“Oh well pardon me for being stressed out. Or have you forgotten who might roll into town at any moment?”
They’d been waiting hours to have this talk, I could tell. Waiting for their mom to turn in so they wouldn’t upset her.
“I haven’t forgotten,” he said coolly. “I’m here, aren’t I?”
Kristina smiled, the gesture cruel, and she kept her eyes on the screen. “And color me surprised, what with the company you’ve been keeping.”
Wait. Did she mean me? My balls always took a few moments to gather themselves, and I wasn’t fast to snap back. I was always the one who thought up the perfect retort a good two hours after any given spat.
Eric was quicker than me. “Company I keep feels pretty passionate about me not doing anything stupid and fucking up my parole. Which is more than I can say for my family, lately.”
Whoa.
Did that mean he was on my side in all this? After we’d bickered ourselves hoarse for the past week?
Kristina laughed. An ugly, mean little noise. “She gettin’ to you, then?”
“I’m here for you,” he said evenly. “She’s here for me, much as she hates that I even chose to come.”
Mentally, my brows rose at that. He’d never once made it sound like a choice. Had my ultimatum held more water than he’d let me realize?
Kristina demanded, “She the reason you didn’t come until he’d been released for four fucking days?”
“No. That’s because I have a job now, and a PO to answer to, and debts to pay.”
“Debts to pay,” she repeated. “Some fines to the fucking feds. What about making that night up to me, Eric? What about that?”
“Jesus.” I sat up straight, anger and words tumbling free like a landslide. “Are you blaming your brother for your assault? How the fuck is that his fault?”
She rolled her eyes, not meeting mine. “Stay out of this, princess.”
Princess? Oh, it was on now. “No, I won’t stay out of it. How dare you lay that on him?”
“It’s okay, Annie,” Eric said. “There’s no winning with her. Don’t bother try—”
“He gave up five years of his life for your . . . for your honor,” I told her. I sounded shrill and petulant, but fuck it. “That not compensation enough for however it is you feel like he disappointed you?”
She stared me down. “My honor? Jesus, kid. You clearly don’t know shit about me, you think I’ve got any honor. And didn’t Eric tell me you threatened to sic him on your nasty ex?”
Oh, great. “I—”
He cut in. “She didn’t mean it.”
“She said it, didn’t she?” Kris’s eyes narrowed in my direction.
“I did say it,” I admitted. “And I felt so shitty about it I cried after.”
“Boo-hoo, pretty princess. Boo-hoo.”
And then I said two words I’d never spoken to anyone aloud. I’d written them on a boy’s hand in Sharpie, yes, but never actually heard them in my own voice. “Fuck you.”
“Christ,” Eric muttered and rubbed his thighs, looking to the ceiling as if seeking reinforcements. “Both of you, please.”
“Why are you so fucking mean?” I demanded of Kris. Too late my brain supplied, Daddy issues. Dead toddler. Violent assault.
“Why are you so fucking surprised?” she shot back, and she had a point.
“Forget it.” I sank against the cushions, standing down. “He’s right. There’s no point trying to talk to you, is there?”
She stared at me a long moment before speaking, leaning forward to rest her elbows on her knees. “You think you saved my brother or some shit, don’t you? Found his sorry ass in prison and shined your happy, rosy light all over him? Rescued him, made him all better? You like a fixer-upper, Annie?”
Scooter whined, sounding anxious.
“I know I love him,” I said quietly. “I know he’s saved me, in some ways. I know I want what’s best for him.”
“Turning him against his own family?”
I shook my head, faking a calm I felt no particle of. “Nope.”
“Bull.”
“I love this man,” I said, touching his arm. It was rigid as wood. “And I want him to be safe, and have a future. I don’t want him to be treated like some bodyguard or attack dog—no matter what bullshit I might have said to my ex, when I was out-of-my-mind pissed off. I want him to get what he deserves. A future. A good life.”
