Chapter 6
CHAPTER
SIX
CLAY
I ’d always surmised that I was in danger of falling hard and fast for Ally Dalbotten if I ever stopped moving long enough to get to know the woman she is now. Which was why I never stopped moving. Knowing her better would only do destructive things to my heart.
Turned out I was right.
I liked this woman. After less than an hour in the nurse’s office, tending to her wounds and trying not to devour her soft skin with my eyes, I knew I was in trouble. Then she got me talking about my depression, which I never did, and it felt surprisingly okay. She didn’t change my mind about the risk of a relationship—let’s not be foolhardy—but she had tested my resolve.
I was looking forward to being tested again a little too much.
My brain churned, trying to come up with reasons why the two of us couldn’t and shouldn’t chaperone the retreat together. Conflict of interest? Sure, when my interest in her created a conflict with my dick. Didn’t think I could go to the principal and tell him that was why I’d need a new co-chaperone.
I hadn’t finished clenching my jaw over that when I saw my brother’s truck parked in front of my house at the end of the long drive. Whenever I made the final right turn into the private neighborhood around Bandit Lake, whatever tension I still carried from my day slipped away like an unwanted cape.
Shane sat on my back porch, which was really more of a side porch because it wrapped around half the house. He and I had restored and refinished it together last year, giving him permanent rights to drink a beer there whenever he wanted, according to him.
The truth was I never minded coming home to company, not that I’d ever give him the satisfaction of telling him that.
At first, after our grandmother deeded the property to me, my parents, Shane, and I assumed she’d made a mistake. She’d lived to ninety years old, most of those years spent hosting family gatherings at this house, and it seemed like the natural order of things would be for my mother to inherit it. Line of succession, Green Valley style.
But my grandmother had other plans. Without mentioning it, she put the house in my name and left her money and other worldly possessions to the rest of my family.
“She always was quirky,” my brother had reasoned when he read the terms of the will. He left it at that, but my parents felt the burn of being snubbed. They were solid folk, raised to work hard in life and have few things given to them that they didn’t earn. They weren’t fussy, which meant they didn’t expect their children to be that way either.
Little surprise, they felt like depression was just a case of mind over matter. If I wasn’t happy, it was because I wasn’t trying hard enough. Then, I inherited the house.
Feeling undeserving and a little guilty, I’d instituted an open-door policy so Shane and my parents could use the place whenever they wanted. It only seemed fair.
Everyone had their own lives to attend to, so most of the time I spent nights and weekends here alone. Hence I didn’t mind it at all when I found Shane sipping one of my beers on my side porch.
“You get lost on your way home?” Shane chided, opening the outside fridge and handing me a beer without asking if I wanted one. After spending over an hour with Ally, I wanted ten, just to cool the heat in my veins.
“Something like that.” I explained Ally’s incident on the hurdles and filled my brother in on the upcoming retreat and my new co-chaperone. He raised an eyebrow when I mentioned Ally’s name, so I neglected to tell him I’d offered her a private camping lesson in my yard. I kept it simple—no big deal. “How long have you been here?”
Shane stretched his long legs out and put his feet, clad in hiking boots, up on the porch railing. He ran his left hand over the beard he’d let grow longer, and which he’d grown fond of stroking. Give him a pipe and he’d look downright thoughtful.
He used his smaller right hand to balance his beer bottle on one thigh. My brother had been born with symbrachydactyly, a rare condition that gave him a little hand with only a hint of fingers. He’d never let it stop him from doing anything though, and I admired him for that. If anything, he seemed to get more power from that hand when he kneaded dough, so good on him for making lemonade from what God gave him.
One more reason for my parents to scoff at an “invisible affliction,” which was how they saw my depression diagnosis when I sought therapy after college.
“About a half hour. Thought we could barbecue if you don’t have any plans.”
I looked at the time, which was unnecessary since the sun had just begun to set over the lake and that put the hour at about seven in the evening. “Barbecue sounds good. I’ve got a couple steaks in the fridge, but I don’t have much to go with ’em.”
