Rough and Rugged: A Meet Me In Milwaukee Charity Anthology

Rough and Rugged: A Meet Me In Milwaukee Charity Anthology

By Jessa Aarons

Chapter One

Gray

What alternate universe, third circle of hell, apocalyptic world am I living in right now?

Mom: Grayson William Sanderson the third, you call me back right now, son. Your father and I are worried about you.

Mom: It’s almost been a year since we’ve talked. And now I’ve had to resort to texting you to even know you’re still alive. If you don’t . . .

Click.Message deleted.

If I didn’t need this phone for work, I would be smashing my thumb harder against the screen. It’s really too bad that everything in my life revolves around this device, otherwise, I wouldn’t worry about cracking the screen. But this chunk of plastic and tiny bits of metal keeps me going when I’m out of the office, and I can’t afford to smash it into a thousand pieces by throwing it against the damn wall.

Ping!Fuck. Now, what?

Dad: Son, what in the living Sam Hill are you doing to your mother? You have done some outlandish things in your thirty years on this planet, but moving to some podunk, backwoods, Hicksville town in the middle of the woods in WISCONSIN is too much!

Click.Message deleted.

As if I don’t already feel enough shame, especially when the reason I moved to this so-called podunk town wasn’t my fault. Now, he has to add more guilt to my shoulders. I take a deep, cleansing breath, roll my eyes behind my closed eyelids to not show the entire bar how unhinged I feel right now, and hope the steam coming out of my ears isn’t real. One would think, after a year of unanswered phone calls, emails, and now text messages, that I want to be left alone. Short of sending a telegram or carrier pigeon, my folks have tried everything to get me to move back home.

Their latest attempt, in addition to the texts flooding my phone tonight, is sitting on the barstool to my right, and I’m doing everything in my power to ignore her. Why they thought sending my sister, Jamie—one of the two reasons I moved out of state in the first place—to ‘talk some sense into me’, I have no clue. If it wasn’t for the fact I look like my father’s doppelganger, just twenty years younger, I’d seriously wonder if I was adopted.

Fourth circle of hell, here I come.

Dad: It was bad enough that you left without telling any of us first, but to leave without telling Julian, that’s unacceptable. First you call off the wedding, then you quit your job . . .

Click.Message deleted.

Oh, so now, it’s my fault I found my fiancé of six months, boyfriend of two years, in bed with my sister and then left him? God forbid there’s some loyalty in any relationships in our family. Just because my dad can sleep with whoever he wants and my mom looks the other way doesn’t mean I want to live my life like that.

While I’ve literally caught my dad with his pants around his ankles, fucking one of his secretaries over his desk, I have no proof of my mom’s infidelity. Although, knowing her level of spite and cattiness, I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s gone a few rounds with her tennis coaches or yoga instructors over the years. Somehow, my parents married without a prenup, so neither of them will even whisper the word ‘divorce’. And even though they’re both worth millions on their own, the thought of dragging their dirty laundry through the press would be worse than their current relationship status. They haven’t shared a bedroom in twenty years. Mom’s rooms are in the north wing of the house, Dad hunkers down in the east, and all the employees in the house sign an ironclad non-disclosure agreement on their first day. What happens in the Sanderson mansion stays in the Sanderson mansion, no ifs, ands, or buts about it.

What happened to love and loyalty? Honor and obey? ‘Til death do us part? Thank the heavens I didn’t get that far before I found out the truth. I’d rather be single and alone for the rest of my life than end up saddled to a philandering asshole.

Ping! Now what? Before I look at my phone again to see what the next guilt trip is going to be, I polish off the last bit in the pint of beer in front of me and flag down Hank for a refill.

“Are you even going to look at me? I came all this way for you, Gray.”

I hold up a finger to shut my sister up, take a sip of my fresh beer, then unlock my phone. Maybe it’s something about work. I’ll take any emergency over the nightmare I’ve found myself trapped in.

Julian: GRAYSON! How can you do this to me? We were supposed to be getting married TOMORROW!

Fuck me! Of all the people I have no need to hear from or talk to, this is who they think would convince me to resume communication with the family? As fucking if! If it was physically or mentally possible to erase any one person from my brain, and I could go on without knowing they ever existed, it would be Julian Spencer.

Apparently, it’s not bad enough that I had to find him in our bed with my sister, add in her ambushing me in my favorite bar and now he is texting me. I’ve known I was gay since I was twelve, and according to Julian, he was too, so I was blindsided by finding them going at it reverse-cowgirl style on top of the brand new one thousand thread count Egyptian cotton sheets I’d just bought.

Julian: Text me back. We can fix this. Please come home!

Remember that steam coming out of my ears? Well, it’s rolling now! I put my phone on silent, slam it face down on the bar, and chug the rest of my beer.

“What happened, Gray?” my sister pipes up again. “Who was that? Mom again? I told her to leave us alone. She’s been calling and texting me all night too.”

“Jamie,” I growl as I turn my stool to face her, “if you don’t shut the fuck up right now, I’m going to leave your ass in this bar. Do you understand me?”

“But Gray—”

“NO!” I bark. Bracing my hands on my knees, I lean in super close to her, nose-to-nose, hoping she sees how serious I am and listens real good. “I didn’t ask for any of this. You came here without any notice. You are the reason I’m even in this town to begin with. If you want to have a place to sleep tonight before you head back to Chicago, I suggest you shut up and let me enjoy another beer. Do I make myself clear?”

Jamie shrinks in on herself and nods. She’s never been one to handle confrontation well. I settle back on my stool, turn to face the bar, and am pleasantly surprised to see a full glass in front of me. The bartender, Hank, has owned this place for twenty years, his father, Hank Sr., another twenty before that, and he knows his stuff. I nod at him where he’s perched down at the other end of the bar, talking to his wife, Maureen, then give my attention to the TV hanging above the rows of liquor bottles. Hopefully, I can have a few minutes of peace before I have to drag my sister and her three giant suitcases to my truck and head for home.

I never planned on letting any of my family know where I live. I knew it wouldn’t be hard to find out given the way technology works these days, but the information wasn’t going to come from me. And now, I have to literally drive my sister to my front door because she showed up at the bar in a ride-share. I wish I had a meaner heart and could leave her here. Unfortunately for me, my heart doesn’t work that way. But I will be leaving her and her bags on my front porch tomorrow when I leave to go fishing at five in the morning. If she figured out how to get someone to bring her here, she can figure out how to get back to the airport on her own.

“I’m gonna use the restroom. Can I leave my purse here on the bar?”

Keeping my eye on the sports news report on the screen, I wave Jamie off to do whatever the fuck she needs to do.

Ha!Like anyone here would want to steal her purse. The only good that designer label would do anyone here is maybe earn them a few bucks at a pawn shop. That’s not to say the people around here don’t have nice things, because they do, but if anyone knew who Jamie was, and what she did to me, they wouldn’t touch her shit with a ten-foot pole.

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