Chapter 15
brUCE
Everyone pushes back from the table with full and happy bellies after another one of Mama Louise’s delicious dinners. I’m not sure how she does it, but she feeds us all three times every day and does it with a smile.
I couldn’t do it, that’s for damn sure. Without Shay to feed us before and Mama Louise to feed us now, I’d probably subsist on piled high sandwiches and vegetables raw from the field. Hell, even now, some days I think I’d prefer that because it’d be easier and put me in the safe zone.
Because I’m definitely not safe tonight.
Mama Louise has been eyeballing me the whole meal, and I know there’s something coming, I’m just not sure what.
She’s keen and perceptive and wants to be all up in our Tannen business where she’s not wanted.
But when she shoves her way in, Brody, my brother who lost the most with this transition, melts and damn near invites her on in.
I know it’s a reprieve for him to not be the leader all the time, and I’m sure he thinks that sometimes Mama Louise’s unique perspective is needed.
But it still makes me want to walk away from all of this.
But I don’t.
I sit right here at the table and help with cleanup when we’re done, just like every night.
We all, except for Sophie, who’s holding Cindy Lou, do a dance around the kitchen—trash in the can, leftovers in containers for the fridge, edibles for the goats, and dishes in the sink.
It couldn’t be quicker if we choreographed it.
I try to make a run for it, not because I’m scared of the pint-sized woman watching me like a hawk but because I don’t have any need for her to pick around in the messed-up maze of my mind.
“Brutal?”
I freeze with my hand on the screen door, so close to freedom. So close to escape. I don’t even turn around, eyeing the black night just beyond my reach and wishing I could disappear into it. “Yeah?”
“Can you help me for a second?” Mama Louise asks, but she’s not, if you know her.
Mark grabs Katelyn’s hand and shoves by me with a grunt while Luke and Shayanne quickly say their good nights and follow.
Sophie and James take a second to gather up Cindy Lou’s things and then they disappear out the front door.
Brody and Bobby give me careful, guarded looks—Bobby’s asking if I’m okay, Brody’s telling me not to fuck this good thing up.
All told, they scatter like damn roaches, leaving me alone with Mama Louise in a matter of seconds.
Mama Louise smiles like she’s already gotten her way. I guess she has.
“Whatcha need?” I ask warily.
“Dishes first, and then, I might have made a batch of my special sweet tea,” she replies with a devious tilt to her smile.
I’ve had her special sweet tea, and it’s definitely evil.
So syrupy sweet you could drink it by the gallons, but the sugar hides the bottle of bourbon she adds.
It’ll sneak up on you faster than a one-legged man in a butt-kicking competition.
Stuck, I dutifully go over to the sink. Next to me, she sticks her hands in the soapy water, scrubbing a plate in silence before handing it to me for rinsing and drying.
Neither of us says a word for several long minutes, though I can hear her humming softly under her breath.
The tune sounds vaguely familiar, but it takes me a while to figure it out.
“Are you humming Bobby’s song?”
She smiles, the kind sweetness as obvious as the lines on her face. “Yes sir, he played it for me the other day. That boy is touched by God, working miracles with his hands and his mouth.”
I snort, not remotely interested in doing the ‘that’s what she said’ joke Mama Louise just unintentionally set me up for, but it runs through my mind anyway. I clear my throat instead. “Bobby’s good, for sure.”
The demon in my head still giggles like a twelve-year-old boy.
“How about you? You doing as well as he is?” She says it lazily, like I didn’t just mosey right into the trap she set for me.
I lift a brow in warning, glaring at her so she knows that I’m well aware she’s trying to figure me out. Thing is, I’m simple as fuck. I don’t need much, don’t want much, either. Just my family all together and maybe a little slice of happiness for myself.
“I’m fine, Mama Louise.” It should be the end of it.
Not many people stand up to a big motherfucker like me when I make declarations.
Hell, I could walk into Hank’s on any given day and proclaim it two-dollar draft night, and even Hank would probably go along with me.
He might threaten me with his Louisville Slugger at the end of the night, but he wouldn’t be too quick at arguing with me.
Mama Louise has no such compunction. She’s a pro at this game from years with her own boys. She touched the boundary line, I defended, so she backs up and comes from another angle. “I’m glad to hear it. How about those boys on your team? Are they all fine?”
Halle-fucking-lujah! A safe zone. I can talk about the kids all day.
