CHAPTER TWELVE
Deacon
“Where are you going?” Sebastian growls as I pass him on my way to the front door.
“I’m grabbing lunch. It’s Saturday and I’m all caught up on work, so you don’t get to police my time today.”
“Don’t forget we’ve got a meeting with the realtor this afternoon.”
I bite back a growl of frustration and give my brother a tight smile. “Yeah, I’m not so senile yet that I don’t remember you telling me that this morning.”
He runs a hand through his hair and grunts, his attention returning to the blueprints he’s got spread out on the dining room table.
“You know, Seb, you can admit you’re nervous about building this house for Mom and Dad.”
“I’m not.” He doesn’t look up. “Only people who are bad at what they do get nervous about that kind of shit.”
I roll my eyes. “That’s not true. Mom and Dad calling last week and announcing they want to move here and they want us to build their house is exactly what we don’t need right now.”
Sebastian glares at me. “You saying you don’t want them to move here? You got some problem with our parents?”
“He’s saying we’re already overworked and struggling to get organized here, and we don’t really have time for a side project that’s going to eat up resources and time,” Cash says as he walks over to join me. “Lunch?”
I nod. “The Deli.”
“Sounds good.”
“It doesn’t matter how busy we are,” Sebastian says. “This is what we do for family. Mom and Dad aren’t getting any younger, and I don’t want to hear you complaining about them paying cost for the build or about giving up your free time for them.”
I look at Cash, but he shakes his head. He’s right. It’s not worth the argument. “We get it, Seb. Want us to bring you anything from The Deli?”
“Ham,” he says. “Sweet potato salad.”
“You got it,” I say.
“He’s going to give himself an ulcer,” Cash says as soon as we’re outside and headed to my truck.
“He’s going to look up one day and realize he’s an old man with nothing to show for it but a bunch of houses he built for other people.”
Cash slaps my back. “Which is why you’re helping him find love.”
He walks around to the passenger side of my truck and, thankfully, isn’t looking at my face when his words land. Which is good, because after I stayed up talking to DogPerson last night, I had a vivid, intense dream about her.
She looked like Amelia, but she talked like DogPerson, and she stripped naked and rode me into one of the best dreams I’ve ever had. What I should do is hand DogPerson over to Sebastian now, or end things with her altogether.
Just the thought of doing either of those things makes my chest tighten.
Instead of dwelling, I start the engine and back out of the driveway.
“You’ve been pretty quiet on the subject of Mom and Dad moving to town,” Cash says as we head toward Main Street. “You happy about it?”
“Of course.” I mean it. As far as parents go, ours are pretty damn near perfect.
In Aspen Cove, they lived right next door to me and were really good about giving me my own space.
I don’t expect that to change here. Not really.
“I am worried they’re going to miss their friends.
They’ve built a whole community in Aspen Cove. ”
“They have friends here too,” Cash says. “And it’s not like they’re shy. They’ve never had a problem making new friends.”
“Hopefully. But buying property and building a house before they’ve even spent time here is a big risk.”
“So they sell the house and move back to Aspen Cove if they hate it here. It’s not that big of a deal. What are you really worried about?”
I glance over at my brother, gauging his expression. “I just don’t understand the rush. Why couldn’t they give us a year to get the company off the ground? This is the last thing Sebastian needs right now, and you know he can’t ever tell them no for anything.”
I can feel Cash’s stare heating my skin.
I glance at him as I pull into the parking lot next to The Deli. “What?”
“Just making sure it’s Deacon driving this truck and not Levi or Ryland.”
I park and turn to my brother. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
He doesn’t back down. “You’ve always seemed happy to let the rest of us worry about stuff while you chase a good time.”
Damn it. My brother always knows just how to get under my skin. “Fuck you, Cash.”
He grins. “Nah, I’m all booked up now, thanks.” He slaps my shoulder. “My brother’s finally growing up.”
“You can walk home, asshole.”
I hop out of the truck, slamming the door behind me. I head toward The Deli, where I can see a long line through the windows, but I turn to face my brother before I get there. “There’s nothing wrong with wanting to have fun.”
“Never said there was,” he says, all casual, like we aren’t fighting.
“And most of the time you were right there with me, having a good time.”
He nods. “And most of the time any of us wanted to have a serious conversation, you hightailed it out of there.”
I shrug. “Y’all didn’t need me. You made that very clear.”
