Neat

by Steiner, Kandi

  I’d been able to go to my brothers with everything in my life up until that point, but something in my gut told me I couldn’t go to them and get the answer I wanted to hear. What I wanted was for them to nod in understanding, to smile when I admitted I’d had a crush on her forever, and to high five me when I told them I’d had the best sex of my life last night. I wanted them to say they loved me and didn’t give a fuck if I was dating a Scooter.

  But the reality was that not a single one of them would say anything close to that.

  And I couldn’t blame them.

  There was a tie between our families — Mallory’s and mine — and though no one said it out loud, every single one of us thought that line was drawn in blood. In my father’s blood, to be exact.

  Something shady happened at that distillery the day my father died.

  But maybe, if I cracked the hard drive open, I could find the answers we’d been looking for for years — and free Mallory of the stigma my family had for her in the process.

  Still, I needed someone to talk to, and since Mallory wasn’t texting me and my brothers all had their own shit going on, I turned to the other best friend in my life.

  “I’m going to go see if Mom needs any help,” I said, draining the last of the whiskey in my glass. “You guys need anything?”

  They shook their heads, jumping right back into their conversation once I was standing. I made my way across the backyard and up the steps of the back porch, swinging inside just as Mom did a little twirl to the chorus of “Rhiannon.”

  She didn’t hear me come in at first — not that I was surprised, with the level the music was blasting — and she bopped across the kitchen, swaying her hips and singing along on her way from checking whatever was baking in the oven to revisiting the cutting board where a parade of vegetables were in the middle of being diced.

  I would have given anything in that moment to see my Dad sneak in behind her, twirling her out before pulling her back into him and kissing her nose the way he’d always do. I’d have given anything to hear her laugh, see the crinkle of her nose as she shoved him off playfully, only to watch him go back to the room where my brothers and I were, all the love in the world in those eyes of hers.

  I swallowed past the knot in my throat, and I took his place as best I could. I stepped into the kitchen, slipping one of Dad’s old aprons over my head and tying it behind my waist as I sang along with Mom. She smiled when she saw me, handing me the knife so I could take over where she was dicing and she moved to the bowl she was mixing the batter for dessert in.

  “This is the best album in the world,” she said, still bopping along to the song. She pointed a whisk at me. “And if anyone says otherwise, you tell them they’ll have to fight your mama.”

  I chuckled, but didn’t argue. The Rumors album was definitely one of the best albums in my mind, too.

  For the rest of the song, we worked side by side just singing and swaying to the music. When it faded out, Mom crossed to the stereo in the living room and turned it down enough for us to talk over it. She gave me a knowing smile when she was back beside me in the kitchen, but then her eyes fell back to the task at hand.

  “So,” she said. “What’s going on, Logan Daniel?”

  I shrugged. “Nothing. Can’t a son help his mom in the kitchen?”

  Mama chuckled. “Yes, he certainly can. But, a mom can also know when her son has something on his mind.” She lifted a brow in my direction, but kept right on working, scraping the batter she’d mixed into a small pan. I realized then that she was making her famous double chocolate brownies, and when she handed me the whisk to lick the excess batter off like I’d used to as a kid, my chest ached for those simpler days.

  I took the whisk, running my tongue over the bottom where the batter was about to drip. “You’re too smart for your own good, woman.”

  “You sound like your father.” She chuckled, squeezing some caramel over the top of the batter that she’d weave in with a toothpick. “Now, talk to your Mama.”

  I licked one whole side of the whisk, hoping the time it’d take me to eat it and lick the excess chocolate from my lips would give me the chance to find the right words.

  “There’s a girl,” I settled on, and as soon as the words were out of my mouth, there was a smile curling on Mom’s.

  “Ah,” she said, eyes on the toothpick she was dragging over the brownie batter, creating swirls of chocolate and caramel. “As there always is.”

  “She’s…” I paused, licking the whisk again as I tried to figure out the right way to put it. “She’s unlike any woman I’ve ever known, Mom. She has a mind of her own and thinks for herself, instead of falling into the town gossip or doing what everyone else does. And she’s creative, and talented, and smart…” I smiled. “And funny. She’s quick on her feet, and she doesn’t take shit from anyone — least of all me. I don’t know, I guess hanging out with her has just been… refreshing, if that makes sense.”

  “It does,” Mom said, nodding with that same smile on her face. “You know, you’re a lot like your father, in the sense that you never were entertained by the ordinary. You always craved the extraordinary, even as a boy. You didn’t want the same toys or video games that your brothers wanted. You wanted books, and Legos, and puzzles that challenged you.” She chuckled. “If you ever fell for a run-of-the-mill girl, I’d probably croak from surprise.”

  “Mom,” I said, frowning. “Don’t even joke about that.”

  She waved me off. “Oh, stop it. You know what I meant.” She checked the casserole in the oven, but apparently decided it wasn’t done yet. She closed the door again, leaning her hip against it and folding her arms. “Are you and this girl dating, or are you just… what do the kids call it now? Hooking up?”

  Mom made air quotes around that last part, and I barked out a laugh, shaking my head.

