4. Vengeance upon Your Children’s Children #2
Wyatt and I have spent enough time together for him to recognize me, for heaven’s sake.
It’s not like I’ve gone through a magical transformation or extreme makeover since I last saw him.
My hair is longer than it’s ever been, and I’ve taken to letting the natural waves do their thing rather than straightening it the way I used to.
I’ve been the same height since my fifteen-year-old growth spurt, when I shot up to a respectably average five six.
I’ve gained a little weight, but not enough to make me unrecognizable.
Here I thought Wyatt and I had a shared rivalry. A bond of equal dislike. But instead, maybe Wyatt hasn’t ever cared enough about me to pay attention. The disdain I saw was perhaps more disinterest. Could he even pick me out of a crowd? A lineup?
Guess not. He can’t even pick me out of his own yard. By myself.
It shouldn’t sting. Wyatt is Jacob’s friend—or client slash friend. Not mine.
But it bothers me. Deeply.
My phone, sitting face down on the coffee table, starts to buzz.
“That will be your brother,” Wyatt states.
“What are you, an oracle?”
“He hasn’t stopped calling me for the last ten minutes. Except to call you. While you were...unconscious.”
“Which is because you called the cops on me and then let them leave me in a hot car.”
Wyatt has the decency to wince.
I lean forward and grab my phone off the coffee table, which has seen better days. Wyatt watches me as I answer, and I force myself to look away. The intensity of his expression is familiar, but there’s something new and different about how it’s hitting me today.
Maybe it’s just the heat.
“Give me a good reason not to write you out of my will,” I tell my brother in lieu of hello.
“For the last time, I don’t want your old collection of One Direction posters.” He pauses. “Are you okay?”
“I’ve been better.”
“This is not how I saw today going,” Jacob says, which I think counts as an apology in some other dimension. He and Wyatt have the same severe allergy to apologies.
“I sure hope not,” I say. “Because if this was your plan, I will seek revenge. Tenfold, brother. Upon your children’s children’s children’s pets.”
“Please—not my great-grandchildren’s puppies!”
“Fine. I’ll let the puppies live. But no promises with regards to your progeny.”
Wyatt makes a noise that sounds suspiciously like a chuckle, but when I glance up, he’s coughing behind his hand.
I turn my full attention and anger on Jacob. “Now, do you mind telling me why you sent me this address when you are not here, and Wyatt, who is here, didn’t know I was coming?”
“Uh” is his not-so-promising start.
“Hang on. I’m putting you on speakerphone so you can share with the class.” I adjust the volume and set the phone back on the coffee table. “Okay,” I say loudly. “Go ahead and fill us in on your little plan.”
“Wyatt?” Jacob says.
“Present,” Wyatt says, like he’s answering a roll call.
I almost smile.
There’s a long pause. “So, here’s the situation,” my brother says. “Neither of you is going to like it.”
“I’m not sure I can like it any less than what’s happened so far,” I say. “Which has consisted of a drive to a mystery location for a surprise trip with my brother that’s clearly not happening, being arrested—”
“Detained,” Wyatt corrects.
“Semantics.” I glare but Wyatt glares right back.
“Where was I? Oh, right—sitting handcuffed in the back of a hot cop car—to be clear, the car was hot, not the cops—while Mr. Big Deal over here signed autographs. Then I passed out from heat exhaustion, and now I’m inside Wyatt’s murder cottage, feeling like utter and total garbage. ”
There is silence.
I would feel bad except...I don’t. Nothing I said was exaggerated, except maybe the murder cottage part. Jury’s still out on that one. Some of the stains on the hardwoods could conceivably be blood.
Finally, Jacob speaks, his voice guitar-string tight. “You let them leave my sister in the back of a cop car? In the heat?”
Wyatt looks away, his gaze dropping to a stained plank of wood near his boot. “I didn’t know the car wasn’t running,” he says quietly.
Pressing a hand to my throbbing skull, I hunch over the phone. “All of this is your fault, Jacob. So, tell me—why am I here?”
I’m glaring at the phone so hard that I don’t notice Wyatt trying to hand me a water bottle until he thrusts it in my face. He’s leaning on his crutches, cheeks flushed, mouth downturned.
How little attention was I paying that I didn’t hear him crutching his way over to give this to me?
“Thanks,” I mumble, taking the water.
Don’t be too thankful , I remind myself. It’s honestly the least he can do.
Wyatt only nods, then hauls himself back across the room, leaning the crutches against the wall again. The tense look on his face is even tenser. His cheeks are flushed. Embarrassment or...
