Never Been Kissed (24 page)

“Well, boys, I’d say you’re all rusty,” she teased and winked at Ed and Josh, who were smiling. George was not.

“Another hand,” George said, chewing on the end of his cigar. “Give me a chance to win back my money.”

“You can have your money back,” she said, pushing the chips back toward the center of the table. “I need to get going.”

“Me too,” Cora said and stood. “My café may be burning down.”

“How come you guys play poker here?” Ashley asked, looking around at the hazy room with its pitted linoleum and the curtains with the faded cherries Linda must have picked out long ago.

“We used to play at the Community Center but they had to shut down all the programming there because of
budgets.” Tim stacked his meager pile of blue chips. “Gayle misses the bridge nights.”

“There’s that bus you can take to the Masonville community center on Friday nights,” Josh said. “Margaret goes for the bingo every once in a while.”

“Linda liked to dance,” Ed said, worrying the grip of his cane again. “We took that bus a few times a year.”

“At least here we can smoke,” George said and lifted his tumbler. “Have a drink like grown men.”

“But they used to have those sandwiches, remember? And coffee. It was nice.”

“Isn’t there anywhere else you can play?” Ashley asked.

“Not if we want to smoke,” George said. He clearly wanted to smoke.

Tim shrugged. “That egg salad was pretty good. Not as good as yours, Cora, but pretty good.”

Ashley stood and went over to the window above the sink. “Let me at least get some airflow in here, so you don’t go home smelling like a cigar factory.” She used the crank to open the casement window and noticed on the windowsill one of those weekly pill cases.

It was half-empty. Saturday, which was tomorrow, was open and empty, Sunday was full. Monday was empty. Tuesday had double the pills in it.

Ashley felt the skin over her scalp tightening. She might not tell Brody about the poker, but she had to tell him about this. And the cigars.

She glanced back and caught Ed watching her, his gray complexion bothering her anew.

“Does someone take care of this pill case for you?” she asked.

“Brody hired a gal.”

“To monitor your prescriptions?”

“To clean up and cook me some food every once in a while, she handles all that.” He waved his hand at her like it was no big deal.

He wasn’t taking his prescriptions correctly.

That was a huge deal.

Over the last three days Brody had done all the demolition he could. He’d torn down the last of the garage’s weird drop ceiling, the defunct ductwork, and the tiny room in the back that must have been an office. He’d filled Sean’s truck with load after load of stuff to take to the dump.

He’d worked late and he’d worked hard, all in an effort to avoid Ashley.

Three days, and now there was nothing left for him to destroy.

But there was possibility. And this was the fun part.

It was like a big jigsaw puzzle, or a chess game. Every decision they made now would have a ripple effect, opening and closing options available to them.

Or to Sean, rather.

“You going to make a decision here, or not?” Brody yelled through the door between the garage and the bar.

Sean appeared and leaned on the doorjamb. “What do you think?”

“It’s your bar.”

“You’re the one who started knocking down the ceiling. You know I’m not good at—”

“Come on, Sean,” Brody snapped, in no mood for the act between them. “Let’s … for god’s sake, let’s just stop the game we always play.”

“What game?”

“The one where you pretend that no one can help you but me and I pretend that you’re not full of shit.”

“Who else am I going to get to do this for me for free?” Sean asked, still trying to make it a joke and Brody was suddenly lifted by a giant wave of anger.

“Why is it always a joke with you?”

“Why is it always a burden with you?” Sean snapped back, no longer joking. The air crackled around them. And Sean, easygoing Sean, was pissed. If Brody weren’t so angry himself, he might be amazed. “You want us to stop pretending, fine, then you stop pretending that it’s so hard to be here. That you’re doing us such a god-damned favor by showing up in the middle of the night.”

“I’m here for a job.”

“Then where is she?” Sean yelled, holding his arms out to indicate his empty bar. “Where has she been every night while you’re down here watching ESPN highlights, drinking beer, and making plans for the garage? Where has she been all day long while you’re helping me build my bar!”

