Chapter 37
J ericho
I don’t sleep. Not really.
I just sit on the couch like I’ve been planted there, hands loose in my lap, staring at the far wall like it’s supposed to give me answers.
She didn’t flinch when I kissed her. Didn’t pull away. She was surprised though, that much was obvious.
So I did the only logical thing I could think of under the circumstances—pulled away first before she did.
I don’t think I’d be able to handle being rejected by her.
For some unexplainable reason, I act like a total fool around her.
Always have. From the moment I went all caveman on her when we first met in my backyard and I carried her away.
See you around.
See you around? What the fuck, Jericho?
She probably hates me.
I have to fix this situation before I go down in history as the dumbest of them all.
There’s a half-drunk beer sweating on the coffee table. It’s flat now. Warm. I haven’t touched it since I sat down. The TV’s still on, playing some kind of static-paced documentary about rural bridges, but I haven’t looked at the screen in over an hour.
My hands are still tingling from the feel of her skin. I rub them over my jeans trying to erase the memory because I need to move on. At least for tonight.
It doesn’t help though.
The tingling feeling at the back of my head that has been sitting there for a few days now intensifies tenfold. Getting involved with her is a bad idea. She’s too soft for me. Too kind.
She is everything I’ve never let myself reach for.
She talks too much. Laughs at the worst jokes.
Treats everyone like they matter, even when they don’t in my opinion (fucking Dick).
She makes this place feel like home just by walking down the street.
She makes magic . She doesn’t need someone like me in her orbit.
And I sure as fuck don’t need someone like her. Dreaming of having a normal life? Yeah, I’m okay with that. But she’s more than I can handle. What the fuck do I do with a woman who doesn’t like it rough? The life and the fuck. That’s all I know because life sure fucked me rough.
But I kissed her. Publicly. Couldn’t help myself. And I’m new in town, and she lives next door. I paved that road for myself only to be a coward now.
The porch light is still on. I always leave it on. She asked why, and I couldn’t tell her.
I’ll tell her soon. I just need a little more time and the right moment.
Normally I like my solitude, but today the silence stretches, thin and tight. And then the phone rings.
Jethro’s name appears on the screen. Of course. My asshole of a brother always sniffs out when the time for a call is totally wrong.
I let it go to voicemail. It rings again.
Persistent bastard.
I finally answer. “What.”
“Well, look who’s alive,” he says, voice dry. “I left you a shit ton of voicemails. Where the fuck are you?”
“Still here.”
“Yeah, I gathered. Junie came home from visiting you and mentioned something that got me worried. Imagine that.”
“What did she say?” I ask even though I suspect the answer.
He chuckles. “Said she saw Bigfoot trying to flirt.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “She said that?”
“Semantics. Said her Uncle Jericho was standing next to a lady and looked like he forgot what a mouth is for.”
That was not fucking close, Jethro. Not even close.
“My niece is twelve.”
“My daughter is observant.”
“She exaggerates.” I don’t know why I keep on arguing with him.
“You fuck that lady yet?” he asks, shifting gear mid-talk.
“Watch your mouth,” I growl a warning, making him pause.
“Holy shit,” he says after a stretch of silence. “You like her, don’t you? Like actually fuckin’ like her.” His laughter is heavy. We both know why. “I never thought I’d see the day.”
I don’t answer right away. “She’s just… comfortable.”
“Comfortable? That’s not the adjective I’d go for choosing a woman.”
“Yeah,” I drawl out. “We know that.”
Jethro has always chosen wild women. Hot to look at and be around.
Loud in their beauty. He’d never understand why I’m drawn to Nora.
Her beauty is different. It envelops you and doesn’t let go.
The more I look at her, the more I can’t close my eyes.
The more I breathe her in, the more it takes the air away.
Jethro makes a noise through his teeth. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say it.”
“You did. But that’s fine. Just don’t say it anymore.”
“I won’t,” he replies instantly before going quiet for a second. “She the same woman Junie kept talking about? The one with the ‘bad car and good hair’?”
“Yeah,” I chuckle. Even though her truck is fine.
“She got a name?”
“Nora.”
“Hm.”
“What?”
“Nothing. Just sounds… normal.” He almost sounds disappointed, as if normal is a foreign concept to him and he doesn’t quite know how to handle it.