Pain , I realize. And I should have recognized the signs earlier.
But I was a little preoccupied—what with the whole police situation.
“What’s wrong with you, by the way?” I ask, unable to stop myself. “You broke your foot?”
Wyatt’s grimace of pain deepens into a frown. “It’s not broken,” he mutters. “I’m fine.”
“He’s not fine,” Jacob says, as clear as if he were in the room. “He has an injury—ironically from playing disc golf, not from hockey—”
“That’s not irony,” Wyatt says.
What I really want to know is, how does one get injured playing disc golf ? So many questions.
Jacob snorts.
“It’s a little ironic,” I say, earning me a dark look from Wyatt. “Getting injured in a noncontact, non-sport when you play hockey with body checking and fistfights and blades strapped to your feet.”
“Disc golf is a sport,” Wyatt says.
“It’s the equivalent of, like, cornhole. Or pickleball.”
“Both of which are also sports.”
“Just because something has a ball—”
“Or a bean bag,” Wyatt interrupts.
I roll my eyes. “—does not make it a sport.”
“ESPN televises pickleball tournaments and cornhole. There are professionals who play in the ACL—the American Cornhole League.”
“Next you’re going to tell me there’s a professional league for disc golf,” I say with a laugh.
“The PDGA,” Wyatt says with a smug little smile.
“Anyway,” Jacob says, raising his voice, reminding us that he is still on the phone. “If you’re all done with this delightful little argument, that’s why you’re there, Josie.”
“To help Wyatt understand what is and is not an actual sport?”
“No.” Jacob sounds exasperated, which makes me happier than it probably should. “Wyatt’s not taking care of himself,” he continues. “Blowing off doctor’s follow-up visits and not going to his PT appointments.”
Okay. Well, none of those behaviors sounds good. Especially for a pro athlete. But I’m not sure what they have to do with me .
Unless...he’s not planning to go back?
Surely a disc golf injury wouldn’t kill his hockey career. I can’t see a professional athlete ever living that down.
Wyatt’s cheeks are still red, and he’s slumped a little more against the wall now. He looks worse than a few minutes ago.
Which is saying something. The man normally looks like someone waved a magic wand and made a model step right out of a Men’s Fitness ad selling underwear or abs or smoldering gazes. As much as I dislike the man, I can’t deny his pure physical appeal.
Right now, though, the only kind of feature Wyatt could secure in a magazine would be as the before picture for a transformation piece.
“He needs someone to get him back on track,” Jacob says.
I don’t realize at first that Jacob means me. He sent me here to help Wyatt get back on track.
I am the someone .
I snatch the phone off the table and storm outside, ignoring my body’s protests at the quick movements and at returning to the oppressive heat. I find a shady spot under an overgrown shrub that’s nearly as tall as the house.
“Please explain why you think I would ever agree to this,” I hiss.
“Wyatt’s having a rough time. Physically and mentally. He needs help.”
“So, hire someone,” I tell him, staring at the screen door lying in the grass.
Wasn’t that attached to the house earlier? I can’t remember. My brain feels like a bell jar dropped over it, my thoughts soft and fuzzy. I massage my temple with one hand, wishing I’d grabbed my water bottle on the way out.
“I tried,” Jacob says. “Two different people. Wyatt chased them off.”
This does not shock me. “With a pitchfork or just his personality?”
Jacob ignores this. “He needs more of a...personal touch.”
I laugh. Loudly. “There will be zero personal touching. I mean, not that I’m staying at all. But I don’t see how you thought I would be a good option.”
“You’re qualified. Because you’re a medical professional,” Jacob continues as though reading a list of why he thinks this is a good idea.
To be clear, it’s not.
“I’m an elementary school nurse .” Usually I’m making the opposite argument, reminding people that yes, I do have an actual degree in nursing, and yes, I am a medical professional. “Also, you know Wyatt hates me,” I point out.
I don’t say that the feeling is mutual. I don’t need to. It’s a truth universally acknowledged that Wyatt and I do not get along. My brother doesn’t even try to argue this point. He only sighs.
“I’ll pay you.”
“It’s not about money.”
I want to mean the words. I really want to. But I’m already feeling my resolve crumble.
It’s a Pavlovian response for anyone working in education. Money is always an issue, and most of my teacher friends work other part-time jobs or, at the very least, work over the summer.
If Jacob is offering compensation, he’ll pay far more than what I’d make at school. Plus, trying to engage students over video chat while they’re actually playing Minecraft or texting isn’t my idea of a summer vacation.
Working for Jacob would mean less tutoring. Or no tutoring.
But more of Wyatt.