Sexton Brothers Box Set

by Lauren Runow

  I ring the buzzer for his studio and then walk away, hoping this is the best way to say good-bye.

  14

  TANNER

  Colette.

  French literature.

  Fuck me.

  I look down the block and don’t see a sign of anyone I recognize. I don’t have shoes on; otherwise, I’d run downstairs to see if it was Harper who rang my bell and left a book on the stoop of my building.

  I want it to be from her just as much as I don’t want it to be.

  I’ve had to stop myself a few times from returning her calls this week. I have to keep reminding myself that she left me—twice. I have many faults. My maturity isn’t one of them.

  When Harper said she was thirty, I was taken aback. From her dress to the way she carries herself, I knew she was older than me. My assumption was twenty-six, but it wouldn’t have mattered if she’d told me she was in her forties.

  I’ve slept with older women before, and I find them to be more sexually heightened than women my age. Harper’s sexual prowess was proof of that. I had plans for us—both in and out of the bedroom. It didn’t matter that I’d be leaving in a couple of weeks. All I wanted was to explore whatever this thing was between us.

  Or rather the thing that was between us.

  But she threw the age card at me. I never would have thought she’d do that.

  I will forever be the baby. For the first fourteen years of my life, I was my mother’s baby. The one she had to tell my brothers to look after and protect.

  “Tanner’s too young to go to the mall by himself. Bryce, will you give him a ride and wait for him in the food court?”

  “Tanner cannot join the football team. He’ll break. Edward, tell him he’s too fragile.”

  “Tanner thinks he should date. Austin, explain to him why he’s too young to date.”

  For the record, Austin didn’t tell me to stay away from girls. He was the worst person for my mom to have talk to me about sex. He did, however, have a shitload to tell me about the kind of girls he thought I should like. Every time I brought up someone’s name, he would have a reason as to why she wasn’t good enough for me.

  When Mom died, it was as if no one wanted to talk to me about it. They hid the full story of her horrific death and often spoke in whispers. Since they weren’t going to tell me, I did my own research and found out every gory detail myself.

  I learned that you weren’t guaranteed your tomorrow, so you had to live for today.

  I’ve been a shareholder in Sexton Media for eight years and never worked a day there. I know a fourteen-year-old can’t run a company, but I should have been there after school or in the summers, learning the business.

  Bryce kept me back, telling me to go to school, that I’d be a better asset when I grew up. I watched him give up his dream of traveling the world while I got to live freely, doing whatever the hell I wanted. I sat back as Bryce gave his everything to keep the company running exactly the way our mother had while our father pulled back even more than he had before she died.

  I learned what happened when you gave up on the life you’d dreamed of. You lost a part of yourself each day until there was nothing left.

  When Father brought Missy around, he told me to mind my business. He said, when I was older, I’d get it. I got it clearly. He was bringing his mistress home to live with us.

  Neither Bryce nor Austin got the education of Father and Missy that I did. I was the only one who wasn’t surprised when they got married. Dad knows Missy’s a gold digger. She knows he only wants her for her beauty. For them, it works, and I’ve learned what I don’t want in a relationship.

  I was eighteen when Austin enrolled in the military. I was here in New York when I got the call he was injured and in a coma. Bryce fell apart while Dad and Missy were a mixed dynamic of concerned and aloof.

  They wouldn’t let me go to Germany to sit by his bedside, but you can bet, when Austin was transported to Walter Reed, I was on the first flight. He healed and took his place at Sexton Media. Still, it hasn’t stopped him as he tempts danger at night, illegal race car driving doing nothing to quell his pain.

  I learned what it looked like to run away from your problems instead of facing them head-on.

  Even now, as Dad has given Missy half of his shares and Bryce and Austin fight to control something that’s spinning away from them, I’m told, “You don’t understand,” and, “Don’t do anything,” and “Trust me,” and “Promise me …”

  All these years, I’ve been told to sit on the sidelines. Well, I have. And I’ve learned. I know more about life and love than any other Sexton, and I’m only the ripe age of twenty-two.

  When Harper left me the voice mail, I sat with my thumb hovering over the Call button for a half hour. There was never a doubt if she knew it was me who’d created those images for her. She knows they were for her. That’s another reason why it pisses me off that she walked away from me the way she did.

  Frustration takes over me as I realize I want to call her just as much as I want to forget her. Instead, I take the cream-covered novel upstairs to my loft and open it up. Inside is a notecard.

  Not all romances end in love.

  Thank you for our story.

  I’m sorry I ended it before the chapter was over.

  —Harper

  How this woman can unnerve me with her words is beyond me.

  “Aren’t you a bit underdressed for this place?”

  That’s the first thing she ever said to me. It was rude and dismissive. Believe it or not, I was done for.

  “Take me where you go when you want to run away from the world.”

  When she said that on a street corner, I knew I had met my match.

  “When I’m here, I don’t feel so alone.”

  That was when I started to fall hard for Harper Doyle.

  And therein lies the problem.

  Somewhere between a speakeasy and a library, I fell for a teacher from Queens.

  I’ve maintained my cool. Played it off like I haven’t been thinking about her every fucking day.

