Chapter 21
Marc
Iwasn’t sure how long I stood at the front of the shop staring after JD.
I was stuck in decision paralysis, trying to determine what the hell had happened.
One minute, we’re having an amazing morning—laughing, kissing, touching, decorating the store—then I realize his phone is lighting up like Main Street on Christmas.
Okay, I might have been a touch jealous of how excited he was, but when he said it was his brother, I got it.
The next minute, JD is taking a call and his brother—and his brother’s boyfriend—are literally at the door to the flower shop.
So, spoiler, the brother wasn’t the one calling.
Which now had me wondering who the fuck was calling JD. Problem for another time.
I figured when he came back, he’d be thrilled to see his brother.
But it had been more like a mini-explosion.
And speaking of mini, it was a little freaky how Andy was literally like a less muscly, somehow much scarier, miniature version of JD.
Though it was impressive how he pulled it together.
Something I gathered was unusual, given how surprised JD appeared.
Except then something else happened while I was talking to the boyfriend, Mitch, mostly to give the brothers a chance to clear the air. So much for that.
And now? Now I didn’t know what to do. JD said he wanted to be alone, but all I wanted to do was chase after him.
He was obviously upset. If only he would talk to me, then at least I could try to make it better.
Instead, I was standing here about as useful as a screen door on a submarine while the man I cared more than anything about was hurting.
Alex will know what to do.
I took out my phone, except instead of pulling up my sister, I opened JD’s brother’s contact info and typed out a quick message.
Then I stared impatiently at the screen for a response, my irritation increasing with each second that passed.
It wasn’t until I saw the three bubbles appear that I realized what I’d texted him.
Marc: WTF did U say to ur brother?!
I stared at the message in horror as the dots danced up and down, disappeared, then reappeared.
“Shit.” I considered deleting the message, though it was obviously too late for that.
Which left swallowing my pride and apologizing.
This wasn’t my family. I didn’t know shit about their dynamics or their history—though Andy had hinted at some real doozies.
Had JD really just enlisted without telling anyone?
Either way, it wasn’t my business to stick my nose in.
Decision made, now I had to figure out how to apologize for sending such an aggressive message to someone I didn’t even know. Except I didn’t get the chance.
Andy: I think I overstepped and hit a sore spot. I’m sorry he lashed out at you too. He doesn’t mean it.
Andy: This is Mitch. If he said he wants 2 B alone don’t let him.
Andy: FFS he’s so dramatic. What he’s trying to say, and instead making my brother sound unstable, is that we’re a lot alike. We tend to isolate when we’re hurting.
Andy: M again. Can vouch. Also nvr works
Andy: Can you use your own damn phone, please? But yeah, he’s right. Being alone has never helped. I can’t speak for James, but I tended to catastrophize, spiral.
I read over the messages a few times and bit back the sudden urge to laugh hysterically.
Marc: Thx
I tucked my phone away and darted out the receiving door, barely pausing long enough to secure it before taking off down the sidewalk only to screech to a halt again.
Which way? I sent him a message, not that I expected a response, and debated calling, though I doubted it’d be met with better success.
It hadn’t been that long, and unless he was running, he couldn’t have gone far, not with how much traffic was on the roads today.
On a whim, I headed toward the nearest cafe.
When that one turned out to be a bust, I checked the next nearest.
Four cafes later, I found him wandering down Fairhope Ave. I hot-footed it down the drive from Bay Breeze Cafe, sprinting to catch up with him. “JD!”
He paused and looked around. When his gaze landed on me jogging toward him, surprise briefly eclipsed the angry sadness dominating his face, then the clouds rolled back in. “I told you I wanted to be alone,” he said, already turning away from me.
With a huff, I picked up my pace until I could fall in step beside him, albeit still working to catch my breath from chasing him around half the fucking city.
“Yeah, and I heard you. I just chose to ignore it.” He gave me a side-eye that I also chose not to comment on.
“Look, I’ve gotten worked up plenty of times while you’ve been here.
