicked in and I started to chase after him.

  Who the hell was this guy?

  One second he looked ready to cry and the next he was being a jerk to me. And now he was fixing my table? Bringing it to my house?

  Without hesitation, Jake put the table down on the porch and reached for the doorknob and turned it. My door opened and he maneuvered the table, slowly entering my house.

  I ran across the yard, barefoot, and jumped the little white fence. I hurried up the concrete porch steps and into my house. I finally had the chance to actually begin unpacking but there were still boxes everywhere. Some empty, some full. The walls were still bare as I was still taking in the new paint colors.

  And there was Jake, carrying the table to the dining room. Stopping and kicking his feet to knock some boxes out of the way. One box was pictures of me when I was younger. They spilled all over the floor, the plastic frames hitting together.

  With a grunt, Jake leaned forward and put the table down.

  I hurried right after him and ended up at the other end of the table, facing him.

  I was angry. I wanted to slap him. But at the same time… he fixed the table for me.

  Jake gripped the edge of the table and shook it. It didn’t wiggle or anything.

  “There,” he said. “Probably sturdier than when you bought it. Built the right way.”

  “Where did you learn to do that?” I asked, almost feeling desperate to make small talk.

  “Fix a table leg? They don’t teach you that in college.”

  “I didn’t imply…”

  “I learned how to survive,” Jake said. “And a lot of times, shit just doesn’t need to be tossed out. I don’t think people know how to take care of what they have or appreciate it. They just think everything is replaceable.”

  I swallowed hard, wondering if we weren’t talking about a table anymore.

  “Jake, thank you,” I said. “I haven’t looked at any other tables yet. I was painting the house first.”

  He looked around. “You did the entire thing by yourself?”

  “The kitchen, dining room, living room,” I said. “And I wasn’t alone. My friend Carrie helped me. Although she likes to drink so she wasn’t much help with a few vodka drinks in her.”

  “Right,” Jake said, looking around. “Looks nice.”

  “Thanks. I want to do the entry way and up the stairs. Even the bedrooms. But that’s in time.”

  Jake backed away from the table. He looked at me like he wanted to say something but he didn’t. Instead, he touched his pocket and slid out the monitor and listened.

  “That’s got quite the range, huh?” I asked.

  Jake nodded and put it away. “Do you have chairs for the table?”

  “I can take care of that,” I said. “I don’t want to keep you from Sadie anymore than I have. She’s a really sweet girl, Jake. I don’t know how many updates you get from the center since there’s so many kids there. But she’s so kind, she shares, she’s really-”

  “Is that you?” Jake asked, cutting me off as though he hadn’t heard a word I just said.

  Next thing I knew, Jake crouched and grabbed a picture of me.

  Over thirty years of living and my life’s memories had been condensed into one box of pictures. Even my poor grandmother, her life was condensed into two boxes. Those I had upstairs and would keep safe. This box got mixed in with the living room stuff and shouldn’t have been spilled on the floor. And a picture of me with braces and a cheerleading uniform from middle school should not have been in Jake’s big, tattooed hands.

  But there he stood, staring at the picture, a hint of a smile on his face.

  “Braces, huh?” he asked.

  “Two years.”

  “Ponytail off to the side?” he asked, glancing at me.

  “Cheer captain said we all had to do that.”

  He nodded. “I was always too busy working on cars. No football. No baseball. No cheerleaders even. Believe it or not. The thing was… once I fixed up my first car and hit the main street, they came to me.”

  “Good to know, Jake,” I said.

  Jake set the picture up on the table.

  Then he went for more.

  I groaned under my breath.

  He grabbed another frame and stood up. “Wow. Look at this.”

  “No,” I said. I jumped for the frame and got my hand on it. “Jake…”

  I felt my cheeks turning red.

  Now he smiled. An actual smile.

  It took my breath away. Being that close to him. Able to smell his clothes, his skin. To see the definition of his eyes, the dark irises, the dark brown color around them. Dumb stuff like his eyebrows slightly uneven. The perfection of his jaw and the scruff that clung to it.

  I knew what picture he had.

  It was my grandmother’s favorite.