  “We’re not hooking up,” I lied, because for all intents and purposes, that was probably the best way to describe what had happened between us last night. Still, it felt like more… even if we didn’t have a title, or even a conversation about what had happened yet. “But, we’re not dating either.”

  “So what are you?”

  I sighed. “I guess that’s part of the problem, isn’t it?” I cleaned what was left of the batter on the whisk, dropping it into the sink before I turned to face Mom again, my hands braced behind me on the counter. “I think right now, we’re friends.”

  “But you want to be more.”

  My stomach soured, because it was the first time I’d admitted it — to myself or otherwise.

  I nodded.

  Mom smiled, looking thoughtful for a long moment before she spoke. “Well, I think it’s time you had a conversation with this girl. You know, your father and I always said that the reason our relationship worked as well as it did was because we were best friends first, and lovers second. We could come to each other with anything — even when it was uncomfortable to talk about. The other one was always there to listen, to understand — no matter what.” Mom shrugged. “Maybe being honest with this girl about how you’re feeling will be a test of sorts, to see if you have communication established, if you can go to her and make her feel comfortable to do the same with you.”

  I nodded, eyes on the old laminate floor between Mom and me. “Dad would have given that same advice,” I mused. “He was always telling us not to shy away from our emotions, that it never made us less of a man to feel.”

  Mom’s eyes glossed over a bit at that, but she smiled past them, shaking her head. “He was the best man,” she whispered. “The best father.”

  I nodded, that thick knot back in my throat as silence settled over the kitchen.

  “So,” Mom said, swiping at a tear that had slipped free and fallen down her cheek. She forced a smile. “Do I know this girl?”

  I frowned. “You do, actually… and that’s partly why I haven’t talked to her about how I’m feeling.”

  “What?” Mom shook he
r head, face screwing up in confusion. “Why on Earth would the fact that I know her be part of the problem?”

  I didn’t respond, just watched her with brows folded together, hands gripping the counter behind me. She shook her head again, waiting for me to answer, but then like a cloud passing over the sun, recognition slid over her face, slowly erasing the confusion as her mouth fell open.

  Time stretched in that moment, a few seconds feeling like hours as Mom blinked, closed her mouth again, and turned her back on me.

  She picked up the knife I’d abandoned for the whisk, chopping the tomatoes on the cutting board with more force than necessary as she shook her head. “No.”

  “Mom, hear me out.”

  “No!” She spun, facing me again with red cheeks and wide eyes. The knife was shaking in her hands. “Now, I’m sure Mallory Scooter is a nice girl, Logan, but it’s so much bigger than that. Her family is trouble, son. You don’t understand what they’re capable of.”

  “Mom, come on…”

  “I don’t want to hear another word about this,” she said, turning back to the cutting board with her mind made up.

  She chopped away while I stood there with my hands open toward her, my jaw slack in disbelief. Mom had always been the most level-headed of the family, even when Dad was around. When he got up in arms about something, she was the one to cool him down. But now, she could barely cut a vegetable, she was so angry.

  All because of me, and the feeling I’d given into after fighting it for half my life for this exact reason.

  “Mom,” I tried again, but she cut me off.

  “Set the table and call your brothers inside.” She dumped the tomatoes she’d cut into a large salad bowl, turning for a cucumber next.

  She wouldn’t look at me.

  I swallowed, nodding numbly even though she wasn’t looking at me to see my silent agreement. I set the table as she asked, called my brothers in, and crawled inside my thoughts for the rest of the night.

  Dinner was lively, all of us celebrating Jordan’s win at state, but the smile on my face was hollow. The questions I asked felt like they came from someone else’s mouth, the jokes I made were distant and foggy, like I was playing host to a foreign entity running my body for me that night.

  On the inside, I was the loneliest I’d been in my entire life.

  If I couldn’t even go to Mom about Mallory, I knew for sure I couldn’t go to my brothers. And if I couldn’t go to any of them, that meant I was facing what would happen next with Mallory on my own.

  That cold sense of loneliness settled in like a thick fog, and by the time I was crawling back into my truck to head home for the night, I might as well have been in a one-man submarine in the middle of the Atlantic.

  I stared at the Chevy emblem on my steering wheel until it blurred — hands on the wheel, mind somewhere far away that I’d never been before. When I finally blinked my way out of the daze and turned the key, bringing the engine to life, my phone lit up in the passenger seat.

  And Mallory’s name filled the screen.

  You would have thought I was a shortstop diving for a ground ball for how fast my hand shot out, scooping the device into my grasp, fingers typing out my password until her text message popped up.

  Mallory: You bastard.

  The excitement I’d felt just moments before evaporated in a whoosh, taking my next breath with it. I watched the bouncing dots on the screen that told me she was typing more, and I ran through all the possible messages that might come next.

  You didn’t call.

  Why did you clean my house, you weirdo?

  The sex was awful, don’t ever talk to me again.

  But instead, an entire paragraph of text mixed with emojis came through.