I’ve spiraled, I’ve gotten in my head, I’ve lashed out. ”
“Your point?”
“My point is that you didn’t let me sit with it any of those times, and I’m not going to let you either.”
He finally stopped walking and looked at me. “What do you want, Marc?”
God, he sounded so defeated. What nerve had his brother struck to affect him like this?
I wanted to hold his neck like he did for me, like I’d seen Mitch do for Andy.
But I wasn’t confident in my ability to pull it off, least of all because I didn’t know why it was so damn effective.
Maybe Mitch would be able to tell me later tonight, or better yet tomorrow, assuming I could get this disaster back on course.
Instead of doing something I was unsure of, I went for something riskier.
I grabbed his hand. “I want to be there for you like you’ve been there for me.
Please, James. Let me support you.” Something flickered in his eyes.
I didn’t even know what it was, but I knew I wanted whatever it was with my entire being.
“Please, James,” I repeated, my voice unexpectedly thick, and squeezed his hand.
He took a deep, stuttering breath, and when he squeezed my hand back, I thought for a second my heart might actually pop like the seed capsules of a jewelweed. “I guess we should head back to the shop.” He looked around, and before he could admit to being lost, I chimed in.
“Actually, I was thinking since we’re here already, we could hit up the Bay Breeze Cafe. We should be between the morning and lunch rush, so no line. Get out of the heat for a bit. What do you say? I’ll even get you the sweetest thing I can find.”
He chuckled, and a warmth that had nothing to do with the rising temperature spread through my chest. “No need to oversell it. You had me at ‘breeze.’ Now where exactly is this joint? Because I’ve passed a few places and I can honestly say I haven’t seen that name once.”
I smiled broadly, already tugging him back toward the drive and a rather convenient aged oak, if I did say so myself. Once we were firmly in the shade and obscured from nosey jerks, I pulled him close so he was pressing me against the tree.
“Something on your mind, Weathers?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
My smirk slipped free about the same time I slipped my hand beneath his shirt to feel his furry belly. “I promised you something sweet, didn’t I?”
His eyes widened, and he glanced around where the steady vehicle traffic couldn’t care less and the foot traffic was virtually nonexistent. “Here?”
“Just kiss me, JD.”
He hesitated a moment, then lowered his head to brush his lips delicately over mine.
It was possible he was uncomfortable with the public setting, but I didn’t think that was it.
I suspected it had something to do with whatever nerve his brother had struck, and for some unfathomable reason, I was convinced this would help.
Also, I was a greedy shit, desperate for more kisses, who would happily devour this man given the opportunity.
So, when he didn’t immediately pull away, I released his hand and grabbed the side of his neck to hold him in place so I could kiss him the way I wanted.
Between heartbeats, I suddenly found myself crushed between the immovable force of two-hundred-year-old gnarled wood and JD, and it was fucking perfect. The suddenly intense kiss tapered off until we were simply standing there, our foreheads pressed together, sharing the same air.
“My flower name is also my favorite flower,” I said out of the blue, my eyes still closed, lost in the moment of connection.
“Mmm, because there’s so many fewer of those.”
“Shut your face.” I laughed and pushed him away. “That’s the thanks I get for giving you a hint?”
He crossed his arms, forcing his t-shirt to strain across his chest. “What makes you think I needed a hint?”
I snorted. “You’ve been struggling pretty bad.”
“Oh yeah? How’s this for struggle?”
Before I knew it, JD’s arms were uncrossed, and I was bent over in a headlock.
Had to admit, of all the ways I’d imagined one of us bent over, this hadn’t made the list. Not that I had a list. Okay, there might be a list. But it was all JD and those damn romance books’ fault for giving me the ideas.
“Ack! Let me go, you freaking giant. No fair!” I shoved against him with the expected result—aka none—while laughing.
“Hey, queers, get a fucking room!” a voice shouted right before a sizeable rock thunked into the oak tree hard enough to leave a dent.