“You think you love my brother more than I do? Bitch, please. Thirty-two years versus five months. Get over yourself.”
“I never said that!” So much for my cool act. “And I don’t love him more, or better—it’s not a contest.”
“Coulda fooled me, the way you’re so fucking determined to win it.”
I glared, anger roiling in my chest. “I think it’s selfish, that you ask him to put his life and his future in harm’s way, for your own sense of security. If something did go down, he could get sent back to prison for ten years, all because you were too selfish or cowardly to testify or get yourself a restraining order.”
“You—”
I plowed straight over her. “And I’m selfish, too. I want him in my life. I want him safe, and free, and not just for his own good. For mine. I’m just as selfish as you, maybe.”
Eric stood, cutting off whatever venom Kristina’s parted lips were poised to spit at me. “Enough. Kris—get out. Annie, get ready for bed.” He flipped the blinds shut. “You two still got shit to say to each other, write it down and we’ll deal with it tomorrow.”
Kris managed, “She—” before Eric cut her off, a few decibels shy of shouting.
“Shut up. Go to bed.”
And wonder of wonders, she did. She stood, tossing the remote on the cushion beside me, and left the room without so much as a muttered word, the dog at her heels. Her silence shocked me more than a hollered curse would have. As I changed into pajamas and Eric unfurled the foldout, I wondered if Kris would wake her mom and tell her what a psycho bitch her son had brought home.
“Let it go,” Eric ordered, reading the worries on my face.
“Oh sure, no problem.”
He clicked off the TV, tossed a layer of sheets over the mattress, then a couple of blankets, and added the pillows his mom had stacked by the wall.
“Get in,” he said. The order would’ve been rude if he hadn’t sounded so completely defeated.
I wanted to wash my face and brush my teeth, but my adrenaline was waning, and I didn’t relish running into Kris and getting into a fistfight outside the house’s only bathroom.
I climbed under the covers and sighed up at a water-stained ceiling panel. Emotions rolled through me, making it feel as though I were lying on an inflatable beach lounger, pitched around by the waves.
It was kind of funny, though. If this evening’s main event had somehow gone down before I’d worked at Cousins, I’d be way more of a wreck than I was now. I’d probably be crying. Crying, and desperately trying to figure out what concessions to make to stop Kris from being angry with me.
But not anymore, nope. After swimming for eight hours a week in the Olympic-sized pool of human conflict known as prison, I’d learned to live inside these uncomfortable sensations, as I might force myself to function through a head cold. Just feelings, I reminded myself, same as if I’d been spooked by an altercation in the dayroom.
“I’m sorry,” I muttered, still staring at the ceiling. “Not for what I said—but for giving you such a headache. I meant everything I said.”
“I know you did. And no need to apologize. I always get a headache when I come home. That ain’t new.”
“Tell me she’s kind to you, when it’s just you two.”
He stripped to his shorts and flipped off the lamp, and the Christmas lights framing the window. Didn’t reply until he’d climbed
in beside me.
“She looked out for me, my whole childhood,” he said. “She was a bully, but she stood up for me. To other kids, to my dad even. She warned me away from the wrong girls, when I was in high school. Sounds controlling, I know, but looking back, she always knew what was best for me. So it’s hard to deny her what she feels she needs from me, now.”
“What do you mean, the wrong girls?”
“The kinds who make trouble. The kind who want saving. Or attention. Who get followed around by the drama they make for themselves.”
“What kind of drama?”
“One came after me, real aggressive, one summer when I was maybe sixteen,” Eric said. “I knew she was a fucking mess, but she was real pretty and I was real horny, and the way she wanted me . . . I felt like I was ten feet tall. My sister told me, ‘Don’t you fucking dare.’ And she just about ran that girl off by force. I was fucking livid.”
“Understandably.”