“What did you expect? Cherry Pie like your last one?” I shoot back, knowing exactly which of his ex-girlfriends I’m referring to.
“It was her stage name. I think,” he adds doubtfully. “It doesn’t matter anyway since I’m not planning on seeing anyone a second time.”
“Don’t you think Junie needs a mom?”
“She had a mom who dumped her on my doorstep. We’re done with women.” Jethro’s voice turns steely as usual when we talk about his college fling. “Junie has her aunt and grandmother. That’s enough.”
I don’t say anything, knowing this topic is painful for him. So I decide to divert his attention to me. That’s what big brothers do.
“She runs the diner.”
“Of course she does. How’d you manage that? Charm her with your sparkling personality?”
“Shut up.”
He laughs. “Damn. You really like her, don’t you? ”
I shift in my seat. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Why not?”
“You know why.”
There’s a pause on the line. Then Jethro says, quieter this time, “She doesn’t know?”
“No.”
“You planning to tell her?”
“I should,” I sigh.
“Doesn’t sound like you’re going to.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Yes, it is,” he snaps. “You either tell her, or you let her find out from someone else. And trust me, small towns talk. Someone’s gonna say something.”
“I don’t even know if she wants anything with me,” I bite out. “We haven’t even fucked. Is that a relationship if we haven’t?”
I picked the wrong person to ask. If I haven’t had the opportunity to form any relationships, he’s had the opposite situation.
He’s formed too many and too quickly, screwing everything with a skirt.
How he managed to keep this a secret from the women of the family is beyond me, but he’s very careful in his escapades.
“I mean.” He pauses. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. You gotta fuck to see if you are compatible. Right?”
Covering my face with my hand, I groan my regret of sharing any bits of my life with him. He’s probably more fucked up than I am.
“I gotta ask Mom if she dropped you on your head when you were a baby.”
“What? It’s not like you’re not doing it.”
Little does he know, I don’t do that. When I’m working, living in a trailer on jobsites, sometimes in the middle of nowhere where my crew, bears, and moose are the only things around, they go to towns for adventure—my crew, not the moose, though that might not be the case for Little Hope— while I stay behind with my book.
Another habit I picked up along the way.
“Goodbye, Jethro.” I’m about to hang up when he stops me.
“Wait. I didn’t mean—” A sigh. “I didn’t mean to offend you. You just know how I am around women.”
“I know,” I sigh back. I wish I could say it’s not his fault, but maybe it partially is.
“What is she like?” he asks after a pause.
I don’t reply right away, and he doesn’t fill the space. He waits.
When I finally speak, it’s rough. “She’s kind. Real kind. To everyone. She wouldn’t hurt a fly.” My voice breaks at the end.
“Shit.”
“Shit is right.”
“Maybe it’s good though.”
I blink. “Good?”
“It means she’s different. Maybe she’s what you need to finally—” he takes a deep breath to continue, “move on.”
“I’ve moved on.”
“Have you?” His voice is quiet. Careful. Guilty.
“What do you want to hear?”
A pause on the other end of the line tells me just how uncomfortable he is with this whole conversation. Maybe even more than me.
When the silence is too stretched even for us, he cackles. “Well, I want to hear about the famous rooster.”
“Junie told you?”
“Junie showed me,” he laughs.
“What?”
“Apparently someone filmed the thing outside some diner and put it on TikTok.”
I groan. “Of course they did. ”
“It was pecking at a cop’s boots while the cop was trying to chase it.”
“Sounds accurate.” I sure as fuck hope it was Cheryl’s boots.
“It also followed a walking couple down the street like it was their pet.”
I swallow. Oh shit.
“Yeah,” he continues. “And one of those two on the video looks a lot like my brother.”
I groan, hating that I’m appearing somewhere on the internet. I don’t have social media and hate spotlights. “Can you tell it was me?”
“Well, I recognized your back and your wonderfully bouncy walk.”
“I don’t bounce.”
“And you kept looking at the woman next to you.”
So, I’ve been caught.
“Goodbye, Jethro.” I hang up before his loud laughter makes me deaf.
My brother is an idiot who somehow managed to raise a wonderful kid, but he might be right about this.
I’ll never admit it to anyone, but I don’t know if I’ve moved on.
I don’t know if I’ll ever move on. And it’s not because of the things I saw and experienced in there, but because of my secret resentment.
Toward my brother.