JD instantly let me go, and I scooped up the rock, then sent it sailing into Brody Beechum’s bike wheel in one fluid motion.
It slammed into the spokes hard enough for the bicycle to wobble.
Try as he might to regain control, the wheel was fucked, and he went crashing to the ground.
He might be able to limp along home, but there was a replacement bike in his future.
“Fucking asshole!” Brody shouted, grabbing another rock and hurling it our way. I watched impassively as it once again missed its target.
“I see your aim hasn’t improved.”
“You owe me a new bike, you fucking fag,” he clapped back, as original as ever. He was talking out of his ass for sure. If only he’d been here a minute or two earlier, then he would have really gotten an eyeful.
“I don’t owe you shit, Brody. Learn to mind your own fucking business. Or have you still not learned about throwing rocks and glass houses? And if you don’t like it, then you can cry to your daddy like you always have.” I crossed my arms and waited for the comeback.
Brody’s gaze darted between us, then, like the back alley coward he’d always been, he picked up his bike and began walking his janky ass home.
When it was clear he wouldn’t be circling back for retribution, I turned to the poor, abused oak tree.
Plenty of people over the years thought I was a little off my rocker for talking and cooing to plants, encouraging them, but plenty of studies showed how effective it was. Besides, wasn’t like it could hurt.
“Did that big ol’ bully hurt you? That’s okay.
You’re stronger and more resilient than he’ll ever be.
” I lovingly caressed each superficial wound, gently clearing away the damaged pieces.
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught JD watching me and quickly straightened up.
One of these days I’d remember other people could see me when I did shit like that. “What?”
“That’s one hell of an arm you’ve got,” he said with an appraising look.
I beamed at him. “Varsity baseball. Third base. Wanna guess what position Brody played?” I asked, wiggling my eyebrows.
“JV benchwarmer?” he guessed, and I burst out laughing so hard tears were streaming down my cheeks within seconds.
“Oh my God, no, but that’s so much better.
Second-string shortstop. Luckily, he didn’t get a lot of playing time, and all the guys on the team were really good at catching.
” I gestured to the drive we’d been previously angling toward, and we resumed walking.
“You ever play a sport in high school or college?”
“Played lacrosse at the prep academy I went to. I didn’t, uh, go to college. My family wasn’t too happy about that.” I could see the dark cloud reforming above him and slowly shadowing his face.
“That sounds like a 'them' problem. And no offense, but I never in a million years would have guessed you didn’t go to college.”
He jerked and looked at me. “What do you mean?”
I shrugged. “First, it’s your life, not theirs. Live it how you want. Second, JD, you’re like ridiculously smart.”
“What makes you say that?”
Both of my eyebrows shot up. That sounded a lot like he didn’t believe me.
What the hell? “Seriously? Uh, where do I even begin? Your vocabulary, you do math in your head, you spout off random facts all the time, I swear I haven’t seen you use a measuring tape once, or…
or… You just are, damn it,” I finished with an indignant huff.
“Whoa there, relax. Take it easy.”
“Do not tell me to cool my grits,” I snarled back, mostly good-naturedly. How could the man not believe he was intelligent? They didn’t exactly let dunces lead Urban Search and Rescue units.
“I’m sorry, your what now?”
The question pushed the troubling thoughts aside, and I gave him a wide grin that for some reason made him look nervous.
“Oh, my sweet, na?ve Yankee. I’m about to introduce you to the savory goodness that is shrimp and grits.
” I stepped close enough that our chests touched, looked into his coastal blue eyes, and dropped my voice.
“I promise you’ll love them, sir. And if you don’t, I’m sure you can come up with a way for me to make it up to you.
” I stepped back as casually as my semi would let me and resumed walking toward Bay Breeze Cafe.
“Fucking hell, Marc,” JD hissed behind me. I couldn’t help but smirk. Typically, I hated losing, but this once I didn’t think I’d mind all that much. It was almost a shame that I was positive I wouldn’t.