  Me in a stupid skirt when I was four. A pink shirt with a rainbow popsicle on it. And I was riding a unicorn. Some dumb mechanical one that you’d have to put a quarter in to make it move. And it was always so old and rusted that it would grind and squeak. Damn, the money spent in that machine…

  Jake made a quick move and stole the picture again. He put his back to me and held it out.

  “Wow,” he said again. “That’s you? With the frizzy blonde curls?”

  “Funny,” I said. “In the summer my hair gets lighter in the sun. And I was only four. Give it back.”

  “Riding a unicorn? Is that ketchup on your face?”

  I charged at Jake a little. I grabbed for his left arm. My hand slid from shirt to skin. Feeling the hard muscle of his forearm down to his wrist. My body collided to his body. It was like hitting a wall. I tried to reach around with my other hand. I was hugging him, trying to get the picture.

  Jake stepped forward and turned.

  Now he faced me, only a couple small inches between us.

  He lowered his hands and stood there, tall, wide, ruggedly beautiful. So broken and not able to actually hide it.

  The entire moment changed.

  The entire night changed.

  “Jake…”

  He reached forward and gently put the picture on the table. I heard the frame touch the table. The inches between us were killed off. Our bodies touching.

  I took a shuddering breath.

  He smelled so good. So wildly delicious. A mix of sweat and soap. The roughness of working hard on cars, fixing my table, being a single father to Sadie. All the while keeping things together on the outside no matter what was happening on the inside.

  As Jake started to move back, I caught myself clutching at his shirt. It was for a quick second, but enough to get his attention.

  I slowly looked up at him.

  Jake just stared. A pissed off look on his face. The smile long gone.

  His right hand came up and with just his fingertips he touched my cheek. I saw him swallow hard. The sexy, broken man, now battling what his heart and mind wanted to do next.

  In some crazy way my mind was racing, wanting him to put me on the table he just fixed, to see how sturdy it really was. To tell me everything that happened. To let me help him. Even though it wasn’t my job. I needed to take care of myself. I needed… I needed… I wanted…

  Then it happened fast.

  Really fast.

  Jake’s hand was suddenly at the back of my neck.

  I threw my hands out and back, grabbing at the edge of the dining room table.

  His lips crashed down to mine, pressing tight, holding for a quick second. He started to pull away, hesitating, his lips parted. Just enough to let me part my lips. I was so ready. So ready. Our lips touched again and Jake broke away for good.

  I caught
myself leaning forward, my lips moving like a fish out of water.

  He checked the monitor in his pocket. His back to me.

  “I have to go,” he said. “Next time you have a home repair, leave me out of it.”

  “I didn’t ask…”

  “And paint your own house,” he growled. “Keep all your shit to yourself, Em.” There was a pause. “Emily.”

  “Jake, don’t go,” I said.

  He walked forward.

  Through the dining room into the living room and right to the door. A straight shot now that my floor was clear of boxes. He opened the door and shut it behind him.

  I just stood there and eventually leaned against the table.

  Jake was right. The table was sturdier.

  I turned my head and reached for the picture of me.

  My stupid smile. My mouth too big for my face. My eyes innocent. I had no idea at the time how fucked up things were.

  I licked my lips and tasted Jake.

  I didn’t just want to taste his lips though. I wanted to taste his soul, whatever that meant.

  I shook my head.

  “What a night,” I whispered.

  One last thought came to mind.

  Fucking neighbors…

  Chapter Ten

  Grass, Skin, Tears

  (Emily)

  I think the word awkward had a new meaning. Granted, my dining room looked really good with a table, but there wasn’t a second I saw the table that I didn’t think about Jake. Or that night. Even as the days ticked by one by one, it still felt fresh.

  Seeing him was scarce, even at work.

  He’d bring Sadie to school and stand at the end of the hall. He’d bend his legs and hug his daughter. His big hands would sprawl across her back as he held her, shutting his eyes. My heart couldn’t take watching it.

  Then Jake would stand, look at me, and walk away.

  No matter how many times I stood on the front porch, the back porch, even stood on my sidewalk, pretending to look at my house, I could never really see him. Or get close enough to talk to him. I didn’t want what happened to define us. We still had to be neighbors, and more than that, I wanted him to maybe count on me a little. If he needed something with Sadie, I was willing to help. I lived the life as a kid of a single parent (well, grandparent) and I would have given anything for someone to help when my grandmother couldn’t.