  Last night, I dreamed about her, naked in my studio as I painted her body again. In the dream, I ran my tongue over every inch of her body and told her how beautiful she was. I licked the sweetness right out of her until she came in my mouth. I woke up with an erection so hard; I had to relieve myself in the shower.

  It’s not just that I find her physically attractive. I’m enraptured by her stories. She’s spontaneous and smart, funny and sophisticated.

  None of it matters.

  As I enter my studio again, I turn the music off and look at the mess I’ve made. I’m engrossed in a portrait I’ve been working on, a painting of a woman so strong and beautiful that every feature jumps off the canvas. It’s almost done, and now, I have a four-by-six painting of the one girl I should be forgetting.

  The book Chéri is staring at me. She checked it out of the library. Nice. Not only did she give me the story of a woman who falls for a rich young playboy who marries someone else, but she also gave me the added bonus of having to return it.

  And she thinks I’m the child.

  I toss on my shoes and grab a coat.

  Paul is at the bar when I walk through the doors of The Den. It’s pretty packed for a Friday night. I take a seat in the first stool. He slides a bottle of scotch my way along with a rocks glass. I pour slowly and sip.

  He hands me a cocktail napkin and a pen. I start to draw.

  The hours pass, and I’m not too far into the bottle when the place starts to clear out. I didn’t come here to get drunk. Just to think.

  “You got any jokes tonight?” I ask Paul as he grabs himself a glass and pours a shot.

  “What’s the difference between a G-spot and a golf ball?”

  I’ve heard this one before, but I let him tell it anyway.

  “I’ll look all day for a golf ball.”

  “And that’s why your wife kicks you out once a month.”

&
nbsp; “Meh. She does that because I snore like a bastard. So, what’s your problem, kid?”

  I flinch at his use of the word kid. “Apparently, there’s such an age where you’re too old to play pretend but not old enough to live in the real world.”

  “We talkin’ family problems or lady trouble?”

  “Both.” I run my hands together and play with the ring on my right hand. “I have two older brothers back in San Francisco. We own a family business, and when it comes to the decision-making, they treat me like I’m a child. Just because I was young when my mom died, they don’t think I know what it was like when she was alive. And, because I haven’t worked for the company, they act as if I don’t know the stakes. I know them better than they do. I’m smarter than the two of them combined, and I have been taking finance courses, so I can be a better asset. Not that they know or care. They let me come out here to school to season myself and have a degree for the company website. They’ve been waiting for me to become an adult, but I know, once I take a seat at the table, they’ll still treat me like the baby brother.”

  Paul nods and takes a sip of his drink. “And the lady?”

  I look down at the napkins and the images of Harper I created on each. “She’s eight years older than me. Stormed out of a bar because she couldn’t deal with the age difference.”

  He scrunches his mouth in consideration. “She could have handled it better.”

  “And then I went back to this woman’s apartment … not my girl, another girl. We started on a bottle of tequila, and before I knew it, she was unbuttoning her shirt. And do you know what I did?”

  “Took her to bed?” he asks like it’s an obvious answer.

  “I left. I left with blue balls—and not for the one who’d just started taking her clothes off for me. I’m still hell-bent on the woman who looks at me like I’m a fucking child.”

  Paul pours us each another glass. “Good news is, you’re not a child. No brother should treat a man who’s old enough to fight in a war like anything other than an equal.”

  I down my shot and nod. “Even if one of those brothers actually did fight in a war?”

  “Especially him. The Jewish community considers a boy a man at thirteen, yet we coddle them. In my day, guys were having kids at eighteen and going to work to support a family. Now, you can’t even buy a pack of smokes until you’re twenty-one. Society says you’re too young to know right from wrong. Let me tell you this; your age doesn’t make you. Your attitude is what makes a man.” He points a finger at me. “You, my friend, are one of the maturest guys to walk in this place. That’s why I’ve been letting you drink in here since before you were legal.”

  I laugh into my glass. “Caught on to the fake ID, huh?”

  “Your brother’s got brown hair, and his name’s Austin. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist.” Paul takes a beer from the cooler and pops the cap off. “Bad news is, you’re a pussy.”

  “Excuse me?” I pinch my brows.

  “You’re a walking vagina. You want those brothers of yours to listen to you? Then, you need to grab your balls and man up. Act like an owner of your business and tell them what you want. What do you guys sell anyway?”

  “Media.” I take the beer from him.

  “What the fuck does that even mean?”

  “Newspapers.”

  “Then, why didn’t you just say newspapers?”

  “Because it’s more than that. We own multiple newspapers around the country, plus websites and digital platforms. It’s … complicated.” I take a swig.

  “Sounds like you’re a rich kid who inherited a shitstorm.”

  “Yeah. That about sums it up.”

  Paul rests his side up against the bar and folds his arms. He’s looking down at me with old brown eyes lined with a lifetime’s worth of wisdom. “Tanner, you’ve been coming here every week for three years. You sit at the end of my bar, covered in some kind of paint, and drink expensive scotch. You stay here all night, and when you leave, you create these masterpieces around the neighborhood.”

  “You know about that?” I ask, surprised.

