Chapter 4
CHAPTER 4
LEIF
“ T hink fast,” Jack yelled before he sent the ball flying straight toward my head.
I jumped, grabbed it out of the air, and dodged one of our friends. I spun, sending the ball sailing again and watching as it neatly dropped into the net. I tossed my arms up and jogged over to give my brother a high-five.
“Good game, man.” I smacked my palm against his before I smirked at our friends. “Are you guys ready to get your asses handed to you again?”
Josh, a dude we’d met right here at the basketball court shortly after we’d moved to Denver, snorted as he came back with the ball. “That was a lucky shot, man. No way you make it again.”
“I love a challenge.” I jogged over to grab my water from the bench next to the court, taking a long sip before I set it back down. It was still snowy outside and most people thought we were idiots for playing in this weather, but we all loved the cold and it sure helped that our water wasn’t boiling hot by the time we got to it.
As I swallowed, my brother jerked his head at me. “Leif is going back to Austin for Thanksgiving to go snuggle up to his high school sweetheart. Anyone wanna go snowboarding with me while he’s gone?”
“His high school sweetheart?” Josh frowned, glancing at me. “What happened to that hot chick at your firm? I thought you two accounting nerds were slapping spreadsheets together.”
“Rainy? We were a thing, but it didn’t work out.”
Andrew, Josh’s brother, gave me grinning look of disapproval. His head shook and he let out a harsh sigh. “That girl is seriously hot. You should have made it work, bro.”
“She’s definitely a looker but she’s also nuttier than squirrel shit,” I said.
Andrew nodded. “Most of the hot ones are crazy. Just grab that bull by the horns and see how long you can hang on.”
Josh scoffed. “You can put up with a little bit of crazy if you get to sleep next to that every night.”
I shook my head and grinned. “See how much sleep you get after she makes you sing lullabies to your plants. Because that shit happened.”
Andrew cocked his head at me. “It’s a well-known fact that plants respond to music. Maybe she was concerned they weren’t growing well enough.”
“They’re two pot plants,” I said, making a face. “They’re already growing as well as they ever will. I didn’t even want the damn things. She bought them for me, spent two hours deciding which windowsill to put them on, and then cried until I sang Twinkle Twinkle Little Star .”
Jack grunted, trying to hold back his laughter. “Tell them about the thing with her phone.”
I groaned. “Oh, yeah. I can’t believe I almost forgot about that.”
“Girls are notoriously crazy when it comes to phones, man,” Josh said. “I’m not sure this is going to prove she’s a lunatic.”
“It will,” Jack said, crossing his arms and looking smug. “Trust me, I’m willing to put money on it. Once you hear this, you wouldn’t even fuck her with someone else’s dick.”
I nodded my agreement, grimacing. “The first time Rainy came to my house, she walked into my bedroom, saw my bedding, turned around, and walked right back out again.”
“Okay?” Andrew’s eyebrows tugged together. “Why did she hate your sheets? Did they have cartoon cars on them or something?”
“Nope. They were navy blue and white, but anyway, she told me that if I ever wanted her in my bed, she wasn’t sleeping on sheets other women had slept on before.”
“That’s not so bad,” he said. “Let me guess, the next morning you bought new bedding?”
“First fucking thing, man.” I chuckled. “As the store opened, there I was. Even checked the thread count and all that shit. I took it home, made the bed, and called her to come over.”
“You said this had something to do with her phone, though,” Josh said.
“I’m getting there,” I assured him, still confused as hell about it, but I was trying not to let it bug me too much. “A few months later, she was showing me some pictures on her phone and she scrolled one too far. She had a picture of me sleeping.”
Andrew paused for a beat and then shrugged. “Okay, that’s weird, but I guess it could be kinda cute.”
“Wait for it,” Jack said.
I scrunched my nose up. “It was a picture of me sleeping on my old bedding , but she was only ever at my house that one time when I had it, and I drove her home from the restaurant where we went for dinner. She didn’t come back to my place that night.”
Josh blanched. “How did she get the picture, then?”
I shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine, man. But it gets worse.”
“Worse?” Andrew’s face contorted. “Worse than breaking into your house and taking a picture of you sleeping?”
I nodded. “My old sheets went missing. I wanted to donate them, but I couldn’t find them, so I thought maybe the cleaning company had disposed of them for me. It turns out Rainy took them.”
“She took them?” Andrew asked cautiously.
“Yep, and then after we broke up, she set them on fire and filmed a video of them burning, which she subsequently posted on social media.”
Josh let out a low whistle. “Is it weird that I still think she’s hot? Dangerous, maybe, but hot.”
Andrew laughed and rolled his eyes as he tossed the ball at his brother. “Don’t even think about it, bro. We live together. If you bring her home, she’ll know where I live too.”
