Chapter 7
THEO
Landscaping was bullshit. I’d never done it before, but thirty minutes into Frieda’s latest assignment for me, I’d learned that I would not be making a career of trying to win the war against weeds.
It was impossible. These desert plants would survive a nuclear winter and still come out asking if radiation had anything more to throw at it.
I stood in the motel garden with the Arizona sun beating down on the back of my neck while I tried to wrangle a pair of hedge clippers older than I was.
Once again, I was coated in dust, sweating through my T-shirt, and seriously questioning why I’d agreed to the work-stay arrangement in the first place.
Frieda was playing classic country music through the crackly old speakers scattered throughout the property, and while I liked the music, I missed Martha. I missed the wind on my skin and the wide open roads.
What was more, I had never needed her discount to stay here.
Even if Alex did end up cutting me off, I could still pay her usual rate for the rest of my life without even denting my bank account.
At the time, it had felt like a good idea, getting a job to keep me busy while I waited, saving me from dying of boredom, but right now, I was seriously questioning the choice.
When my phone started vibrating in my pocket, I wiped the sweat off my brow and prayed that it would be Avery, calling to say that Martha was ready to roll. While I wasn’t sure I was ready to leave Quartz Pass yet, I was desperate to be back on that bike right about now.
Instead of Avery’s name on my screen, however, it turned out to be the dreaded call I’d been expecting from Alex. I groaned softly, trying to prepare myself for the inevitable reckoning.
I’d been in Quartz Pass for two weeks. While I was surprised Alex had lasted this long, I’d been hoping he’d just decided to leave me be. No such luck.
“Before you start, I’d like to have it noted that as we speak, I’m holding gardening equipment and I’m making a contribution to society,” I said into the phone as I answered. “I’m being productive, useful, and I’m not just sleeping my way around this dusty town.”
“Noted,” he said, but then got straight to the point. “You were also supposed to be home by today.”
“Hello to you too.”
“You didn’t say hello either,” he pointed out so dryly that I could practically hear him pinching the bridge of his nose. “Where are you, Theo? Because it’s not Chicago.”
“My bike still isn’t fixed,” I said. “I’m stranded until the parts arrive and Martha can be put back together.”
“You don’t sound particularly torn up about it.”
I shrugged. “Panic is useless and resistance is futile. What happened happened. The bike needs parts nobody keeps in stock, and until they arrive, the engine can’t be fixed. Until the engine is fixed, I can’t go anywhere, so it is what it is.”
Disappointed silence hung thick over the line for a moment before he sighed. “I just want to understand what you’re doing, Theo. I know the bike is broken, but why aren’t you home yet?”
I dragged a hand through my hair and stared out at the empty desert highway that cut through the town, wishing I had an easy answer for him, but the truth was that I didn’t fully know anymore.
At first, this trip had been about freedom and adventure, but somewhere along the line, the concept of home had stopped feeling as fixed as it’d been before. So why wasn’t I home yet?
Mostly because I wasn’t sure exactly where that was anymore. Maybe.
After Zach had gotten married and Adeline and the girls moved into Westwood Manor, I’d suddenly become aware that I was pretty much a guest in the house I’d grown up in.
I loved Adeline and the girls, and I genuinely loved having them in the house.
They’d brought it back to life in all the best possible ways, but that didn’t mean it was still mine.
So that was one part of it. As much as I’d loved everything about them being there, it’d made me feel like I should be getting a move on in life.
As for work, I’d spent years floating wherever people needed me, to different departments at W&S and shouldering different responsibilities every few months. I’d always been so adaptable that I’d just said yes to whatever they’d asked and then I’d figured out how to actually do it later.
The scary part had been realizing that at some point, I’d stopped making decisions for myself, but it’d happened so gradually that I barely noticed until I’d bought the motorcycle. That was the first thing I’d chosen for myself in a long time.
“Theo?” Alex prompted, gentle but definitely running out of patience. “Are you going to tell me what’s really going on?”
“Nothing,” I said. “I’m not quitting and joining the circus, Alex. I’m right here.”
“Right here being Arizona.”
“Yes, but Arizona, believe it or not, was on my way back to Chicago.”
“Where were you coming from? You know what? It doesn’t matter. That’s not even the point. The point is that I could send a jet and we’ll have you home before nightfall, but obviously, that’s not what you want.”
“It’s not,” I said firmly. “I’ll wait here until my bike is fixed.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” Alex sighed. “I’m trying to figure out if this is temporary, but you’ve got to help me with that, man. Are you ever coming home or are you just going to keep taking the bike apart to give yourself an excuse to say there?”
“I didn’t take it apart. I swear.” I might as well have, though. Deep down, I’d known there was a problem. I’d simply chosen not to have it looked at earlier. “The engine started smoking and stopped running. That’s not an excuse.”
