Protecting You Chapter 2
ASHER
AGE 21
I stood looking out the upstairs window, like a puppy who’d just caught sight of his owner. Craning my neck to see, my face close to the glass. I hadn’t come upstairs intending to stand here with my hands on the window frame, leaning so I could get a better view of my neighbor’s house. Although now that I was up here, I couldn’t remember why I’d come in the first place.
Grace was home for the summer.
My lip twitched in an almost-smile as I watched her get out of her beat-up Toyota Corolla. Her blond hair was in a ponytail and she wore a loose t-shirt and cut-offs, a pair of flip-flops on her feet. She paused outside her car, her hands on the open door, and looked around, like she was taking it all in.
Our houses sat at the end of a private drive, the narrow road bumpy with potholes. Her mom’s house was newer than ours, but you wouldn’t know by looking at it. The front porch was a patchwork of reclaimed wood my brothers and I had used to shore it up, and the whole thing needed a fresh coat of paint. The yard was tidy, mostly because Gram treated it like an extension of her gardens. Flowers bloomed in window boxes, and my brothers and I took care of mowing the lawn. But the whole place still looked tired and worn.
What was Grace thinking out there? Was she glad to be home? Or was she wishing she’d stayed in Pullman, where she was going to college? Maybe wishing she’d kept her job there over the summer so she wouldn’t have to come back. So she could still see her boyfriend.
The hint of a smile on my lips melted into a scowl. Grace was dating some shithead at school. Actually, I had no idea if he was a shithead. She’d never brought him home, so I hadn’t met him.
My eyes darted to the passenger seat of her car, an awful thought hitting me like a truck. Had she brought him with her?
My grip on the window trim tightened. The thought of spending the summer watching Grace with her college boyfriend made me want to put my fist through the glass.
Not that I had any right to be angry that she was dating someone.
Grace Miles was the literal girl next door. Sweet, pretty, and smart, with a stubborn streak that was as unshakable as the mountains we lived in. We’d grown up together. It hadn’t been that long ago that the land surrounding our two houses had been our entire world. We’d been friends for most of our lives, but we’d never dated. And we certainly weren’t dating now.
I released my grip on the window frame. Her passenger seat was empty. No boyfriend, shithead or otherwise.
Truthfully, I didn’t want the guy to be a shithead. I wanted him to be great, because more than anything, I wanted Grace to be happy. She should have been dating a guy who was awesome—who treated her like a treasure. That was what she deserved.
“Stop licking the glass.”
I whipped around and shot a glare at Logan. The floors up here creaked, so either my brother had been trying to sneak up on me, or I’d been too distracted to hear him. Probably the latter.
“How about I kick your ass?”
He grinned at me, the cocky little shit. Not that he was little anymore. He was eighteen, and we’d been the same height for a couple of years. My brothers and I—there were five of us—had inherited our father’s stature. None of us were under six-two, even Gavin, who was only sixteen.
But I was the oldest, so I still had big brother power.
“I’ll take a raincheck on that. I’m going out tonight. Don’t want to mess this up.” Logan gestured to his face. “Although a black eye is a great way to meet girls. Maybe I should take you up on it.”
“You’re an idiot.”
He grinned again. “Maybe, but at least I’m not a stalker.”
I stepped away from the window. “I’m not stalking her.”
“Sure you’re not.”
Maybe I would give him a black eye. “Shut your face, asshole.”
“Boys! Language.” Gram’s voice carried upstairs.
Logan and I furrowed our brows. We could start up our grandad’s old truck, which had an engine so loud it rattled the windows, and she’d barely notice. But let us utter a single curse word above a whisper in Gram’s house and she’d scold us like we were still kids.
“Sorry, Gram,” I called down.
Logan wandered over to the window and glanced out. “Cool that she’s home, though.”
“Yeah.”
Even without my face practically touching the glass, I could see her. She’d popped the trunk and pulled out a big suitcase. Her little brother, Elijah, burst out of the house and barreled into her, throwing his arms around her. She leaned down and kissed the top of his head.
“Quit being weird, dude.” Logan said. “It’s Grace.”
“I know it’s Grace, and I’m not being weird.”
His forehead creased and he raised an eyebrow. “I can see that. Just like you’re not stalking her.”
Before he could react, I hooked an arm around his neck. I yanked him down, going for a headlock, but he twisted out of my grip and wrapped his arms around my waist. Driving with his legs, he pushed until my back crashed against the wall.