Shane reached down and picked up a bag of russet potatoes and a grocery bag. “Saw the steaks when I was here last time,” he admitted. “Also saw that you didn’t have much else in your fridge.”
I took the proffered bag and shuffled through the items, glad to see he’d picked up a roll of paper towels for the kitchen in addition to sour cream, chives, broccoli, and a quart of orange sherbet. It was moments like this when I wondered if I’d ever let a woman get to know me well enough that she’d show up with the perfect array of foods. Wondered if I’d ever let anyone get to know me well enough.
And, as usual, I realized I was the problem in that scenario.
I flipped the steaks one final time to sear them with a crosshatch pattern. Even though it was just the two of us eating, I still wanted them to look worthy of a restaurant meal.
Shane came outside with the potatoes, baked in the kitchen oven and topped with chopped chives and sour cream. He’d sauteed the broccoli in chili oil and garlic, making me once again grateful to have a brother who could cook. It reminded me I needed to plan the meals for the retreat, so we didn’t end up eating trail mix for three days straight. That wouldn’t do.
After we’d divvied the side dishes up on plates and cracked open another two beers, Shane and I sat in chairs facing the lake under the darkening sky and waited for the steaks. “What’s Julia up to?” Since they’d started dating last year, Shane didn’t come for dinner nearly as often.
“Out with Joy. Girls’ night.”
“Gonna be a late one?”
He shrugged. “Who knows.”
We were no closer to Shane telling me the real reason for his visit than we’d been an hour ago, and I knew there was a reason. My brother didn’t just show up for dinner unless he had something to get off his chest. “To what do I owe the visit, Shane?”
His beer was halfway to his mouth and he froze. Grimacing at the fact that I knew him better than he usually realized, he slowly raised the bottle the remaining two inches, took a long sip, and put it on the table. “Mom and Dad want you to come to dinner,” he said, not meeting my eye. I hadn’t been to their house in over a month.
“They sent you over as emissary? Couldn’t ask me themselves?” My parents and I weren’t on the best terms, but sometimes they at least pretended. Guess today wasn’t one of those times.
He shrugged. “I might’ve offered. C’mon, Clay. Just come. It won’t be like last time.”
A laugh exploded from me at his naivete. “Why the hell not?”
“Because I made them promise not to do it again.” At the last family dinner, they’d surprised me by inviting their neighbors along with their twenty-five-year-old daughter. The worst part was that she didn’t seem to feel nearly as awkward as I did, and Shane got wrangled into a discussion in the kitchen about sourdough starters, leaving us alone for nearly an hour.
“Sorry if I don’t exactly trust y’all.”
“Hey, don’t lump me in with them. I didn’t know she’d be there. And at least this time, I already addressed it with Mom and Dad.”
“Yeah,” I groused.
He held up his beer again and watched me over the rim of the bottle before taking a sip. I knew he was thinking something, and most of me wished he’d keep it to himself, whatever it was.
But the rest of me was curious. “What?”
He shrugged. “Just that you have this opportunity to spend time with Ally Dalbotten and I’m just wondering if you’re finally planning on doing something about her. Finally.” Shane asked as though he was talking about a slight chance of showers during a morning hike. When, in fact, he was talking about a torrential downpour that would likely flood my entire world.
My brother remembered how bad I had it for Ally Dalbotten, but I didn’t feel like going there.
“Not gonna do anything except go camping.” I pulled the steaks off the grill and watched them sizzle on the plate, pink juices oozing from the sides. “Hey, can you grab the steak sauce from inside? I made a fresh batch.”
I assumed the conversation would be over at that point. It was my intention, anyway, which was why I sent Shane into the house for the sauce. By the time he returned, we’d be onto another subject.
But my brother had never done what I expected back when we were kids, and it seemed he didn’t plan to deviate now. He returned with a mason jar filled with a mahogany mixture of caramelized onions, brown sugar, and balsamic vinegar, all reduced down to a thick sauce. “Conversation not over.”
“Seemed over to me.”
“It’ll be over when you ask her out, finally.”
“Not happening.” I handed him his steak and watched his eyes water at the delicious smoky smell. “And now the conversation’s over.”