Brody knew where this was going, and he’d been afraid of it. Sean was a bottomless cup. Give him some time and he wanted more. Constantly more. “Why the hell do you have to read into every little thing, Sean? It’s a little bit of work. A beer when it’s done.”

“Read … read into everything?” Sean gasped, going all wide-eyed and offended. “Are you joking, Brody? If I don’t read into shit with you, I don’t get anything from you. Not one thing.”

“What do you want? We’re not partners.”

“We could be—”

“But we’re not. We are never going to be. My life is not here—”

“Then where is it? Tell me, where is your life?”

Brody opened his mouth but his brain was an empty buzz. A great sucking wind hole.

“Just tell me what you want to do with this space!” Brody yelled.

Everyone in his life was creeping too close. Asking too many questions.

The other night with Ashley—
I want you. I’m wet, Brody. For you. I’m dying. For you. Are you going to do something about that?

He stopped himself right there. Just shut down every single thought he might have about what had happened with Ashley.

It would never happen again and he would do his best to forget that it had happened at all.

“My whole life you’ve made me feel like I need to apologize for being born—”

“Sean,” Brody gasped. “No.”

“And then I had to apologize for needing you, for being small and weak, and now I feel like I need to apologize for wanting you here. For making room in my life for you. For wanting to be a god-damned family! Well, I’m not going to do it. Screw you, Brody,” Sean snapped. “Don’t take your shitty life out on me.”

Hearing Sean leave, Brody hung his head for a moment.

All the frustrations Brody used to feel as a teenager, about his life, about every unsaid thing between him and Ed, he took out on the guys who went after Sean. And later, as Brody got older, the idiots who called him names because of the color of his skin.

And after leaving Bishop, after the Corps, Afghanistan, he just skipped the middle man and took that frustration out on Sean. And that was a shitty thing to do.

Brody dug at his eyes. He wanted out of Bishop so bad he could taste it, and if it weren’t for Ashley he’d be gone. Long gone.

But Ashley was here and he had to stay. And thank God there was work to do.

I guess it’s up to me, then,
he thought, eager to get
out of the mood he was in. Eager to be saved from thoughts of Sean and memories of Ashley.

The scrape of his boots against the concrete echoed in the big wood room. What they needed was to figure out how to make the kitchen work for both spaces. And just how big did this kitchen have to be? The thought of Sean working a fryer sent chills down Brody’s spine.

Cora teaching Sean how to cook was a twist he’d never seen coming. He wondered if his brother knew how Cora felt about him. Sean could be pretty stupid when it came to that stuff.

Thoughts of Ashley and her T-shirt–wearing ambush that he probably should have seen coming mocked him.

I’m pretty stupid about it, too.

He dug a piece of chalk out of his tool belt and started to tap on the wall connecting the garage and the bar. No support beams. He put a big white X on it.

That would go.

He imagined where the end of the bar was and extended a white line across the floor of the garage; they could extend the bar, or use that space for the kitchen. It would be small. Galley-style. It would also separate the two rooms, while at the same time serving them.

New hardwood floors in the main room. Some bathrooms in the back.

He turned and eyed the garage doors and the asphalt parking pad in front.

Picnic tables,
he thought.

Now, that … that is a great idea.

“Sean!” he yelled. “Come on over here.”

Having showered the cigar smoke out of her hair and gathered the courage to face Brody in the bar, it was anti-climactic to find the bar empty.

Empty but loud. The Rolling Stones roared out of the speakers above the bar.

“You gotta do it sometime, Sean,” she heard Brody yell and she walked through the door into the empty garage where the boys were. Brody was holding a sledgehammer and wearing a smile that made her heart beat faster. Devilish. It was a devilish smile.

“But now? What if you leave tomorrow and I end up with only a huge hole in my wall?”

“It’s demo, Sean, anyone can do it.” Muscles contracted against his dusty green T-shirt as he lifted the sledgehammer to his shoulder. “You ready?”

Sean lifted his own sledgehammer, but his face was that of a kid about to go down a huge waterslide he was unsure of.

“Count of three?” Brody asked.

“Let’s just do it. Three!”

