Aunt Judy shook her head. “That’s not what I heard.” She leaned in closer. “I hear you might just be the girl for him.”
“Oh, wouldn’t that be a relief,” Minnie said, looking at Judy.
“A relief?” I asked.
“Yes.” Minnie’s eyes flashed away in Leona’s direction for a second. Then she spoke softly to me. “We were all so concerned for him. Young, handsome boy, living at home because of...” She stopped speaking and nodded off toward Leona.
Judy gave Minnie an odd stare. “Hush, now. Don’t talk ugly in front of his girlfriend.” She looked off in Leona’s direction as well, also lowering her voice before scooting in closer. “But just between us girls, he needed to get away. He should’ve gone off to the University in Helena years ago but he stayed here.” She rolled her eyes.
Minnie nodded. “Wouldn’t surprise me at all if he never came back home. But,” she put her hand up, blocking one side of her mouth like she was about to tell a secret, “look at what they’ve done, fixing up this old house. She’s trying to make him feel like he has to come back.”
I was about to say something when I saw Aaron, dressed in jeans and a tight black polo shirt, walk in from the hallway on the other side of the living room. He certainly appeared much healthier and happier than he did the night before. Everyone who came to the door that day asked where Aaron was. Tyler told them he worked late and needed a nap. They didn’t know Aaron was hungover and dead asleep in his room after his shower.
As I watched him, I remembered Tyler’s question from the night before. Why in the world would he ever think I’d be interested in his brother? Tyler acted weird since we arrived. It was abundantly clear that this house held a lot of painful memories, no matter how much his mom tried to change its appearance. And I understood. I had a shitload of my own reasons for never visiting most of my relatives.
Smiling, Aaron’s gaze caught mine momentarily as he strolled through the living room to the dining table. He vaguely resembled Tyler, but there was an apparent silliness about him. I could see it in the way he waved around the room at various relatives. Aaron seemed like a smaller, not-as-cute, short-haired version of Tyler, but with bravado.
As he walked up, Aunt Minnie stood and patted his shoulder, half-hugging him for a moment, then she walked away to the living room in response to someone calling her name. Aaron sat down in her empty seat at the head of the table.
“Judy.” He greeted his aunt with a wink, barely giving her time to respond before extending his hand to me. “Susie. Nice to finally meet you.”
I shook his hand, smiling. “Yes. Nice to finally meet you too.”
“What?” Judy asked. “You haven’t met yet?”
“No,” I said. “He got in late last night and--”
He cleared his throat. “I slept most of the day.”
Judy laughed. “Oh, I see. Rough night?”
“You could say that.” He grinned, turning to me. “So, where’s my brother?”
Uncle Fred, one of the oldest people in the room, who was sitting further down the table, slid over to the chair across from me, on the other side of Aaron. “He’s out there looking at Nelson’s car.”
“What’s wrong with it?” Aaron asked.
“Radiator. Few other things,” Fred said.
“He could’ve had me look at it.” Aaron grunted. “Figures.” He rolled his eyes before changing the subject. “So, got a full house here. These people talk your ear off yet, Susie? Giving you a headache? Telling you embarrassing stories about your man?” He took a small brownie from my plate. “I got a few of my own to tell.” He laughed before putting the whole brownie in his mouth.
“How rude,” Judy said, scolding him gently. “There’s a lot of food in the kitchen. You should get a plate of your own. She’s your guest."
Aaron stared at her as he chewed. “I’ll get one later.” He spoke to her with a comfortable familiarity that told me he was accustomed to this kind of banter with Aunt Judy. “And I’ll get Susie another brownie to make up for it.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “I’m full. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen this much food in one place.”
Aaron nodded. “Oh yeah. There’ll be food for days. We don’t just have one big meal for the holidays in this family. It starts today and ends Saturday. Half the family doesn’t even celebrate Thanksgiving but they’ll use any excuse to gorge themselves.”
“Yep,” Judy said. ”There’s a lot of people who love to eat around here.”
Fred cleared his throat. “You’ll fit right in, honey. Looks like you come from the same type of people.”
“Fred!” Aunt Judy reached across the table and slapped his arm. “Now that’s rude!”
“What?” He arched his bushy gray eyebrows. “Look at her. You can tell she’s not afraid to eat. She’ll fit right in around here.”
“That’s enough.” Aaron put his elbows on the table and glared at his uncle. “She’s a beautiful girl.”
“What?” He wiped his hand across his mouth. “I didn’t say she wasn’t. I was just saying--”
Aaron grabbed my elbow and pushed his chair back to stand up. “Come on, Susie. Let’s go to the kitchen.”
I grinned at Fred. He was looking at Judy, who was shaking her head at him. I let Aaron pull me around the table to the kitchen as I looked at the door to see if Tyler would possibly walk in at just the right second.
