Well Played

by Keeland, Vi

  I straightened my spine and pulled my shoulders back. “If you must know, your brother bounced a check that’s caused a ripple effect now. He owes me about four months of the measly child support he pays, and even though he only paid me half, he still bounced it. Again. I didn’t know the check wasn’t good when I wrote a check for Alex’s football camp.”

  Levi looked at me like he wasn’t sure if I was telling the truth. So I swigged another mouthful of wine from the bottle and decided to keep going.

  “And since you seem to need to know everything, why don’t we back up and start from the beginning, shall we? First off, I didn’t leave Tanner like you apparently believe I did. He left me—after the second time I caught him cheating. Oh, and your wonderful brother? He also has a serious gambling problem and only saw his son a handful of times over the last few years. And about Thatcher… You’re so suspect of the reason I kept in touch with your grandfather? Well, the truth is, we bonded over Tanner. The two of us tried to intervene and get him help for his addiction on multiple occasions.”

  I took another swig from the wine bottle and started to feel a bit lightheaded. “And if you don’t believe what I’m saying, you can probably verify everything with Fern.” I pointed the wine bottle toward the back of the house where she lived. “Because I’m pretty certain she was fucking Thatcher and wasn’t just his friend.”

  Levi blinked a few times. He opened his mouth and then shut it. Then opened it. And promptly shut it again. He looked down for a few minutes and then slowly walked over to me and held his hand out. I wasn’t sure what he was asking for until he motioned down to the wine with his eyes.

  I hesitated, but let him have the bottle.

  His swig finished nearly a quarter of the contents. When he was done, he let out a loud ahhh and offered the bottle back to me. “So Gramps and Fern, huh?”

  I smiled sadly. “I’m pretty sure.”

  He nodded. “Good for Gramps.”

  We stayed quiet for a long time, each sipping from the bottle and passing it back and forth. Eventually, Levi broke our silence.

  “Tanner made it seem like you left him because he wasn’t going to be a football star anymore.”

  “I figured that. I think he spewed a lot of misinformation around to your family. And I never said anything because the only one who gets hurt when I fight with Tanner is Alex. Your brother really changed after his injury. It was like he didn’t know who he was without football. You boys and your dad have the sport running through your veins. So I tried to understand as best as I could, even when he was treating me badly. That’s why I gave him a pass the first time I caught him with another woman. I knew he was hurting. But the second time, I couldn’t get past it, and we were fighting all the time. Eventually, he moved out.” I caught Levi’s eye. “You’ve known me as long as Tanner has, Levi. Do you really think I’m the type of person who would’ve left someone I cared about because life threw us a curveball?”

  Levi’s eyes moved back and forth between mine. He shook his head and looked down. “No.”

  After he gulped some more of the wine, he extended the nearly finished bottle to me. But when I went to take it, he pulled it back. Switching it to his other hand, he replaced the wine offering with his hand. “Peace?”

  I nodded and put my hand in his.

  A heavy silence fell between us as we shook. I figured Levi was busy trying to grasp everything I’d just said, or maybe wondering how the hell he was ever going to get the crazy person standing across from him to sell this mess of a place. But I was tongue-tied by the electricity I felt running up my arm from where our hands were joined. It was so incredibly strong—my eyes jumped to Levi’s face to see if he felt it, too.

  But his eyes were cast down, and he seemed unaffected. Unfortunately, that only gave me the opportunity to soak in his face. He’d shaved the beard he’d had a few days ago and now sported a close crop of day-old stubble along his masculine jawline. Levi really was incredibly attractive.

  Oh God. It’s the wine. It has to be. I need my head examined for thinking these thoughts.

  Our hands were still joined, so I abruptly pulled mine back, which caused Levi to look up.

  “Yeah, sure. Peace would be good,” I said.

  Levi nodded and looked down once again as he shoved his hands into his jeans pockets. “Okay, good. Ummm…why don’t you, uh, go change?”

  “Change?”

  His eyes came back up, stopping on my breasts.

  I followed his line of sight. Oh! Shit. I had on a white tank top with a sheer, nude bra underneath. The water from the flood had soaked them both, and my pink nipples were practically piercing through the wet fabric. I quickly folded my arms to cover up.

  Our eyes met again briefly, and for the first time, I saw something other than disdain blazing in my direction. Unless I was crazy, that something other was the exact same thing I’d been failing to control around him lately: desire.

  Oh God.

  “Sorry…yeah… I’ll, uh, be right back.”

  CHAPTER 4

  * * *

  Levi

  I managed to avoid Presley for four days after that. And right now, if there had been any question in my mind as to why I’d steered clear of her, this was a giant, glaring reminder. Presley was in one of the guest rooms, up on the bed on all fours.

  Jesus Christ. What the hell was she doing? But also, damn...what an ass.

  It didn’t help that I could still picture her naked from the day she’d greeted me with a radio to the head. Or that I remembered she shook that ass better than a five-night-a-week stripper.

  When she reached one arm between the headboard and the mattress, I cleared my throat. “Lose something?”

  She whirled, startled, and I put my hands up. I guess I should’ve been grateful there was nothing sharp or heavy nearby.

