My Cone and Only

by Susannah Nix

  Or was he just afraid of giving my brother that impression? Maybe Wyatt was being extra cautious to avoid invoking my brother’s wrath over nothing. He could also be sending me a message—trying to keep me from getting the wrong idea. Showing me there was a line in the sand, and I was on the other side of it.

  But would I be on the other side of that line if it wasn’t for my brother? Or did the line reflect Wyatt’s real feelings about me? I had no idea.

  Ugh. I was going to make myself nuts obsessing over this. But I couldn’t stop. Not until I knew the truth. And the only way I’d ever know for sure what Wyatt was thinking was to confront him about it directly. Even then, I wasn’t certain he’d tell me the truth.

  I couldn’t decide whether I should try to raise the subject with Wyatt or let it lie. On the one hand, ignoring it wasn’t likely to bring me peace of mind anytime soon. But on the other, I wasn’t sure I had the nerve to ask Wyatt outright how he felt about me—or fess up to how I felt about him.

  Most people who knew me would probably be shocked to hear that. I’d earned a reputation as a feisty, tough-talking, assertive-as-hell chick who didn’t shy away from anything.

  Except when it came to my heart.

  Admitting I cared about someone was my Achilles’ heel. It was so much easier to pretend I was too tough to care than to let myself be seen as vulnerable. I’d messed up a couple of relationships because of it and been accused of being detached and withholding.

  So baring my soul to the man I’d quietly been in love with for half my life? Not exactly something that was easy for me to do.

  I was feeling good and maudlin when I parked in the driveway of the house I’d inherited from my grandmother. I had to park my car in the driveway, because the garage door had fallen partially off its tracks and wouldn’t open anymore. The front steps I walked up were similarly sagging in places, the wood grown soft and starting to rot. Peeling paint flaked off the porch railings, and patches of mildew grew on the siding, which boasted more than a few rotten boards and holes in need of repair.

  It was a 1925 two-story Victorian that had originally belonged to my great-grandparents and was the house my grandmother had grown up in. She’d held on to it after her parents died, renting it out to supplement the income she and my grandfather had earned from the shop they used to have on Main Street. But after my grandfather passed, the house maintenance got to be too much for Meemaw to keep up with, especially once her own health began declining. So it had been sitting here empty for a lot of years, slowly falling into disrepair.

  I wasn’t really sure why she’d left it to me instead of to her daughters—my mom and my aunt Birdie. Maybe because she’d decided to leave her other house—the one she’d lived in with my grandfather—to Birdie, who’d moved back in to take care of her. And because my parents had started talking about retiring to Maine, where my dad had already inherited property from his family. And because everyone knew Josh wanted to take over the goat farm—and I didn’t.

  Maybe Meemaw just wanted me to have something for myself. I liked to think she knew how much I’d always loved this house, and she’d wanted it to go to someone who would take care of it the way it deserved.

  I loved the pink siding, and the Victorian scrollwork on the gables, and the beaded trim all along the front porch. I loved the double-door front entry, and the wavy antique glass windows, and all the old tile in the bathrooms.

  The only thing I didn’t love was how much it was going to cost to fix it all up. I’d been fresh out of college when Meemaw died, and I’d had to borrow money from my parents just to cover the taxes on the house the first few years. Aunt Birdie had let me live in her garage apartment rent-free so I could save my money to fix up the house. It had taken three years just to get the place inhabitable enough that I could move in, and I still had a lot of work to do on it.

  I’d get there though. Slowly but surely.

  On my way in the front door, I fetched the mail out of the mailbox. I headed into the kitchen and grabbed a beer out of the fridge as I flipped through it. Most of the mail was junk, as per usual. The only thing I didn’t throw straight into the recycling bin was a letter from the homeowners’ association. I opened my beer and took a long drink before I tore open the envelope to see what they wanted.

  A black, oily tendril of anxiety wrapped around my stomach as I read the letter. By the time I’d gotten to the end, that tendril had been joined by a dozen others that had twisted into a giant knot of panic in my gut.

  The letter claimed I’d been delinquent in paying a number of previously assessed fines for violations of HOA rules. Except I’d never received a notice of any fines or violations. I definitely would have remembered something like that.

  Owing to this alleged delinquency, the attorneys for my homeowners’ association were writing to inform me they’d be filing a lien on my house on the HOA’s behalf unless all fines, fees, and late charges were paid within thirty days.

  They’d included a list of the violations, all of which had to do with exterior property maintenance, and all of which I fully admitted I was guilty of. But it wasn’t like the condition of the house was anything new. Most of the cited issues had existed for years—long before I’d even inherited the place. Why had they suddenly decided to enforce the HOA rules now? And why was this the first I was hearing about it?

  The worst part was that I’d been assessed late fees on each and every fine on an ongoing monthly basis going back three years. Three years! Without a single word to me, they’d been quietly ratcheting up my debt until the number was so unimaginably large I’d never be able to pay it.

  I could barely even stand to look at the total, it was so big.

  I felt myself start to hyperventilate and sank down on the floor, pulling my knees to my chest. Pressing my cold beer bottle against my forehead, I tried to calm myself down.