Both men swung, Sean to the side, Brody over his head, and the hammers bit deep into the ancient wood paneling, tearing huge holes in the wall and pulling out big chunks.

“Oh my God,” Sean exclaimed, his face alight. “We did it.”

“It’s going to be great, Sean,” Brody said and clapped a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “You’ll see.”

“That he’s got a hole in his wall?” she asked and both men turned to her. She was watching Brody—because she couldn’t help it, because her entire being dictated that if he was in the room, she should be watching him—so she saw the flinch. The clue to his discomfort before he hid it away.

He didn’t want her here.

And that stung.

He ran away from you,
she told herself,
what did you expect? Open arms?

“You should be resting,” Brody said after a long, silent
moment. He didn’t look at her and she couldn’t look away.

Isn’t that the story of us,
she thought, feeling foolish.

“I … ah … I need to talk to you.” She glanced at Sean, who was staring at the hole in his wall. “Both of you.”

“What’s wrong?” Brody asked, stepping forward. “Did something happen. Did someone bother you?”

“No. Nothing … like that. This morning I went to visit your dad.”

“What?” Brody asked, his mouth all but hanging open. “Ed?”

She nodded and Brody and Sean shared a rather stunned look. “What happened?” Sean asked.

“Well, I’m worried about his meds. I don’t think he’s taking them correctly.” She explained the weekly pillbox and Sean ran a hand through his hair and over his face.

“We need to hire a nurse,” he said.

“A nurse?” Brody asked. “How do you think that’ll go over?”

“Like a ton of bricks, but what choice do we have?”

Brody turned away and picked up his sledgehammer.

“Brody,” Sean said. “We need to talk about this.”

Brody slipped his glasses down over his eyes. “We just did. You’ll hire a nurse.”

Sean’s mouth dropped open. “You’re kidding.”

“I’ll pay for it.”

“Holy hell, man, I get it, your childhood was pretty complicated, but he’s your dad!”

Brody threw the safety glasses off his head and they smacked into the wall. “What do you want me to do?”

It wasn’t an accusation, it was … lost. He didn’t know
what
to do.

“Someone should go over there tonight,” she said. “You have no idea how long he’s been taking his meds wrong—”

Brody pointed at Sean. “That’s your department.”

Oh, Sean’s face, all that light, all that mischief, it
turned cold and reflected many hard years of resentment. “What’s your department, brother?” He spat the word.

Brody shrugged. “I’ll pay.”

“It’s Friday night, I’ve got to get the bar stocked for Jim and then I’m meeting Cora, remember?” Sean braced his hands on the bar and gave every impression of a man who wasn’t budging.

“I’ll go,” Ashley volunteered, because the tension in the room was insane and she couldn’t stand it.

“No,” Sean said. “You’ve done enough, Ashley, honestly. We can handle this.”

“I’ll go with you, Brody” she said and he turned toward her, his expression stark again, like someone who’d seen something awful, and then he put it away; just like that, his face was hard and shuttered and revealed nothing.

“Fine, I’ll go. Alone,” he said, his words so pointed they slid through her ribs. “Can I get back to work now?”

Sean’s dishwasher had broken about three months ago and he’d never bothered to get it fixed so now he had a kitchen sink full of dishes and nowhere to put them.

And Cora was going to be at his house any minute.

So he did what any good bachelor did, he put them in his bathtub. After evaluating the condition of the rest of his bathroom and finding it not worthy of a hazmat suit and therefore suitable for company, he grabbed all the dirty clothes from the floor outside his bathroom and the socks in his living room and threw all of them into his bedroom and shut the door.

He was pissed. He was running late and he … he was so mad at his brother. Furious.

What do you want? We’re not partners. We’re never going to be.

In the course of an afternoon Sean had gone from hating him, from wishing he was gone, to being so glad he was there, to wishing he was gone again. Fighting, smashing walls. For a second there Brody had his arm over Sean’s shoulder like it was no big deal.

He felt like a damn yo-yo, and Brody was the one holding the end of the string.

His doorbell rang and he jumped, he was so off-kilter.

Get it together, man.
He needed to be on his game with Cora tonight and instead he was on edge and already shitty-feeling.