  “I didn’t hear you come in. And yes, I dropped some photos behind the bed, and I can’t reach them.”

  I walked into the room. “Let me see. My arms are longer.”

  Presley parked her ass on her heels on the bed. “That would be great. I never realized these headboards were nailed to the wall.”

  I stuck my arm down behind the bed and reached around until I felt something. Pulling up some old photos, I held them out to Presley. “How many were there?”

  “I think just those three. Thanks.”

  I pointed to the headboard. “There’s a story behind why those are screwed into the wall.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “When we were little, Grams and Pops used to have us stay over once a month to give my parents a night off. I was probably about six this one time we came for our visit, and I was staying in a room two doors down from here. A young couple was staying in the room next to me. All night long, the headboard banged away. There was also some grunting. When I asked Pops if he’d heard the noise the next morning, he told me the couple must’ve been jumping on the bed, and he was going to have a talk with them about it, because the beds weren’t for jumping.”

  Presley smiled. “I take it they weren’t jumping on the bed?”

  I shook my head. “Definitely not. But the next afternoon, the sound was back again. Pops had run out to the hardware store, and Grams was busy in the kitchen. So, being the man of the house, I decided to knock on the door and tell the guests the beds weren’t for jumping. They didn’t answer at first, but then I heard the woman yell, ‘Yes!’ so I opened the door.”

  Presley’s big, green eyes widened. She covered her mouth. “You walked in on them?”

  “Yup. I’ll never forget it. The woman was blond, and the only thing she had on was a black cowboy hat. She was sitting on top of the guy. It took me a few years to figure out she was riding him. At the time I just thought she was jumping up and down on the bed naked.”

  Presley cracked up. “Oh my God.”

  “I told them to stop jumping because they were going to break the bed. A few minutes later, the man stormed out half-dresse
d and spoke to Grams. When Pops came home from the hardware store, she turned him around and made him go back to get screws. All the headboards were bolted to the wall from that day on. No more banging to attract curious kids.”

  “That’s hysterical. And I can totally see your grandmother pushing your grandfather right back out the door.”

  I smiled and nodded, feeling warmth in my chest. This old place had a million memories.

  “By the way, where have you been?” Presley asked. “I haven’t seen you the last few days. At first I thought maybe our peace treaty had been short-lived. But then I went down to pick up Alex’s equipment for football camp and spoke to Jeremy Brickson. I came to your room earlier to talk to you. You didn’t have to pay for Alex’s camp. My bounced check would’ve cleared this time. I have some savings. I just hadn’t transferred any money over to my checking when Tanner bounced that check.”

  “I wanted to pay for it. It’s the least I could do for being such a cruncle.”

  Presley smiled. “Well, thank you. That was really generous.”

  “It was nothing.”

  “Are you in a rush right now?”

  “Not really. Why? You need something?”

  “No, but I’ve been cleaning out this room all morning, and I found some old albums. They have some incredible photos. I didn’t realize how much Alex looks like you when you were a kid.”

  “Me?”

  “Yeah, come look.”

  She showed me a photo from Little League. I almost did a double take. Everything from the expression on my face to the shape of my eyes matched my nephew’s.

  “You’re right. I thought that was him for a split second.”

  “I know. Genetics is pretty crazy.” Presley laughed. “I thought the same thing.”

  Even though Alex wasn’t mine, the fact that Presley had given birth to this human who looked like me made me feel oddly connected to her. Who knows if I’d ever have a kid of my own someday.

  She flipped the pages of the album and stopped at a photo of a lemonade stand Tanner and I had set up in front of our house when we were around Alex’s age.

  “That little side hustle made us some good moola back then. Too bad it never helped my brother learn the value of a dollar. He likes to piss money away now.”

  Presley’s smile faded. “Well, yeah. Unfortunately, it’s his way of dealing with…everything.”

  Her empathy surprised me a little—especially now that I knew he’d cheated. It takes a big person to sympathize with someone who shit all over them.

  “On some level, I understand it—how he could get caught up in an addiction like that,” I said. “But on another, I feel like smacking him upside the head. At some point you have to get your shit together before your life passes you by.”

  She sighed. “Yeah.”

  I turned to the next page of the album to find a photo of Tanner and me on a boat with Gramps. “Man, look at this one. I remember this day like it was yesterday. Gramps took us fishing, and Tanner caught a spotted bass. It was the first time either of us had ever caught anything. I remember being so damn jealous. I barely spoke to him the rest of the day.”

  That was kind of ironic now. I knew my brother had to endure a lot watching me continue a successful career in the NFL when his own dreams had been cut short. The jealousy I experienced over the bass that day was nothing compared to that.

  “See?” Presley said. “Stuff like this is why I want Alex to have the experience of growing up here. Beaufort is nothing like New York, where the kids are inside all day messing around on their devices. This is the kind of life I want for him, playing out in the sun with his friends and family.”

  Family.

  “Tanner couldn’t have taken you moving so far away very well.”

  “He gives me shit for leaving, yeah. But he never took advantage of having us there, Levi. That’s the difference. I would’ve never left if he’d been there for Alex, day in and day out. But he barely ever was.”