  This had to be a mistake. It was fixable. There was a way through this, and I’d figure it out.

  I didn’t understand how they could spring this on me out of nowhere. It wasn’t fair.

  Not that fairness mattered. People got away with shitty stuff all the time that wasn’t fair. They intimidated and threatened and bullied their way through other people’s lives, banking on the fact that most folks wouldn’t have the resources to fight them.

  Just like I didn’t have the resources to fight this. I didn’t have a lawyer to protect me or the money to hire one. My family would be willing to help me as much as they could, but none of them were exactly swimming in extra cash. My parents needed their retirement savings to live on. Birdie worked three part-time jobs to pay her modest living expenses. All of Josh’s money went right back into the farm.

  As I stared at the letter, the question that kept running through my head was why now? When I’d owned this place for years, and it had sat here empty and ignored for a good long while before that. I hadn’t heard a peep from the HOA before today. I’d honestly forgotten there even was one. So why had they suddenly come at me, guns a-blazing?

  There had to be a reason.

  I went into the living room and grabbed my laptop. Plopping down on the couch, I flipped it open and started doing some research. I looked up my HOA and found a list of the current officers. None of the names were familiar to me, so I started looking into them online.

  It never ceased to amaze me how much stuff you could find out about people on the internet. Their employment history, their friends and family, their hobbies and interests. People should really be more careful about what they put out into the world.

  It didn’t take long before something clicked. I remembered something, and when I put the pieces together, I thought I might have a guess as to what was behind this—or who.

  I knew what I needed to do next.

  I needed to call Wyatt.

  6

  Wyatt

  “Thanks for doing this, man. I really appreciate it.”

  I shrugged as I crouched beside Josh’s bathroom to
ilet to connect the water supply hose to the new valve. “It’s nothing. You know I don’t mind.”

  Josh finished tightening the mounting plate bolts on his side of the toilet and straightened, wiping his hands on his jeans. “I thought I’d be able to install it myself, but then I started doing some research. Once I realized I’d need to put in an electrical outlet, I figured I better call in an expert.”

  I shot him a grin over my shoulder. “And then you found out all the experts were busy, and that’s why you called me, right?”

  He prodded my leg with the toe of his work boot. “You shouldn’t run yourself down like that.”

  “It’s just a joke,” I muttered under my breath as I tightened the connector on the hose.

  “You might think you’re just joking, but a habit of negative self-talk can affect your sense of your own worth over time and invite other people to view you negatively too.”

  I glanced up again, raising my eyebrows at the surprising collection of words that had just come out of my taciturn best friend’s mouth—the same guy who thought yoga was “touchy-feely nonsense.”

  He ducked his head in embarrassment and rubbed the back of his neck. “That’s what my therapist says, anyway.”

  The comeback I’d been on the verge of offering—that the ship had already sailed on everyone’s negative opinion of me—died on my tongue. It was a big deal that Josh had finally started therapy after too many years of trying to ignore his issues and cope on his own. So while I wasn’t exactly hankering to put my own emotional well-being under a microscope, I was too proud of him for overcoming his reluctance to seek help to undermine the progress he’d made by belittling his therapist’s advice.

  “You’re right,” I said, dropping the bullshit for once. “It’s a bad habit. I should try to cut it out.”

  He nodded, and I turned back to the valve I was tightening.

  Once I’d finished connecting the water supply, I turned the water to the toilet back on and plugged in the brand-new bidet attachment we’d just installed for Josh’s girlfriend.

  “Let’s see if it works,” I said as I hauled myself to my feet.

  Josh pressed a button on the control panel and a small chrome wand extended from the seat and shot out a jet of water. “Have you ever used one of these things before?” he asked, giving it a dubious look.

  “I went home with a girl once who had one. I nearly rocketed through the ceiling when the damn thing hit me in the balls.” I cast a sidelong look at him. “Mia talked you into getting this?”

  He shook his head. “It’s a surprise. She doesn’t know I bought it for her.”

  “Well it’ll definitely surprise her the first time she uses it.”

  “She saw some video on Twitter about how they’re better for the environment and more hygienic, and how Americans are behind the rest of the world and missing out because we have a cultural anti-bidet bias, or something like that.”

  “A cultural anti-bidet bias?” I repeated with a raised-eyebrow grin.

  The corner of his mouth twitched as he shrugged. “She’s been talking about it ever since.”

  I nudged his arm with my shoulder. “She talked you into getting it.”

  “I thought she’d like it,” he said with another shrug as he bent down for a closer look at the water jet. “I don’t know how I’m gonna feel about it though.”

  “You’ll have the cleanest pooper in town, that’s for sure. And I can tell you from firsthand experience that it’s really nice if you’re about to engage in a little back door—”

  “All right,” he said, cutting me off with a grimace. “I don’t need to hear the details of your sexual exploits.”

  “Let’s just say we were both extremely satisfied customers and leave it at that.”

  He gave me an appraising look. “How satisfied was she after she never heard from you again?”

  “Who says she wanted to?” I fired back defensively.

  One of his eyebrows arched. “Did you even ask? Or did you hightail it out of there as soon as you’d finished enjoying her bidet?”

