Chapter 3
THREE
LELAND
“Did I do enough?” I whisper as I lie sprawled out on the couch at the end of the day. “This was more exhausting than that day I had to hunt down this man who was an elusive recluse who’d taken out seven people without his face ever being seen.”
“Yeah? Do you think that maybe after the skydiving and the steak fondue place, we didn’t also have to go to the movies, an arcade, and the video game store?”
“No… we had to do it all,” I say. “We had to show Cam that we are better parents than his.”
“Is that why you did all of that?” Jackson asks, like he’s skeptical of my reasoning.
“Yes.”
He raises a beautiful eyebrow that I choose to ignore. Really, he shouldn’t decide things for me.
“I’m going to let the dogs out and head to bed. You ready for bed?” I ask, in the hope of distracting him from any further questions.
“Yeah.”
I get up and head to the back door as I call to the dogs.
Cayenne often sleeps in Waylon’s room, which started after I realized that it made Waylon feel significantly better to have her around and began closing her in with him.
Now she chooses to sleep with him quite often, since he bribes her with belly rubs and the occasional snack.
But I think the boys are finally playing video games, so she’s chilling with us.
I send both dogs out into the backyard and grab a glass for water when I see Waylon come down.
“Can I get some cookies?” he asks.
“You know you don’t have to ask.”
“Yeah but… I don’t know…” He trails off.
“This is your house too, Waylon,” I say as I fill the glass with water. “You can do whatever you want as long as you don’t do something unsafe… or go into the basement.”
“I don’t want to go in the basement!” he protests.
Sometimes I wonder what he thinks we have down there.
“Good. I see you didn’t claim you didn’t want to do anything unsafe. Do not start a meth lab in the attic.”
“Do we even have an attic?”
“That’s what someone wanting to start a meth lab in the attic would say,” I explain. “I have plenty of money to get you through college. You don’t need to Breaking Bad it.”
“I’m not… you’re ridiculous!” He grabs the cookies and then heads for the stairs before hesitating. “Leland?”
“Yeah?”
Waylon’s quiet for a moment. “I… uh…” He hesitates again and I realize that I don’t quite know what to do with this.
He really doesn’t need to say anything more because I don’t know how to handle anything more.
“I, uh… I really…” He pauses as he seems to mull over what he has to say.
“My brother and I struggled a lot… there were so many times when… when we really didn’t know if we’d even have food that day, so…
Bennett worked a lot, and I didn’t see him much…
things like this… I never got to do any of the fun stuff my classmates got to do, but…
” Waylon rubs his face. “It’s not the things we did.
Like obviously all of the stuff we did today is awesome…
but I was meaning more like… I was very alone…
don’t get me wrong, I love my brother, and he did everything he could, but he couldn’t do it all.
So I just… never had people and… I don’t know.
I was just… it’s stupid. Okay. I’m taking my cookies and leaving. ”
I watch him hug the cookies to himself as I realize that I should answer him in some way.
But what exactly do I say? I don’t know how to do this.
I don’t know how to comfort people or share emotions or thoughts with them.
I know how to take all of my emotions and slam them behind a wall I was never supposed to break down.
After a brief struggle, I manage to say, “I didn’t either.
” Waylon stops walking and turns to look at me as I force myself to say more.
“You know quite well that my ability to talk about feelings or myself is limited at best… I’m not very fond of it.
But I know that loneliness… it’s what led me to make some very horrible choices, like trusting Lucas.
Because I felt like I would do anything to avoid that…
that doing what he wanted was better than being all alone.
I’m just really glad that you didn’t find yourself a Lucas because I’m afraid that if you’d caved and trusted your father…
” I hesitate, trying to find the right words.
“Waylon, you have a rare skill that people would do a lot to acquire, and they would have done whatever it took to use you. I’m just glad they weren’t given the chance. ”
Waylon nods. “Thank you… for making it so they couldn’t and for giving me a home… even if you’re really weird and probably scheming up something ridiculous.”
“That’s my go-to,” I say, glad he’s jumping away from this emotional nonsense and into something lighthearted.
“I know it is. And I’m still scared of it,” he replies, hugging the cookies to himself like they’ll save him from my schemes. “Just… Leland… please remember… I know how to blow up that precious fence of yours.”
I gasp. “You little shit!”
He laughs as he hurries off, so I chase after him.
“I will take you to the fire department and drop your ass off!” I threaten.
Waylon looks back at me as he reaches the stairs. “I’m just saying… if you torture me too much, who knows what I might do!”