“Then that girl had a baby about eight months later. Probably would’ve believed it was mine, if I’d fallen for it. Would’ve signed on to be some kid’s dad at sixteen, tied myself to some crazy chick for as long as I could’ve held out.” He paused. “That was mean. But you see what I’m saying. My sister saw it all coming. She yanked me back like I was racing headlong toward a cliff.”
“Jesus. People actually do that to each other? What that girl tried to do?”
“’Round here they do. And my sister can spot that shit coming a mile away.”
“Is that what she thinks I’m trying to do? Trap you?”
“Hell if I know,” he said with a sigh. “Maybe she’s just hurt that I’ve been away for so long, and now that I’m finally out, I’m staying away by choice. She probably thinks that’s down to you—she’s always looking for some third party to blame. She’s always looking for an enemy to butt heads with. But she’ll get over it and realize it’s my choice.”
“I hope so.”
“Enough about that shit. You want your Christmas present, finally?”
I blinked in the darkness. “You brought it?”
“Yeah. You want it?”
“Sure. I’d forgotten all about it.”
The springs squeaked and groaned as he left the covers. He left the lamp off but plugged in the halo of Christmas lights, bathing the room in their soft aura. I sat up, hugging the blankets. He dug through his bag and came back with a soft package, wrapped ineptly in holly-patterned paper, just as he’d promised.
I squeezed it—definitely fabric. “What is it?”
“Open it. It’s not as good as what you got for me,” he added, warmth finally returning to his voice.
I peeled at the tape and opened the paper. A scarf—not a warm winter one like I’d made him borrow, but an accessory. It was crocheted out of filmy ombre yarn, the colors shifting between green and blue, with spangly silver thread worked through it.
“It’s beautiful,” I said, watching the tinselly bits glimmer in the low lights.
“One of my coworkers, his wife makes them. She came by the dispatch office with a bunch, and I saw that one and thought of you.”
You look so good in green, my memory read. Even though you have blue eyes they almost look ocean colored when you wear green. And I’ve never been to the ocean.
“I love it,” I told him, clutching it in both hands as I leaned in to kiss him. “Thank you.”
“Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas.” I admired my present until Eric crossed the room and tugged the plug free, closing us in shadows.
He rolled me over and spooned me, something weary and needy and sad in the gesture. Something desperate in the stiff arm he wrapped around my waist. I tried to make myself soft, receptive, porous. Like a sponge that could absorb whatever defeat he was feeling, lighten his load.
Like you can save him. I imagined Kristina lashing me with her sneer.
No, I thought. Not saving. Just soothing. Just promising him with my body, I’m not going anyplace. A promise my brain hadn’t been able to make last week, too terrified of this trip and its potential consequences.
Consequences that felt so far away now, with Eric’s chest warming my back and his steadily slowing breath in my hair.
Consequences I hoped would never arrive, all just figments of fear and anticipation.
But I wouldn’t get my wish.
Chapter Twenty
“I want you and my sister to go out tonight.”
I stared at Eric, arms freezing midtousle as I toweled my hair. We were in the living room, Eric folding up the couch, me just showered and dressed. Paula had been puttering around since before we’d woken, and I could smell bacon and coffee, cheerful scents that matched the bright winter sunshine sneaking through the blinds.
“Me and Kristina? Out where?” And why? Dear God, why? After last night, the only possible venue had to be the Jerry Springer set. My Brother’s Home-wrecking Whore Needs to Butt Out!
“Get a drink or something,” he said calmly. Firmly. He wadded up the sheets and made a pile beside the foldout, avoiding my eyes. “I can drop you two off, pick you up after.”
“That’s the worst idea I’ve ever heard.”
He snatched yesterday’s clothes from the floor, tossing them near our bags.
“I doubt she’d agree to it, anyway,” I added, and sat on the couch to do my makeup. That was one advantage to the way we’d met—no self-consciousness about Eric seeing me with a bare face. Thanks, Cousins Correctional Facility.