  Josh took a dim view of my promiscuous habits. He’d expressed his opinion—that it was unhealthy for me and hurtful to the women I slept with—plenty of times before. As hard as I’d argued that there was nothing wrong with consenting adults having a good time, I knew deep down he was right. No matter how up front I tried to be about my lack of interest in commitment, I’d still hurt more than my share of feelings by not sticking around.

  But Josh seemed to think I had a choice in the matter. As if I could just flip a switch inside my heart and decide to fall in love—or at least deep enough in like that I was interested in more than just sex. Apparently I was defective, because I didn’t have that switch. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t tried. I’d learned through trial and error that relationships weren’t for me. Trying to force the issue only resulted in more misery for everyone involved.

  It wasn’t a subject we were ever going to see eye to eye on, so I ignored his comment as I stooped to gather up my tools.

  “You want a beer?” he asked gruffly, joining in to help. Josh wasn’t what you’d call effusive, so I recognized it as his way of offering a mea culpa for the unwanted criticism of my life choices.

  “Better not,” I said, remembering I had band practice tonight. “But I wouldn’t say no to some iced tea if you’ve got any.”

  I followed him downstairs and set my toolbox by the door while he poured two glasses of iced tea. We drank them at the round oak table in the kitchen of his parents’ old house where I’d whiled away hours of my youth with Josh and sometimes Andie. The place hadn’t changed much since those days. Same placemats on the same table, same cross-stitch staring at me from the wall—The secret ingredient is always LOVE!—same floral shades his mother had made hanging in the bay window. A faint smell of baking bread lingered in the air like an echo of the days when his mom would always have some fresh-baked treat waiting for us, but was probably just the scent of whatever Josh and Mia had made for breakfast this morning.

  “Does it ever feel weird?” I asked him. “Living in your parents’ house?” I’d never want to live in my dad’s house, even if he decamped to Maine like the Lockharts had.

  “Not really. It’s never bothered me, but…” Josh paused and gazed around the kitchen. “I don’t want Mia feeling like she’s living in someone else’s house. I’ve been thinking we should make some changes to the place so it’ll feel more like it’s hers.”

  “That’s why you bought her the bidet,” I said, understanding.

  “Yeah.” The corner of his mouth tilted. “Although I hear there are other benefits to it I might enjoy.”

  “All right,” I said, grinning at him. “I don’t need to hear the details of your sexual exploits.” We both laughed, and I said, “It’s a good gift. She’s gonna love it. Hell, I might get myself one if I buy my own place.”

  “Why don’t you?” Josh asked, reaching for his iced tea.

  “Get a bidet?”

  “Buy your own place.” He eyed me as he set his glass back down. “Haven’t you outgrown that shitty duplex you’ve been renting?”

  “It’s not so bad,” I said with a shrug. “The rent’s cheap.”

  “It’s a college student apartment. You’re thirty now,” he reminded me unnecessarily. “We both are.”

  A disquieting sense of déjà vu prickled over the back of my neck, and I shifted in my chair. “Just because you’ve embraced settled domesticity doesn’t mean it’s what I want.”

  Josh lifted his hand in a placating gesture. “I just mean you deserve something nicer for yourself—a place you could install your own bidet, if that’s what you want.”

  “Nice costs money.”

  “You’re a good handyman and there’s plenty of demand for the kind of work you do. If you took on more jobs and expanded your business, you could afford it. You could afford a lot of things.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed reluctantly. He was
n’t wrong. It was something I’d thought about before. A lot of times. But especially since the conversation with my dad yesterday.

  “But?” he prompted when I didn’t say anything else.

  I looked down at the blue cotton placemat, tracing the ring of moisture that had darkened the fabric around my glass. “But if I took on more work and expanded my business, then that would be who I am. My career. My life.”

  “Would that be bad?” His voice was carefully neutral. Trying not to sound judgmental. But I was more than capable of filling the judgment in for myself.

  “I don’t know.” My hand clenched around my glass as I let out a gusty sigh of frustration. “But I’m not sure it’s what I want. And it wouldn’t leave much room for anything else.”

  “Anything else like…?”

  I hesitated, almost too embarrassed to say it. “Like the band, I guess.”

  His forehead wrinkled in surprise. “The band?”

  We’d started it together in high school. Me, Josh, and three other guys we knew who could play instruments. Josh had come up with our name—Shiny Heathens—and had been our lead singer until he left for college and I’d taken over lead vocals. It had just been Tyler, Matt, Corey, and me ever since. When Josh came back after college, he hadn’t wanted to rejoin the band, so we’d kept it going without him.

  I liked to think we were pretty decent, but it was only something we did in our spare time for fun. We’d always said we didn’t have enough ambition to do more than play covers at local bars around town whenever they had a gap to fill in their schedules.

  Only maybe I did have more ambition than that. Being a cover band limited us to third-rate gigs. If we had original material to play, there were a lot more venues that might take us on. So I’d been experimenting with writing songs on my own. I hadn’t told anyone about it, because I wasn’t convinced they were any good. But at this point I’d written enough to fill a whole set list.