“I will torture you and you will like it!” I threaten.
“I’m not so sure about that,” he says before running up the stairs as fast as he can.
Jackson slides into the doorway to see what’s going on. “Hey.”
“Don’t ‘Hey’ me. You know I can’t handle emotions. And ‘hey’ sounds like you’re ’bout to get all emotional on me.”
“You did good.”
My eyes grow wide. “Oh, don’t give me that shit!”
“Me telling you that you did well isn’t going to hurt you!” he protests.
“It sure does, Jackson! My skin! It burns!”
“You’re not melting because of kindness!”
“I might be! I’m suffering.”
His eyebrow rises. “Are you? Because from where I’m standing, you look happy that Waylon trusts you so much. He really cares about you, and you really care about him.”
“Shush your sweet face or you’re going in the Sasquatch costume. You hear me?”
That effectively straightens him right up. “Yes, sir.”
“Good. Now let the dogs in and meet me upstairs.”
“Yes, sir!”
“That’s right,” I say before I hurry upstairs. I can hear Cam and Waylon talking from his bedroom and wonder if I’ll need to threaten them to be quiet so Jackson and I can sleep. That would probably make me feel better, but Waylon must notice me and goes, “Good night!”
“Good night, strange child.”
“You’re so weird,” he calls back.
“Thank you,” I say, then I head to my room and shut the door when I see Jackson coming. I consider holding myself against it so he can’t come in but quickly cave.
“Why’d you shut the door on me?” he asks as he lets himself in.
“Because you have feelings crawling all over you and they disgust me.”
Jackson does some odd hand-waving thing that means he’s being sarcastic. “Oh, so disgusting! Better take my shirt off to get rid of all of those feelings,” he says before he whips it off and throws it.
“That’s better. Significantly better,” I tell him. “But the lower half is still suffering.”
“Of course it is,” he says as he drops his pants. When he walks past me to the bathroom, I make sure to smack his naked ass, pleased with the sound it makes.
We brush our teeth while I eye him to make sure he’s removed all of those disgusting feelings he wanted to talk about, but the instant he spits out the toothpaste and grins at me, I know it’s a losing battle.
“I’m going to go stroke my guns or I’m afraid I’m not going to make it,” I decide.
“That’s so sad,” Jackson says, following me over to the bed where he gets a book and I get a gun. I pet it for a bit, which makes him laugh.
“Stop! Emotions aren’t that bad,” he declares as he grabs me and pulls me into a hug.
I grudgingly put the gun down while he pets my head.
“There, there. You’ll make it. I promise.” His pats turn into weird pets that occasionally involve my eyes and nose. It’s not the most pleasant, but I still find myself loving the attention. When did I become such a sucker?
“I’m not so certain that I will make it,” I grumble as I lean into him, kind of enjoying the affection.
“Well, I am,” he says. He draws me in tighter, pulling me close while he kisses my cheek and then kisses a line up to my forehead. “Is this making you feel better?”
“A little bit,” I mumble.
Jackson trails kisses down to my lips then smiles at me. He knows that smile can sucker me into anything. Instead of lying here limply, life slowly returns to my body as I wrap my arms around him.
“I guess I’m going to make it.”
“Yeah?” he asks.
“Just because you’re sexy. It’s like you’re refilling my battery,” I say before I pull myself closer to him, tucking one leg between his and my head against his shoulder. I close my eyes while he rubs his hands over my back.
“I love you. I would do anything for you. I would take on the world’s tallest fence for you. But the real question is… would you burn down the fence in the front yard for me?” he asks.
“You’re so handsome and sweet and lovely. I just adore you,” I say, really feeling like that should erase the traitorous words that just came out of his mouth.
“I would move mountains for you. But would you move that fence for me?”
Why is he talking such nonsense? “I would take down an entire army for you,” I assure him.
“But what about The Fence?”
I reach out and cup my hands over his eyes. “Go to sleep, sweetie. I think you hit your head in the tube thingy and need to recover.”
Jackson laughs as he pulls my hand down and kisses my fingers. “I don’t think I did.”
I just play dead, deciding that this is my only hope. Jackson doesn’t seem to think it is because he grabs my sides and bites my neck. It makes me squirm and my eyes shoot open.
“I have fence removal on speed dial. Just say the word,” he says.
“Which word? I love you?”
He sighs. “Soon. We will destroy it soon.”
“No, husband. We will be buried with it.”
“Oh joy.”
“Scratch that… our coffins will be made from The Fence’s giving planks.”
“I’m just not even going to engage,” Jackson decides.