“It still doesn’t answer my question,” he said softly. “We have access to no fewer than six jets at any given time, Theo. You know that. I could send mine as soon as you give the word, and even if that’s not available, there’s Nate’s, Dad’s, Jesse’s?—”
“Probably.” I glanced down at the dirt staining my hands and the rusty hedge clippers. “I’m probably coming home as soon as the bike is done.”
“Probably? That’s not exactly optimistic.”
“Well, optimism has never really been my thing.”
He didn’t react at all. Jeez, tough crowd.
“Before you left, we talked about your future,” he said slowly. “All I need to know is whether this is just an adventure or if you’re trying to outrun this family’s traditions. You know what’s expected of all of us. Are you getting married or not?”
“I know that’s what you want. Don’t worry. I didn’t forget.”
“Yes, I do,” he said, not controlling, unreasonable, or cruel about it. It was just a fact. “Sooner rather than later.”
“I know.”
Perhaps if he was being an asshole, I could’ve painted myself as a rugged rebel escaping the oppressive expectations of wealth. It would’ve been terribly dramatic, but unfortunately, this wasn’t that.
I wasn’t trying to outrun our traditions.
No one could outrun something that lived in their bones.
I just wanted time to sit with the idea before I started getting introduced to women like we were part of a livestock exchange program.
I wanted to try to figure out what I actually wanted before everyone else decided for me.
Okay, and maybe I’d also like to keep waking up in a dusty old motel instead of a penthouse for a little while longer. Perhaps even hit the jackpot and figure out exactly who I am in a place where no one cares about my family name.
Just time. That was all I was asking for.
“I’m not running,” I said finally. “I swear.”
Alex didn’t say anything for a long beat. “What are you doing, then?”
A screen door slammed somewhere nearby. Some singer on Frieda’s radio carried on about riding out heartbreak in his truck. Heat shimmered on the surface of the highway and a hot, dry breeze swept across the yard.
I almost smiled at the normalcy of it, the slow life of Quartz Pass. Dear Lord, am I becoming a guy who actually finds this charming?
“This is the first decision I’ve made for myself in a long time, Alex,” I finally admitted. “Give me three months, then I’ll come home.”
“Three months?” He blew out a harsh breath. “You need to think faster.”
I barked out a laugh. “As terrifying of a corporate overlord brother as you are, you gave me six.”
“Until you were married,” he stressed. “This adventure of yours isn’t getting you closer to that goal.”
Raquel’s striking gray eyes flashed in my mind, but I dismissed the thought immediately. A blue-collar mechanic wasn’t what Alex had in mind for me and I knew it. Plus, she’d never go for it anyhow, so it was a non-starter.
“Three more months,” he repeated after a beat. “Alright. Keep us updated on the bike. I want to know when it’s done. And that you’re alive.”
“You got it,” I promised. “Give Cameron a hug from me.”
“Come home and hug him yourself,” he said gruffly, then hung up.
I sighed, sliding the phone back into my pocket. While that could’ve gone better, it also could’ve gone a lot worse. At least he was willing to give me more time. One of the many Westwood jets wasn’t in the air right now, on its way to bring me home or else.
All things considered, that was a win.
“What was that all about?” Frieda drawled from somewhere behind me. “It sounded personal but it was hard to hear. You mumble a lot.”
I turned to see her standing about four feet away, holding a glass of iced tea in one hand with a cigarette dangling between the fingers of the other. She gingerly held the glass out toward me, likely only to give herself an excuse for the eavesdropping, but I took it gratefully anyway.
“How long did you listen for?” I asked.
“As long as I could get away with.” She flicked ash from her cigarette. “So a while. Who were you talking to?”
I snorted softly and grabbed the rake to start on what was basically sand at this point. “My brother.”
She shrugged in response, seeming uninterested despite the questions she’d come over to ask, and she left me to it.
I shook my head, then drained the tea and got back to work.
Maybe if I wasn’t living here practically for free I would have called her out on eavesdropping, but she couldn’t have heard that much to feed into the town gossip mill.
And even if she had, she didn’t have any context.
I’d barely gotten into any details. I was trying to gauge how much she could’ve figured out from only my side of the conversation, when my phone buzzed again.
For a second, I thought it might be Alex, calling to let me know he’d changed his mind and his jet was on its way after all, but this time, it was Avery. I grinned as I took the call.
“Please tell me you have good news.”
“Yes and no. We got the parts, but we’ve also got a problem,” he said. “Can you swing by the shop sometime this afternoon?”
My stomach sank like a rock, but I nodded. “Yeah. Okay. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
First Alex’s call and now this. Maybe I was wrong about staying in Quartz Pass a little longer. The universe sure didn’t seem too happy with me right now, but plainly put, it could go fuck itself.
Alex had given me time, and I would take it. No matter what fresh hell awaited me when I got to the shop.