“Sorry about that,” Aaron said. “Fred’s a mean old man. Always pisses everyone off.”
“It’s okay. It really doesn’t bother me.”
He stopped at the counter and took another brownie from one of many small plates full of desserts. “Well, he’s rude and he shouldn’t have said that. And I meant what I said. You really are a beautiful girl.” His eyes went up and down my body for the briefest of moments.
“Thanks.” I grinned and leaned back against the counter beside Aaron. “So, you‘re feeling better?”
The corner of his mouth turned up slightly as he chewed and swallowed. “I am. Sorry ‘bout last night.”
“It’s okay. It’s forgotten.”
“Thanks. That means a lot to me.” He nodded, looking deep into my eyes like he was really touched that I forgave him.
I knew from Tyler that Aaron was considered flighty and unreliable by most of their family, but he’d spent a lot of time trying to change their perception. I noticed a sullen expression cross Aaron’s face when Fred told him Nelson had waited until Tyler came back to ask for help with his car. Apparently, the perception was still alive and well.
Being a middle child myself, I felt an instant bond with Aaron. It wasn’t a romantic bond, or even a friendly one. But when I looked in his eyes, I felt a kinship. I knew what it was like to be ‘not good enough.’ Unable to live up, or sometimes live down, to the expectations of the people in my life who were supposed to love me the most. I was the family fuck-up. And from what I gathered, so was Aaron.
“So,” I asked. “You’re a bartender? You like your job?”
“I like where I work. Not what I wanna do the rest of my life but the money’s pretty good.”
“What would you rather be doing?”
“Working at the shop. With Jay.” He sighed. “If he moves back.”
“It’s so weird to hear people calling him Jay, or J.T.” Most of his family called him by his nickname, J.T., all day.
“It’s weird for me to hear anyone call him Tyler.”
“I guess that could be weird if you didn’t grow up calling him that. You’ve never called him Tyler?”
“Hell no.” He huffed. “I never asked him to be Dad.”
Leona picked that moment to breeze inside the kitchen in her long, flowing, lime green dress. “You’re alive.” She pinched Aaron’s cheek.
He flinched a little against her touch, then he gave her a big smile. “Of course I’m alive. When’s everyone else coming? Susie’s gonna think we don’t have any young relatives.” He looked at me. �
�We have a lot of cousins. They’re mostly at work. Sorry about the geriatric crowd.”
“We’re not that old." Leona scolded him with her eyes. She said to me, “I hope we’re not boring you, sweetie.”
“Not at all. I’m having a great time.”
“Have you thought any more about coming to church with me this Sunday?”
“Yeah. I’ll let you know for sure by Saturday.”
“Good.” She took my hand in both of hers and patted it. Then she turned around to the front door with concern. “Are they still outside? It’s freezing out there.” She walked out of the kitchen.
Aaron slid a little closer to me. “Don’t let her pressure you into going to church. She already thinks the world of you. You don’t need to kiss her ass.”
“She really likes me?”
“It’s not obvious?”
“I just thought she was nice to everyone.”
“She is. But you made as impression on her when they met you last month. All she talked about for days was how happy my brother was with this special new girl of his.”
“She didn’t like his other girlfriends?”
“No one’s ever good enough. For any of us.”
“So, what’s up with you stealing Tyler’s girlfriend last year?”
“Damn.” He laughed. “You get right to the point, don’t you?”
I shrugged. “It’s a short trip. Don’t have time to beat around the bush. So, tell me.”
“Not much to tell. If you knew enough to ask about it, you probably already know everything.”
The front door opened. Tyler walked in, wearing a thick red and black flannel coat that he hung on the wall as he shivered and made small talk to a few relatives in the living room. I saw him look around the room, his eyes perking up when he saw me standing off to his right in the kitchen.
He practically ran to me, ignoring his brother. “Hey baby.” His lips quickly formed a smile as he drew me into his arms. “Warm me up,” he whispered in my ear.
“You’re freezing.” I felt his cold nose and mouth against my cheek as I weaved my arms around his back, against his thick, scratchy wool sweater. I whispered, “Do I need to get you alone and out of those clothes?”
I felt him smile against my cheek, the frozen tip of his nose pressing against my skin.
“Hey,” Aaron said. “Where’s Nelson?”
Tyler kept one arm around me and turned around to face him. “He had to go to the parts store. No way around it.”
“I probably could’ve told him that,” he said.
“I know, man.”
“It’s okay. I’ll get up with him. You gonna take Susie down to see the shop while you’re here?” he asked.
“Why?” Tyler asked. “It’s not all torn up, is it?”
“No. I got some stuff I want you to see.” He went on to talk about two classic cars he had just begun to restore in his spare time.