“At least you’re going to be seeing your new girl all the way over in Texas,” Josh said. “I doubt Rainy would take it very well if you brought her here.”
“Probably not,” I agreed. “Rainy has no filter and she still thinks I belong to her, even if we’re not together.”
“Crazy,” Andrew said, shaking his head.
I turned to my brother. “Why are you asking them if they want to go snowboarding with you while I’m gone? You’re going home for Thanksgiving too. We talked about this.”
“Yeah, but then I decided that I’m still not going,” he said. “Texas sucks. It’s hot in the summer. Hot at the holidays. Sweating at Thanksgiving is just unnatural, man.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked, laughing. “A couple weeks ago, you were complaining because it started snowing. Now Texas is too hot. There’s no making you happy, is there?”
“I prefer the cold to the heat.”
I arched an eyebrow at him. “Have you told Mom?”
“Nope. I figured you could do it when you get there.”
“Not a chance. I’m not breaking her heart for you, big brother. Sorry. You’re going to have to do your own dirty work.”
Andrew shot him a look. “You’re not going to see your mother for Thanksgiving? What is wrong with you, bro?”
Josh widened his eyes at Jack. “I hope you’re ready to get shit for that for the next year at least. That’s rough, Jackie. Borderline evil. The woman gave birth to you. You’re genetically obliged to see her for the holidays for the rest of your life. Or the rest of her life, at least.”
Jack finally sighed, his gaze bouncing from mine to our friends’ and back again. “Fine. I’ll go. Besides, I want to see Laurel too.”
I reached out and shoved him playfully. “Back off my girl, man.”
“She’s not your girl,” he said, giving me a push in turn. “At least not yet.”
“He’s not wrong.” Andrew grabbed his water bottle and took a long sip. “Just because she was your high school sweetheart doesn’t mean she belongs to you in perpetuity.”
“She does as far as Jack’s concerned.” I dodged his hand when he tried to push me again. “It’s never going to happen, man. She’s never looked at you that way and I’ll sic Rainy on you if you try anything with Laurel.”
He groaned. “Mom is going to be over the moon that you two are getting back together. You won’t even have to sic Rainy on me. I’m pretty sure Mom would have my balls if I even looked at Laurel.”
“Exactly.” I grinned.
Andrew laughed. “I’m sure your dad would protect your balls.”
“He might’ve,” I said, the grin melting away from my face. “Unfortunately, he can’t really do that unless he sends a lightning bolt from heaven.”
Jack sighed, blowing out a heavy breath. He turned away from us to take a drink of water. Sometimes, when someone asked about our dad, it hit both of us square in the chest all over again. It had been so long that we were mostly used to not having him around anymore, but there were still some days when any mention of him brought all that pain back again.
It looked like today was one of those days for both me and my brother. Approaching holidays always seemed to bring the old emotions right back to the surface.
I glanced at Andrew. “Our dad died in a fire with Laurel’s dad, actually. They were firefighters together.”
He grimaced. “I’m sorry, bro. I didn’t know.”
“It was a long time ago,” Jack muttered as he finally turned around again. “We were kids and an old mill burnt down. Took both our fathers out with it.”
I saw the profound sadness creeping into his eyes as he told our friends about it. Neither of us spoke about Dad or the fire so often anymore. It hurt too much.
In fact, that was the reason Laurel and I had eventually broken up. The grief had been too heavy and we’d both needed time to heal.
Apart.
Being together reminded the other too much of what we’d lost.
At first, I’d really tried to ignore my own pain to help her through hers. I’d done everything I could think of to cheer her up, but as time went on and the questions I’d wanted to ask my dad had started piling up, missing him had become too much.
One month had bled into the next and the next without him, and his absence had become larger with every passing day. Every one of Jack’s many games that he’d missed. Every one of Mom’s meals.
The tables had turned then and Laurel had tried to be there for me when my own grief had opened up like a chasm inside, but in the end, neither of us had been able to do much to alleviate the other’s suffering. There were short bursts of time when we could make things marginally better for each other, but they never lasted long.
Slowly but surely, seeing each other had just become too painful. A canyon opened up between us as we tried processing our impossible grief. Words had run out. We hadn’t known what to do or say to each other, and after a few months, we’d decided to call it quits.
“Do you guys want to talk about what happened?” Josh asked, his brow furrowed and his eyes downturned. “We could go grab a coffee.”
Jack scoffed. “Nope. We’re good. Thanks. Leif?”
“All good,” I said. “Shut up and let’s just play ball.”
As our game started up, I jogged back out onto the court and tried to focus on the task at hand, but Laurel was dominating my thoughts again. She and I had been endgame once, and I couldn’t help but wonder if we would ever get there again.