I got my feet under me and changed my grip on him. Lowering my center of gravity, I pivoted and flipped him over my shoulder. He landed hard on the bed, and his foot sent something on the bedside table crashing to the floor. I spun, getting chest to chest to maintain control. I’d wrestled in high school and now I took jiujitsu at an MMA gym in town, so my grappling skills were still sharp.
They had to be, in this family.
He grunted as I held him pinned down beneath my weight.
“Can you not break my stuff?”
A mirror image of Logan’s face glared at us from the doorway. His twin, Levi, stood with his arms crossed. They looked a lot like me, but their features were more angular than mine, their cheekbones sharper. Even though they had identical DNA, I’d never had a problem telling them apart. Levi was so serious, whereas Logan always looked like he was up to something.
“Sorry.” I stood and helped Logan up. This was the bedroom they shared, and I’d just body-slammed Logan onto Levi’s bed.
Levi grunted and moved past me to pick up the lamp we’d knocked over. At least it didn’t look like it was broken.
“Grace is home,” Logan said.
“Yeah.” Levi replied without looking at his brother.
“She needs a proper welcome. We should go give her a five-moon salute.” Logan smirked and mimicked pulling his pants down to show his ass.
“Why would we do that?”
“Because it would be funny.”
I shoved Logan. “Leave her alone.”
“You two are boring as fuck,” he said under his breath, then paused, as if waiting to see if Gram had heard him. The scolding didn’t come, and he grinned. “Gavin’ll do it with me.”
I was about to tackle Logan again—or maybe Levi, just because—when the smell of strawberries wafted upstairs from the kitchen.
We all froze, sniffing the air, our eyes widening.
“Is Gram baking?” I asked.
Logan nodded. “Smells like—”
“Strawberry rhubarb,” Levi finished.
I moved toward the door, but Logan knocked into me with his shoulder. Levi pushed past us both and we all scrambled to get to the kitchen first.
Our feet thundered on the old wooden staircase. We shoved each other all the way down, as if we were a pack of rowdy kids, not three guys who were technically adults. The tantalizing scent grew. We burst into the kitchen just as Gram pulled a pie out of the oven and set it on a wire rack next to another. Despite the noise we’d just made rushing down here, she only spared us a quick glance over her shoulder.
Silver was replacing the black in Gram’s long hair. She wore it in a thick braid down her back, and had for as long as I could remember. Although she’d recently turned seventy, her dark skin was only just starting to show her age and her posture was still straight. Kind of surprising, considering she’d had to unexpectedly raise five unruly boys, years after having raised her own children.
She claimed it was the mountain air, copious amounts of bacon, and her Native American ancestry that kept her young. I tended to think she was simply too stubborn to let age have its way with her.
For over two decades, my grandmother had been known as Gram to everyone who knew her—related or not. But before she’d married my grandad, Frank Bailey, she’d been Emma Luscier, descendant of both the Chelan and Wenatchi tribes. Her ancestors had lived in the Cascade mountain range for countless generations.
Gavin already sat at the kitchen table, a wide rectangle our grandad had built out of thick planks. The chairs placed around it were sturdy, but worn from years of use. Grooves in the wood floor marked the passage of two generations of kids who’d grown up in this house.
Our youngest brother looked like a clone of the rest of us. Dark hair, brown eyes, olive skin, and a semi-permanent shit-eating grin. He was going through a phase of keeping his hair so long it hung in his eyes, and he hadn’t quite lost his round cheeks yet. When I really wanted to piss him off, I called him babyface.
“The pie needs to cool,” Gram said. “And there’s no need to fight over it. I made plenty. Still have two more to bake.”
The three of us hadn’t tried to climb over each other to get downstairs because we thought we’d run out of pie. With five boys in the house, Gram always made enough food to feed an army. For us, it was just habit. We were brothers; wrestling was our love language.
Logan walked up behind her, put his hands on her shoulders, and kissed her cheek. “It just smells so good we can’t help it. Plus, I’m starving.”
“You just ate lunch.”
“I ran five miles this morning.” He leaned against the counter and grabbed an apple out of a bowl.
“Do you want a medal?” Levi asked.
Grinning, Logan tossed the apple at him. Levi caught it and threw it back.
“Go find Evan,” Gram said.
Logan took a bite of the apple. “Which one of us?”
“All of you.”
“Where is he?” Levi asked.
Gavin jerked his thumb toward the back door. “Woods. I saw him leave earlier.”
Evan kept to himself a lot, often wandering in the woods out behind our house. He had come home from his second year of college a few days ago, but even though we shared a room when he was here, I hadn’t seen much of him.