  He motions toward the napkins. “You sit here, doodling for hours, a man’s bound to start seeing similarities. I’ve heard people talking about the graffiti. Some say the guy behind it is a savant. Others say it’s defacement.”

  “What do you think?” I ask. I didn’t know he knew I was the graffiti artist, let alone that he had an opinion on it.

  “I think you’re pretty good. You could use a little work on the faces. They’re a bit abstract.”

  I laugh. “I didn’t take you as an art enthusiast.”

  He laughs. “More like an opportunist.” He walks over to a drawer by the cash register and takes out a Ziploc bag full of drawn-on napkins. “I thought they might be worth something someday, so I kept them. You just never know.” He shrugs like it’s not a big deal that, behind the bar, he keeps a huge stack of my artwork that I left behind.

  He leans his elbows on the oak, coming down to my level so that no one else hears him. “I figured you had a few dollars with the way I always see your name on signs of people who donated to some charity or to restore the music hall down the street.”

  How does he know all of this?

  He picks up my card and swipes it. My form of payment shows my full name on a black Amex.

  He continues, “Yes, I pay attention. You keep to yourself. You’re not flashy, and you don’t treat women with anything but respect. I don’t know why. If I had a face like yours, I’d be disrespecting my way all over town. But I digress.” He takes the bottle of scotch and puts it away on the shelf. “Now, about Harper. You like her?”

  “You remember her name?”

  “It’s hard to forget the good-lookin’ ones. You think you love her?” he asks.

  I sway my head from side to side. “Maybe.”

  “Maybe? Well, maybe isn’t a good enough answer. If she can’t see what a gem you are in this city, then she’s out of her fucking mind. I’ve got patrons coming in here every night with sob stories about how they can’t meet someone. That said, she must really like you to let you go the way she did. She probably thinks you won’t want her for being older.”

  “Why wouldn’t I want her? Harper’s the complete package.”

  “A girl that age wants a husband and babies. Are you ready for that kind of life? You’re so worried about her treating you like a child when you should be asking yourself if you’re man enough to be with her.”

  Harper just came out of a serious relationship. She lived with her ex, and he betrayed her trust. I wonder if they’d planned to get married. I only went out with the girl three times. I’m not ready to talk about marriage and kids and lifelong commitments.

  The thought doesn’t entirely freak me out either.

  Before I know it, I’m back at the studio, packing up my backpack. It’s so stuffed that the zipper doesn’t want to close all the way. The nights are getting cold enough to keep people from lingering on the streets too late at night. It’s well past the hour most people go to bed, so it’s easy for me to slip through the gate of the abandoned building that has a canvas large enough for me to work out my feelings.

  I climb onto the side ledge of the second floor and look at the boarded-up windows. There are squatters inside, but I don’t think they’ll bother me.

  I take out a fresh can of black and let the color glide over the red brick. As the area gets coated thick, I think about my past and all the things I wish I could change. I think of my mother and how I haven’t cried over her since I was fourteen.

  She used to tuck me in and sing the same song each night. What I Did For Love. When I was sick, she would make me chicken noodle soup, and when I was in trouble, my punishment would be to read stories from her old magazines—human-interest stories of people living real lives with real problems. I had to write essays on them and hand them in like a test. If I learned the moral of the story, I was out of trouble. It was a beautiful le
sson to have as a young boy.

  The lullaby plays in my head as I coat the plywood covering the window in a vibrant red.

  The present state I am living in rages my brain. A torment of needs and wants weigh heavy on my mind.

  How can I be the man Harper needs if I don’t have a full grasp of the man I am?

  15

  HARPER

  The weekend came and went. April and I went shopping on Saturday and made dinner together on Sunday. This morning, I woke up with an extra pep in my step.

  I stop by the teachers’ lounge to grab a doughnut and another cup of coffee before heading back downstairs to the auditorium where my fifth grade class is waiting for me in the back. Usually, the teacher’s aide escorts them up, but today, I’m here to take them up myself.

  It’s loud in here as the students pour in through the double doors. Many kids are walking from the cafeteria where they’ve had breakfast. When the principal starts her morning class calls, we wait as the younger kids file out of the room. When it’s our turn, I shout for my class to follow me through the halls.

  Thirty-two students fall in line behind me. They’re young enough to be wrangled but old enough to start defying. Ten is a tough age to teach, but I enjoy it. Especially since this is the year I introduce some of my favorite classic novels to students. You don’t know the real measure of a child until you see them analyzing some of the greatest works in history.

  “Put your coats and backpacks away and take out your red folders,” I announce once they are all inside.

  The kids take longer than I’d like getting themselves settled. Malik stops at my desk with a question on the weekend homework. Nate is goofing off in the back.

  “Nate, get to your desk now. This is no way to start the week,” I say and then give my focus back to Malik. “It’s okay. We’re going to go over this in a few minutes. Go sit, so we can get started.”

  I walk over to the windows and pull up the shades. There’s a ton of glare on this side of the building in the afternoon, so I’ve been dropping the shades to keep the sun out of the kids’ eyes. It also hides the less than pleasing building next to us that has been abandoned as the city and developers fight over what to do with it.