  It disappointed me to realize how absent Tanner had been all this time. “Yeah, I get that, Presley.”

  It was one thing to suck as an uncle—which I absolutely had, as my nephew was quick to remind me. But it was another thing entirely to suck as a father.

  “Anyway,” she said. “You can’t beat the experience of growing up in a small town like Beaufort. I wrote a letter years ago to remind myself of how important this place is to me.”

  “You wrote a letter…to yourself?”

  She blushed a little. “Yeah. It’s about all the lessons I learned from my mamaw growing up.” She smiled. “Want to see it?”

  “Sure.”

  She left to go get it. As much as I knocked her for having delusions of grandeur when it came to the future of this place, I did admire her respect for where she came from.

  Presley returned holding a book.

  “What’s with the book?” I asked.

  “Just a hiding place for safekeeping.”

  I looked down at the title—I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings. “Why that one?”

  “I remember reading it in high school. It left an impression on me. I always found it inspiring. Maya Angelou was amazing. I love what she has to say about learning to love yourself and showing kindness to others. So her book seemed like a fitting place to keep my letter.”

  Presley handed the paper to me, looking a bit shy, which I found kind of adorable. Yeah, she might be growing on me a little.

  I spent the next couple of minutes reading Presley’s letter as she watched, seeming to try to gauge my reaction. Reading these words made me feel even worse about the misconceptions I’d had about her until our chat the other night. I’d had no clue my brother had cheated on her—twice. That was certainly not the story he’d told us. We all assumed she’d left him selfishly, when in fact, she’d had damn good reason for it.

  When I got to the end, I handed it back. “Your mamaw was a smart woman. I think it’s cool that you wrote this. We could all use a reminder of what’s truly important from time to time.”

  She took a deep breath in. “So…”

  I suspected what she was leading up to. “What?”

  “If you truly get it—if you appreciate the importance of Beaufort and growing up in this idyllic place—why can’t you understand wanting to preserve The Palm Inn?”

  Here we go.

  And we were getting along so well.

  “You can still have the kind of life you want here in Beaufort without running the inn, Presley.”

  “But what about preserving your family’s history?”

  “The Palm is a building. It doesn’t have a heart that beats. Moreover, I don’t think it’s important to preserve something that’s not relevant anymore. It would be much smarter to take that money and invest it—make a new history for yourself and Alex so you can have a fresh start.”

  Her expression turned almost sad. What the hell was she thinking? Why did she want this so badly? There had to be more to it.

  “I feel like you’re searching for something in this place that’s just not here,” I told her. “Maybe you’re searching for the innocence of a time that doesn’t exist anymore. Beaufort is still a nice place to live, but things have changed. The memories of this place will always be here, but my grandfather never specified that he wanted us to run it forever. I think even he knew it wouldn’t work out. Otherwise he would have told us that’s what he wanted.”

  She blinked. Even though she didn’t say anything, I got the sense that she was really hearing me for the first time. I took advantage of the rare opportunity to try to get through to her.

  “Hear me out, Presley. Even if you were able to fix it up, there’s just not enough draw. People stay in Airbnbs now, not bed and breakfasts. And even if the demand were there, it’s a fuck ton of work. You’d regret it.”

  Her frown deepened, the look on her face growing sadder by the second. And now I regretted pissing on her parade. It made me feel like shit. I knew her inte
ntions were good, but I couldn’t stand by and let her make a huge mistake.

  But I’d done enough damage for one day. So I sighed and lay back on the bed, staring at the ceiling. “Okay. I’m done with the lecture.”

  “I guess we’re just going to have to agree to disagree until one of us backs down,” she finally said. “Hopefully that person will be you.”

  God. Presley was stubborn. A part of me admired her resilience, as much as it fucking annoyed me.

  No way was I getting into it any more today, though, because we’d been getting along. Actually, maybe playing nice would be more successful than being combative in getting her to see the light.

  I changed the subject as I bounced on the bed. “This mattress is hella comfortable. The one in room thirteen is hard as a rock. Mind if I switch it out with this one?”

  “Go to town,” she said as she proceeded to pack some stuff away in the corner of the room.

  “Don’t you mean go to hell?” I cracked.

  “I’m trying to be nice to you, Levi.”

  “Is that your new strategy?”

  “Maybe.”

  I laughed to myself. I’d thought I was so clever a minute ago, planning to kill her with kindness. Apparently, we both had the same idea.

  ***

  Later that night, Presley and I were cleaning up after dinner, and I insisted she let me do the dishes. She’d made a damn good chicken pot pie and thought she’d have leftovers for lunch tomorrow. But I’d demolished three huge pieces and squelched all hope of the pie surviving past supper. After my gluttony, the least I could do was help her clean up.

  “Mom and I eat like birds,” my nephew said. “But, Uncle Levi, you eat like a tyrannosaurus. I’ve never seen anyone eat like you.”

  I knew damn well that my brother could throw down some food. The fact that Alex couldn’t remember the last meal he’d had with his dad wasn’t lost on me.

  “Wait until those Miller genes catch up with you, buddy. It’s only a matter of time before you’re eating everything in sight, too. I bet you’ll end up taller than me.”