3. Brady
CHAPTER 3
Brady
I get home, the lights on from the street illuminating the path to my house. All the houses either have their porch lights on or nothing at all. My eyes go to the house next door to mine. I see there isn’t one light on in it, but a car is parked right in front of the circular driveway. I pull up in my own, getting out of the truck and walking to my front door, when I see headlights coming down the street. Pressing the side button of my phone, it shows me that it’s just after one in the morning. Not something that happens on this street since the owners are all in their mid-sixties to early seventies. I step up on the last step, putting my hand on the white banister when I see the car turn into the driveway next door.
The car comes to a stop, but the driver doesn’t turn off the car nor the lights before the driver’s door opens, and I see it’s a man. I close my eyes as I see him stumble once before his hand holds on to the side of the car as he walks up the steps to the front door. The headlights from his car shine directly on the front door like a spotlight. His hand comes up and goes into a fist before he slams it on the door. “Get your sorry ass down here.” He pounds on the door, and I shake my head. “I know you’re in there.” Winston Cartwright is hands down the biggest piece of shit I’ve ever met in my life. He always was, and trust me, I know since I’ve known him all of my life. Both of us were in the same class since kindergarten. He was a piece of shit even back then, and as the years went by, he became an even bigger piece of shit. Case in point, pounding on his estranged wife’s front door after midnight with his kid sleeping inside. “You hear me, you fucking cunt? Get your ass out here.”
Go inside, my head tells me at the same time as my feet start walking toward the other front door. I walk through my perfectly manicured lawn over to the other yard. Half of it is cut, the other half still growing out. I knew something was up when they got someone in there three days ago to clean the house and cut the grass. Some was cut short when the lawn mower quit on them, and instead of fixing it, they just left it there.
I’m making my way toward the pounding when he starts again. “I know you’re in there, you bitch.” The door opens, and she stands there holding on to the door with his hand still up. I have to hope to fuck he doesn’t hit her, or else I’m going to take lots of pleasure in putting my fist in his face.
“Winston,” she says, her voice tight, “are you insane? You’re going to wake the whole neighborhood up.”
“I don’t give a shit,” he hisses. His hand comes down, so the muscles in my neck relax a bit, but only for a split second. “I want to see my son.” I almost snort out laughing.
“You had a chance to see your son on Sunday and didn’t show up,” she states, and I nod. Yup, piece of shit . “We waited in that park for two hours.”
“Liar.” His face advances into hers, and she winces back. “I want to see him.”
“It’s the middle of the fucking night, Winston,” she seethes, trying to keep her voice down. “You’ll have to wait until next Sunday.”
“Don’t make me get angry,” he warns. I get within distance where he would be able to hear me without me shouting at the top of my lungs.
“I’m getting fucking angry,” I snap, and both sets of eyes come to me as I enter the conversation, knowing I shouldn’t.
“Who the fuck are you?” Winston looks over his shoulder at me. “We are having a private conversation.”
“Does a private conversation have you showing up here in the middle of the night and waking up the dead?” I ask, and he turns to face me. “You want to have a private conversation, do it privately and not shouting, making sure everyone can hear your business.”
“Big fucking deal,” Winston hisses at me. “What’s it to you?”
“Me?” I point at myself. “I don’t give a shit. But them”—I point over to the houses that are around us—“they might not be so happy to be woken up in the middle of the night because a grown-ass man is having a tantrum.” I shrug. “We can always find out.” I put my hands on my hips. “Who knows, maybe one of them will call the sheriff in, and he can see that you are not only blitzed but you drove here.”
“Why don’t you go back to wherever it is you came from and mind your fucking business.” He shakes his head. “Chump.”
I laugh. “That’s the best you got? Should have perhaps paid more attention in school and grown your vocabulary. Instead of riding the coattails of your sorry excuse for a father.” He takes a step forward. I know I’m poking the bear, but I’ve had a long fucking day. I’m tired as fuck, and the last thing I want is this drama unfolding in my front yard. “Why don’t you go back to Daddy so he can pet your head and tell you what a good boy you are?”
He takes a step down, and now Harmony has stepped out of her house. “Winston,” she warns him, “don’t you do?—”
“Shut up, bitch, this is all your fault.”
“Of course it is.” I shake my head. “Never a Cartwright’s fault. Always someone else’s.”