His expression morphs. Good. I want him to be angry. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
And I no longer want to have this conversation. “Forget it.”
“Ah, there’s the brother I know and love,” Cash says. “Running away when things get too real.”
I shake out my hands and reach for the door, but Cash grabs my shoulder and pulls me back, slamming me against the cinderblock wall of The Deli.
“What the fuck’s your problem?” I’m angrier than this conversation deserves, and I need to get away from him before I do or say something stupid. “Let me go.”
He grins. “I’m still bigger and stronger than you.”
I shove him, and he stumbles away, but he’s back on me in an instant. “I’m not trying to fight you. I just want to know what’s going on in your head. What’s got you so worried?”
“So you can tell me what an overgrown child I’m being?” I’ve always been the fun one, the one trying to ease tension with a joke. If that didn’t work, I fled the tension. And now, no one in my family takes me seriously. If they even bother listening to me at all.
Cash’s brow creases. “You know we’re just joking with that shit, right? Last month, you pulled over at a park to go down a slide. It’s not a leap.”
“It was a good slide.”
“Exactly. You’re a big kid. You like having fun. That’s who you are. Why is it suddenly a problem now?”
“Because I’m not literally a kid. I heard you and Ryland talking last night. You’re worried about Sebastian, too, but you didn’t include me in that conversation because you think I’m too immature to handle it.”
Cash just looks more confused. “You always say you don’t want to be involved in those conversations.”
“Because they were boring. It was just you and Ryland worrying over some detail of the business that was always going to work out fine. Everything with the business ran smoothly in Aspen Cove, and y’all didn’t need me.
It’s not running smoothly here. We need to do things differently, and someone should tell Mom and Dad to back off until we get our shit together. ”
Cash doesn’t laugh. He doesn’t even smile or put me off with his typical lackadaisical shrug. “I agree.”
I stare at him. “You haven’t been acting like it.”
He sighs. “Mom can’t handle the stairs at home anymore. They need a house that’s going to accommodate her illness.”
My throat closes up, and my eyes sting. “What the hell are you talking about? The new treatment is working. She’s been doing better. That’s what she says every time I call.”
“That’s what she says to all of us. But she’s lying.”
What I want to do is rewind time and avoid this conversation. Unfortunately, I just wasted a lot of breath convincing my brother I’m not that guy anymore. “How do you know that?”
“Dad called me. He thought we should know how much Mom is struggling. Her arthritis is worse, and the new drugs aren’t helping. They need to get into a single-level home. She just can’t do the stairs anymore.”
“She’s only sixty-five.” I want to find a way to explain this away. I don’t even want to think about the reality that our parents are aging. “There’s got to be something they can do for her.”
“And they will.” Cash squeezes my shoulder. “They haven’t given up on reducing her pain and preventing her from losing more mobility, but she needs to be somewhere easier on her body.”
“It’s because of the accident, isn’t it?”
Cash winces. “None of this is your fault, Deacon. You were a kid. You couldn’t have stopped that car from hitting her.”
I roll my eyes. I was the only kid in the car with Mom when we were hit by a pickup truck running a stop sign.
I broke my arm and spent the summer at the Weston farm, where there were two able-bodied parents to help me and no brothers to talk me into a wrestling match.
Mom broke the ankle in her right leg and both bones in her left calf.
She was off her feet for the entire summer.
If I sit and think about it, which I never do, I accept that getting sent away made me feel like I was being punished at the time, but I’m an adult now. I understand that none of it was my fault.
“I know that. I’m just saying that if it weren’t for the accident, her arthritis wouldn’t be so bad. She might be able to get around better.”
Cash shrugs. “Probably, but Grandma had really bad arthritis too. There’s no way to know.”
“So that’s why everyone’s in such a hurry to get them moved here. Why didn’t you tell me?”
He looks away. “You’ve been busy. We’ve all been busy. It didn’t come up.”
I cross my arms over my chest. “You didn’t think I could handle it.” What the hell?
“When Levi moved away last year, you barely spoke to us for two weeks. You buried yourself in work and spent the rest of the time out with friends.”
“I was busy.”
“You convinced Brogan to climb Deadman’s Peak. You nearly killed yourself.”
“I twisted my ankle.”
“And thank God for that. If you and Brogan had actually made it to the top, you wouldn’t have survived.”
I roll my eyes. “I’m a damn good rock climber, and you know it.”