  Mallory: I told you I’m not good with emotions, and you recommend this book??? Are you an emotional serial killer? Frederick just got beat up, and Werner went home with him, but now they’re saying he’s been lying and that he’s 18 when he’s actually 16 and all because they want him in Berlin to build technology for the Nazis. And then poor Marie-Laure is growing up and losing her innocence because she knows her dad isn’t coming back and Etienne won’t let Madame Blanchard run her rebellion out of his house anymore and… and…

  There was a pause, and then a single crying face emoji came through.

  I chuckled, relief washing over me at the same time that a powerful ache rolled through my chest again. I remembered those feelings when I’d read All the Light We Cannot See, and the way the story unfolded, the incredible writing, the powerful emotions — they were all part of the reason it was my favorite book.

  She was reading my favorite book.

  And somehow, that string of emotions she was feeling while reading it was better than anything else she could have said in that moment.

  Me: You’re reading.

  Mallory: I’m reading.

  Mallory: And can barely breathe let alone put this book down, all thanks to you. Asshole.

  I smiled, chest tightening as my fingers hovered over the keyboard, wondering what to say next. I didn’t know if I should bring up last night, if I should take the opportunity to ask what she was thinking. But before I could decide, another text came through.

  Mallory: And maybe it was ME looking for an excuse to text YOU this time…

  My heart leapt like a fucking leprechaun, and I couldn’t bite back the smile that bloomed on my face if I tried.

  Me: I’m glad you found one.

  I waited for another text to come through, but when it didn’t, I slipped my phone into the cupholder in my console, deciding to save the words I really wanted to say for when I’d see her tomorrow. Then, I put my old truck in drive, and I drove home with a twist in my stomach — the same one that had been there all night, only now, it wasn’t from anxiety, but from an unbearable excitement.

  I couldn’t wait to see her in the morning.

  Mallory

  I was way too giddy to be going into work.

  After the conversation I’d had with my dad, I should have been dreading walking through those distillery doors. I should have had a stomach full of knots because I’d have to tell Logan Becker that what happened Saturday night could never, ever, happen again, that we had to draw a line between us and stay firmly on opposite sides, that I had a lot to lose and so did he, and we should just stay away from each other.

  But I realized as I bounced down the hall to the tour guide lobby that should have didn’t matter much to me — and it’d been that way my whole life. I didn’t heed the warnings I was given, and I didn’t do what I was told.

  I had two coffees in my hand when I slipped into Logan’s office, and just like I knew he would be, he was already there, highlighting something on his clipboard when I sat the coffee down in front of him.

  “Happy Monday,” I said, plopping down in the seat across from him.

  Logan kicked back in his chair, and for the first time since he was inside me on Saturday night, our eyes met. “Mornin’.”

  I drank him in like he was the piping hot cup of coffee then, my neck heating as his eyes trailed slowly over me, too. My fingers ached to run through his hair, to pull on it until it was as disheveled as it had been that night in my bed. I let my eyes stop at every memorable spot as they grazed his body — that wide chest I’d laid my head on half the night, the abs I now knew he hid under that polo, those strong hands that had pinned me against my front door.

  I squeezed my thighs together, meeting his eyes at the same time his snapped up from my lips.

  “So… Saturday happened.”

  He chuckled, crossing one ankle over the opposite knee and folding his hands behind his head. “Indeed, it did.” He frowned then, and I watched the Adam’s apple in his throat bob. “I told my mom.”

  My eyes shot open wide. “You told your mom that we fucked?”

  “No, no, no,” he said, eyes doubling as he held his hands out toward me. “I would never… no. I just, she may have noticed tha
t I was distracted at dinner last night, and I may have told her that… well, that you were the distraction.”

  Even though I could tell by his features that the conversation with his mom hadn’t gone well, I couldn’t help but smirk at the fact that he’d told her about me, at all. It was a silly, foolish feeling, like the kind I’d had as a teenager when bad boy Ronny Carmichael passed me a note between classes.

  I’d been on his mind.

  And he’d told his mom about me.

  Why did that make me want to swoon like a fucking Disney character?

  “I’m guessing she wasn’t too thrilled that her son was being seduced by Mallory Scooter, huh?”

  Logan cocked a brow. “I think we could argue who did the seducing that night.”

  “We could, but I’d win.

  He let out one bark of a laugh at that, shaking his head. But the smile slipped off his face like a mud slide on the side of the mountain, his mouth pulling to one side. “You could say she wasn’t exactly receptive…” He ran a hand back through his hair, and again, my fingers ached in jealousy. “Not that I should have been surprised, I guess.”

  “My father was the same.”

  It was his turn to blanch. “You told your dad?”

  I laughed, folding my arms over my chest. “Relax. I didn’t tell him you had my wrists pinned above my head and your hands under my yoga pants.”

  He smirked at that, the dimple flashing an appearance on his left cheek before it disappeared again.

  “But,” I continued. “My loud mouth brother dropped the bomb that you’d been at the studio helping me, and my dad drew his own conclusions.” I lowered my voice and frowned, mimicking my father’s voice. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to be hanging out with him outside of what’s necessary during your training at the distillery.”

  I waggled my finger with every word, and Logan chuckled, shaking his head.