He walks down the remainder of the steps, and I wait for it, wait for him to take that first swing so I can defend myself, but instead, he stops in front of me, toe to toe. “If it wasn’t for your sister…”
I roll my eyes. “Yeah, because your brother being drunk behind a wheel and killing four people was my sister’s doing. You’re pathetic.” I stare at him. “Now, are you going to get the fuck out of here, or am I going to have to call the sheriff myself?” He takes a second, and I only give him one before I pull the phone from my back pocket.
“Fuck this,” he spits, walking back to his car. “She’s not fucking worth it.” He opens the door. “You’re probably fucking him too.” He motions from Harmony to me with his chin, and I look down at my boots to hide the laughter. I’ve said maybe six words to her in the ten years she’s been living in this town. Most of them were “excuse me” or “thank you.” He gets into the car and peels out of the driveway.
I take a deep breath, and I’m about to leave when she says softly, “Thank you.” Her voice cracks. “I’m sorry for the trouble.”
I nod. “Yeah, whatever.” I turn and walk back to my house and away from the house that looks like it’s falling apart. I hear the door close softly; the click of the lock fills the quiet night. I take a second to look back over my shoulder at the house, wondering why in the hell anyone would fucking rent it. The house is literally falling apart and has been for years. The old owner passed away ten years ago, leaving it to his son, who lives out of state and basically forgets this house exists. He’s hired one of the local real estate agents to be a property manager and get it rented out. In the past two years, three people have lived there, lasting only a few months. I’m waiting for him to visit to see if I can buy it from him so I can fix it and sell it. I planned to do that with my own, but now that it’s done, I’m too in love with it to sell it.
I should go inside and shower, but instead, I sit on the top step in the dark for thirty minutes, making sure he’s gone and not coming back. “Asshole,” I mumble to myself before I get up and walk inside my house. A soft glow comes from the stove light, and I just bypass it as I walk up the steps to my bedroom. Pulling off my shirt, I toss it in the overloaded hamper. It lands on the top and slowly falls to the pile that surrounds the basket. “Fuck, I have to do laundry,” I grumble as I kick my boots off and add my jeans and boxers to the pile before going to the shower.
I let the warm water wash over me before wrapping myself in a towel and then sliding into bed. The sheets are the only thing I wash on a weekly basis, every single Sunday. But I do have a set of sheets that I alternate during the week if I have anyone over.
I fall dead-ass asleep right away, but then my eyes fly open, and I toss and turn for a while before I get out of bed. Slipping on a pair of basketball shorts and jogging down the steps to the kitchen, I open the fridge and grab a cold bottle of water. Making my way to the back door, I open it and then push open the storm door before sitting on the back porch. Twisting open the white lid and looking out into the backyard, I put the bottle to my mouth and swallow all of it. My eyes look even longer when I see the light from the house next door turn on. Knowing it’s coming from the kitchen, I look over and see it’s almost 4:00 a.m. I shake my head before getting up and tossing the bottle in the recycle bin, then I walk back upstairs and crash again until the alarm on my phone wakes me.
I reach out and slam it from the side table before turning and closing my eyes again. Lying on my side, I fall back to sleep until the alarm wakes me again. I turn it off and take a second before I turn to my back and look up at the vaulted ceiling that took me over six months to sand and get the perfect molding I wanted. The antique chandelier I got at an estate sale completes the whole look of old with modern. It was the one room I didn’t know if I wanted to complete, thinking I would wait until I had a woman in my life to see what she wanted and add her input, but then I said fuck it and made it a room I wanted. Hopefully, I won’t have to modify it too much when I do get that woman.
I get out of bed and walk down to the kitchen. Starting a pot of coffee, I rub my hands over my face to wake up. The smell of coffee fills the room as I walk over to the cabinet and get a mug, pouring myself a hot cup. Then I head out to the back porch, where I have my coffee every morning.
Stepping out and sitting down at the little wrought-iron table, I put my cup down before looking out into the distance and seeing Harmony in the backyard with her son trailing her. The two of them work side by side as they pull weeds. I look at my phone and see that it’s just a little after eight in the morning, and she’s already out there doing yard work. I take a sip of my coffee when I hear her yell and then run away.
With a plastic garbage bag in her hand, her son laughs and picks up the grass snake and chases her with it. “Momma, it’s just a grass snake,” he teases. “It’s fine.”
“Wyatt, don’t you dare.” She points at him, and he just laughs. I take another sip of my coffee, thinking he doesn’t look too shaken up about his father showing up in the middle of the night.
Getting up from my table, I take one more look at them as he puts down the snake, and she walks back over to him. “Hopefully, he’s nothing like his father.”