Tyler nodded along, but I saw the worry in his face. When his mom visited in October, he expressed concern several times about who was using his Dad’s old shop. Mostly it was just family or friends of the family. Once in a while Aaron used it, mostly for oil changes and routine repairs. He mentioned to me a few times that when he moved back here he wished he could just start over and build a place of his own.
Several minutes later the front door opened again and Tyler stopped speaking mid-sentence when he saw his sister, Daisy, walk inside. He let go of me and rushed to meet her, giving her a hug before she even had her coat off.
She squealed and threw her arms around him. It was one of the sweetest things I’d ever seen. I watched them finally let go of each other. He helped her out of her coat. She hugged him again. It was obvious that she adored him by the way her whole face lit up with every word he spoke.
Aaron tapped my arm. “You have a brother and sister, right?”
“Yeah.”
“And you never talk to ‘em?”
“Why do you ask?” I wish people weren’t always so fucking curious about that.
“Just think it’s interesting. Why don’t you talk to ‘em?”
I smiled and used the words he said to me earlier. “If you knew enough to ask, you probably already know everything.”
He winked. “You’re a smart ass. We’ll get along just fine.”
“No I’m not.”
He was nodding when Daisy came up to his side, flinging her arms around him. Aaron smiled and gave her a big hug just as Tyler came up beside me to put his arm around my back.
Daisy wore jeans, sneakers, and a long, baggy, gray sweatshirt that probably covered a thin frame. But those plain clothes didn’t hide her beauty one bit. Her dark hair was long and thick like Tyler’s. Her face looked more like Leona’s, minus the sparkling brown-hazel eyes that only Aaron had inherited. She and Tyler both had those gorgeous, long-lashed brown eyes.
Tyler beamed when he introduced me to his sister. “Daisy, this is--”
“Susie.” She held out her hand at first, but then she reached forward and gave me a quick hug.
“Nice to meet you.” I patted the back of her sweatshirt through her slightly damp hair.
She pulled away, standing next to Aaron with a big smile. “So you’re the one my brother can’t stop talking about. I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“Daisy!” Leona walked inside the kitchen. “Don’t tell me you went outside with wet hair on a cold day like this. You’ll get pneumonia.”
“It’s okay, Mom. I’ll be fine,” Daisy said.
Leona hugged her and went on to give her a lecture that, judging from the way Tyler and Aaron exchanged grins, they had all heard far too many times. She pointed around the room at the various people, including Ernie, who had pneumonia at some point in their lives.
Tyler kissed the top of my head. “Sorry, babe. Hope you’re not too bored by all this.”
As he finished his sentence, he waved off to the living room at an uncle who was trying to catch his attention. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.” He left the kitchen, followed soon by Leona, who appeared satisfied that she had sufficiently lectured her daughter.
Daisy stood in front of me. “So, my brother has it really bad for you.”
Aaron chuckled.
“Seems that way,” I said.
She put her hand on my shoulder. “Please don’t hurt him.”
“Oh, geez.” Aaron groaned. “Sorry. My sister--”
“What?” Daisy removed her hand and crossed her arms over her chest. “My sister, what?”
He groaned again. “You know--”
She groaned loudly, mocking him. “No, I don’t know.” She looked at me. “Susie, you make my brother happy.” Her voice got quiet as an aunt approached, making a beeline for the food. “You know what? Let’s go talk somewhere else.”
I followed Aaron and Daisy out of the kitchen through the living room. Tyler gave us a curious glance as we walked by.
We went down the hallway on the side of the house where Aaron slept. The whole way there, I dreaded the conversation I knew was coming. The ‘let’s get to know the girl our brother’s in love with’ conversation.
I’d done everything I could to try to forget about January. When we first made that deal in Tyler’s room at the end of October, it seemed so far away. But it wasn’t. It was always right there, taunting me.
Ever since the day I officially became Tyler’s girlfriend, something changed. It was suddenly easier to let myself get carried away and belong to him. In fact, it was a lot of fun and a major turn-on, if I was completely honest with myself. I belonged to Tyler in some way. That thought always sent a quick rush of electricity through my body. But there was a constant undercurrent of panic that I had to subdue. Sometimes I had to talk myself into being happy.
Maybe he won’t break up with me. But if he does, at least we made some nice memories for a little while. That’ll count for something... right?
Tears welled up in my eyes as I followed his brother and si
ster to what they probably assumed would be a routine little conversation with a regular girl whom--you never know--might end up bearing them some nieces and nephews. Kids who’d run around in the midst of these family get-togethers. Relatives debating over whether they’d grow up with Tyler’s thick, dark locks or my stick-straight, fine blond hair.
Don’t get your hopes up, Susie.
I sniffled and blinked fast, trying to dry my eyes.
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