“Go on then,” Gram said, shooing us with the oven mitt. “No pie until you bring your brother back, or you animals will eat it all before he has a chance at any.”
A chorus of groans went around the kitchen, coupled with the scrape of Gavin’s chair against the floor.
While my brothers headed for the door, I hung back. If Gram really wanted to be rid of all four of us, she’d shoo me out too. But I didn’t want to wander the woods searching for Evan, so I hesitated next to the table, waiting to see if she’d insist I go.
She didn’t.
The back door banged shut. I pulled out a chair and sat while she put two more pies in the oven.
“You finish up your finals?” she asked.
“Yep. All done until September.”
“How’d you do?”
“Pretty sure I aced everything.”
She closed the oven and put her oven mitts on the counter. “Of course you did.”
Unlike Grace and my brother Evan, I’d stayed in town after high school and enrolled in Tilikum College. It was a good school, and had one of the best fire sciences programs in the state. Logan and Levi were starting there in the fall. All three of us planned on going into fire safety. I’d been a volunteer firefighter since I’d graduated high school, and my plan was to make a career of it. Eventually become a fire inspector. Maybe even fire chief someday.
But even if the college here hadn’t been a good school, I still would have stayed. I couldn’t leave Gram or my brothers. Our parents had died in an electrical fire when we were young—fortunately for us kids, we hadn’t been in the house—and Gram and Grandad had taken us in.
We hadn’t exactly made things easy on them. Whether it was just the nature of a family of five boys, or because we were all a little messed up from losing our parents—probably both—we’d been rowdy. Troublemakers, even.
Maturity was calming us down, at least a little. And I was doing my best to get—and keep—my shit together. As the oldest, it was my responsibility to be the man of the family, especially since Grandad had passed away a few years ago. I hadn’t always done a great job at it, but I was trying.
However, I was seriously considering moving out—getting an apartment in town. I was twenty-one, three years out of high school, and itching to have my own place.
Still, I was worried about leaving, even if I’d only be a mile or two away.
Gram cut a piping hot piece of pie and brought it to the table. Slid it in front of me and handed me a fork with a wink.
“What troubles you, Bear?”
“Nothing.”
“Hmm.” She got her tea from the counter and sat across from me. “Grace is home for the summer.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“You could go next door and see her.”
I took a bite of pie without meeting her eyes. “I’m sure she’s busy. I’ll see her at some point.”
Gram didn’t reply, just kept watching me eat.
“What?”
“Nothing.” She took a sip of her tea.
“Gram, stop. You do this every time she comes home for a break. We’re friends, but that’s all.”
“Friends can be excited to see each other when it’s been a while.”
I shrugged.
When she spoke again, her voice was soft. “It’s okay to miss her, Bear.”
She didn’t mean miss her because I hadn’t seen her since Christmas, and I knew it. She meant miss the way we used to be. We hadn’t just been close, we’d been inseparable. As kids, Grace and I had been best friends. Basically glued to each other.
Not anymore.
We sat in silence for a while. Gram sipped her tea and I devoured the slice of pie. It was the perfect blend of tart and sweet, with a flaky crust that melted in my mouth.
I ate my last few bites, still thinking about Grace. The last time I’d seen her, the distance between us had felt like a canyon. It had sucked, but after she’d gone back to school, I’d mostly put her out of my mind. I was busy all the time, so that had made it easier. But now she was home, and I once again had to face the truth.
I had a thing for Grace. I had for a long time. And I’d never told her. Never told anyone.
I had my reasons, and it didn’t matter now anyway. She was dating someone else. In a few short months, she’d go back to school. And maybe next summer would be the year she didn’t come back home.
Thinking about a world without Grace—my world without her—was putting me in a shitty mood. Maybe I needed more pie.
“This was amazing.” I gestured to my empty plate, then stood and took it to the counter where the pies were cooling.
“Don’t even think about it, Bear.” Gram wagged her finger at me. “You want more, you go pick me more strawberries.”
“There’s two more in the oven.”
“I expect we’ll have company soon.” She paused to sip her tea. “In fact, go next door and ask Naomi and the kids to come on over before that wild pack of wolves you call brothers gets back.”
I shot Gram a look. I should have known she’d have an ulterior motive for giving me the first slice of pie.
“Go on, now,” she said, shooing me with her hand. “Don’t make me tell you twice.”
With a soft chuckle, I put my plate in the sink and lifted my hands in a gesture of surrender. “Okay, okay, I’m going.”
I gave Gram a kiss on the head, then left to go tell Naomi and Elijah—and Grace—that we had pie.
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