So I do, telling her about the plays they’re running, the progress they’re making, and the fun we’re all having. She’s got a mind like a steel trap, and I predict she’ll know each and every boy by name and by story within moments of meeting them. “You still planning to come to the games?”
She bumps me with her shoulder, but it hits somewhere barely north of my elbow. “High winds and rainstorms couldn’t keep me away!” She chuckles. “Well, I guess the game would be cancelled in that case, but you know what I mean.”
I do. She’s solid for the games, gonna be sitting right there on the sidelines with the rest of the crew cheering the Wildcats on. Cheering me on.
“Thanks, I appreciate that.” It’s the polite and proper thing to say, but I actually mean it, and she nods like she knows it.
We finish with the dishes, and though it’s on the tip of my tongue to decline her offer of sweet tea, it’s not an often-extended invitation and I can’t be rude to the woman who’s taken us in.
We’re not exactly orphans since we’re all full-grown, but even big guys like Brody, Bobby, and I can use a mother’s love every once in a while, even if we don’t admit it.
And Shay is blooming like a damn sunflower under Mama Louise’s watchful care. I don’t want to fuck that up.
So I grab two glasses from the cabinet and she smiles like I just gave her a gift. She pulls the pitcher of tea from the refrigerator and pours us each a healthy dose of the brown liquid. “Let’s go on the back porch. I’ve been cooped up inside all day.”
I lead the way, opening the back door for her, and we settle in the wooden chairs on the porch. I think they’re called Adirondack chairs, and they usually make me think of the beach. Tonight, they feel comfortable and perfect, though, and I relax into my drink, my chair, and the night.
And pray that the team was all she wanted to talk about.
“So, what’s got you irritated as a racoon with no trash?” she asks conversationally and then takes a sip of tea. No such luck, I guess.
I sputter on my own drink, even though the bourbon is smooth as honey. “Nothing. I ain’t riled up over anything, ain’t irritated in the least.”
Her face says ‘doubt it’ loud and clear. “How’s Mike?”
I swear to God, butter would not melt in this woman’s mouth and a pit bull would lose his bone to her determination.
“Fine. Working third shift and can’t coach anymore, which you apparently already know. One of the moms took over as head coach.” My voice gives nothing away, and my hand is steady as I take another sip.
“How’s your Allyson handling that? How’re you doing with it?” She’s looking at the sky so hard she could probably count the stars, but I feel like her real attention is all on me.
How does she even know Allyson’s name? I sure as shit didn’t tell her. It’s then I remember Bobby’s dinner ‘oops’. That boy couldn’t keep his mouth shut even with duct tape. I’m guessing he’s the one who told her Allyson is my co-coach too.
“First off, she ain’t my Allyson, not my anything,” I spit out with more venom than I intend. “And we’re doing just fine.”
Even I don’t believe that, not after yesterday.
Practice went so well, or mostly so, other than the hiccup with the tackle, and even afterward, we’d flirted and talked like .
. . old friends. It’d been comfortable. I liked her giving me shit, loved her body so close to mine that I could smell the blend of her floral perfume and sweet sweat.
And then that’d all gone to hell in a handbasket again.
Cheat on her? Goddamn, that girl had me spun around her finger so tight I didn’t know my ass from my elbow. I never would’ve cheated on her. I was doing everything I could to be worthy of her.
I realize too late that I’ve been silent too long. Mama Louise can see right through me or maybe even hear my thoughts with how loudly I’m thinking them.
“You can talk to me, you know?” she says quietly and then waits.
Maybe she’s magic, maybe this tea is stronger than I think, or maybe I just needed this right now, but I do talk to her. Like a cork popped off the champagne bottle of my emotions, I spill everything.
I tell her about Allyson and me in high school and all our plans and dreams. I tell her about how much I loved her and wanted to do right by her.
I explain that there was some misunderstanding, but we were too stubborn and stupid to just talk it through.
I tell her about going to see Al at school and seeing her with that fucking khakis guy who married her and gave her the baby I always wanted to have with her.
And finally, I tell her that I think something went wrong with Allyson’s marriage, that she’d said she’d had to save herself.
I dump it all out, purging the poison from my soul. Mama Louise sits there, sipping her tea and listening. Even as I rage and admit that I want to find this fuckwit, Jeremy, and peel him open with my bare hands for hurting Allyson.