“You let me worry about convincing Kris,” he said. “I just want you two out someplace, together, without me around. So you can hash out your issues, woman to woman.”
I dabbed concealer under my eye, keeping my attention on the compact. “Me and her and alcohol . . . You better leave us with a first-aid kit.”
He paused in my periphery. “That’s not funny.”
“Last night wasn’t funny, either. One more screwdriver and I swear she’d have decked me.”
I didn’t see his reaction, but he was moving again, voice still firm. “I’m asking you to do this, as a favor to me, okay? And I’m going to say the same to her. You’re both in my life, and you’re going to have to get used to each other. I’m not saying you gotta bond and be best friends and get your nails done together or whatever, but I need to know you can survive in the same room without me playing referee.”
I couldn’t think of a worse favor to be asked. “What if it goes just like last night, only in public?”
“Baby.” He sighed and sat beside me, tilting my cushion. His palm was warm as it circled my back, but I kept my attention on the mirror, fussing with my eyeliner.
“Annie, look at me.”
I dropped my hands to my lap and faced him.
His smile was goofy and exhausted. “I’m not asking you to do anything scarier than what you face every Friday in Cousins, okay? Have a drink with my sister. Please. Call the closest thing you two can get to a truce.”
Through the door came Paula’s voice, calling us to breakfast.
“Please?” he repeated.
I surrendered, snapping my compact shut with a sigh and capping my mascara. “I’ll go if she’ll go.” He was right, after all—if I could handle the crew at Cousins, I could handle one mean woman.
Eric smiled his relief, pulling me into a fierce hug just as Paula called us again. We headed down the hall hand in hand, Scooter greeting us along with the mouth-watering breakfast smells.
“Good morning,” Paula chimed, setting a plate stacked with toast on the table.
“She’s not usually this perky,” Eric confided in me loudly as we sat. “Or domestic. Usually it’s corn flakes around here.”
She waved his snark aside. “It’s not just for Annie. I haven’t had a chance to cook breakfast for my baby boy in over five year
s, you know.” She came up behind him and smoothed his messy hair, squished his face with both hands. Eric captured her wrists and held her hands to his heart, releasing her after she leaned in to kiss his cheek. I fought to hide my grin, chest all full of cotton candy to watch them.
“How did you sleep?” Paula asked, glancing at me as she collected serving spoons.
“Fine,” I lied. I must’ve played the drama recap over and over in my head for two hours before I dropped off.
“Kris awake?” Eric asked.
“I thought I heard her banging around in there.”
And speak of the Devil, Kristina appeared at the kitchen door, finger-combing her long hair. “Morning.”
“Morning,” Eric said evenly.
I smiled weakly.
Kris headed for the coffeepot. Once she’d set her own mug on the table, she asked, “Anybody else?”
Eric and I both raised our hands, and I avoided Kris’s eyes when I thanked her for the cup.
“So, what’s on tap for today?” Paula asked the table at large.
“Thought I’d give Annie the grand tour of Kernsville,” said Eric.
“That’s twenty minutes filled,” Kris said with a grin.
“I’ll stretch it out to a half hour. Take her to lunch at that burger place behind the ice rink.”
Kris nodded at that, gesturing with approval as she chewed and swallowed. “That is the social center for Kernsvillians under the age of forty. Couldn’t guess how many times I got to third base in that parking lot.”
Paula shot her a look. “Kris.”
“Twenty bucks says one of us was conceived there,” Kris returned, fork waving between herself and Eric. I smiled to watch Paula get flustered and change the subject.
Breakfast went okay from there, but I hoped Paula didn’t notice how Kris and I refused to look at each other. Once the washer was loaded, Kris announced she needed a smoke, and once again Eric joined her, telling his mom to save him the pans to wash.
They returned shortly, and when Kris disappeared to shower and Paula excused herself on an errand, Eric refreshed our mugs.
“She’ll go,” he said.
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