Track No. 13 Simple
YELAWOLF
Andrew Harding was the most loved guy in every room.
And the least known.
Popular as hell. But lonely as shit.
The kind of guy who only existed when he was standing in front of you. Or when your plans fell through, or when your car wouldn’t start, or when you needed someone to carry a couch from the truck and up a flight of stairs in the pouring rain.
He was used to friendships runnin’ on the clock.
It always began with two guys trash talkin’ during the game, shootin’ the shit and splittin’ a pie during lunch breaks. Then it was ‘Yo, bro, if my girl asks, I was with you Friday night.’
‘You busy? Mind swingin’ by?
‘Just need a quick ride.’
‘You free, right? Gotta move my shit out.’
It wouldn’t take long before he stopped becomin’ a friend and turned into a customer service hotline.
That’s when he knew it was time to fade the hell out—block, ghost, disappear.
Would even change his number if he had to, no matter how long they’ve known each other.
Sometimes drop a whole circle just to dodge one person.
‘Cause once they asked, he never thought he had a good enough reason to say no without chokin’ on guilt, didn’t know how to set a boundary without bleedin’ all over it.
And no fuckin’ shit—they always noticed when he showed up, never when he left.
For this reason especially, he didn’t keep female friends ‘cause they’d always hit him up after midnight, swearing it wasn’t like that. But it was always like that. The only girls he ever felt safe around were his boys’ girls or sisters.
But Andrew hadn’t heard from Matty’s sister in almost a year.
Not since before his surgery.
Until one Sunday night, out of the blue, he gets a text from her:
Riley: Hey, Matty’s in PA with our Dad and the cabinet hinge under my sink snapped and won’t stay shut. Can you stop by? Keeps swinging open and smacking my knee. Please, Andrew.
Now he’s standin’ outside her apartment door, knockin’ twice with the edge of his knuckle, Phillips and flathead tucked into his back pocket.
It’s an easy fix that should only take two minutes. He could still make the second half of the game.
When the door swings open, Riley’s smilin’, wearin’ a men’s hoodie. She immediately throws her arms around him, all blonde hair and big smile.
It’s been a minute since he’s seen her, or any of the guys, really.
For the last six months, it’s been nothin’ but work and catchin’ up on hospital bills that’ve gone into collections.
So for two seconds, he feels like a fuckin’ twenty-three year old again and not a divorced, middle-aged man with five kids and a pile of debt.
“The fuck’ve you been up to?” he asks her around a one-arm hug.
“Y’know, the usual. Breaking shit,” she laughs.
Inside, music’s pulsin’ through a Bluetooth speaker.
Her couch’s buried in a pile of laundry.
He follows her into the kitchen, where the counters are covered in Popeyes takeout, Sweet Heat Sauce stickin’ to the granite. The sink’s stacked high. The trash’s fuller. And shit—his fingers are itchin’ to empty both. “Damn, Ry. You ain’t changed,” he teases. “Still a slob.”
“For your information, I know exactly where everything is.”
“Yeah? You know where the broom is?”
She doesn’t turn, keeps walking, liftin' her middle finger high at him. “And to think I was just about to offer you a drink.”
When he rounds the island, and his gaze falls to the cabinet door under the sink, he sees that it’s not broken.
He posts up at the counter, crossin’ his arms.
“Okay, don’t hate me,” she immediately rushes in. “Spotify’s on shuffle. The Man came on, and my inner single-Tay-Swift mode kicked in and I’m pretty sure I fixed it myself.” She lifts a shoulder with an innocent smile. “Was gonna text, but you were knockin’ like two seconds later.”
Andrew lets out a short laugh, then gestures to the cabinet. “Yeah. No one humbles a man faster than Taylor Swift.” He slides a hand under his shirt, scratchin’ at his ribcage. “Just in case—gonna check that workmanship before I head out or it’ll bother me all night.”
“What the hell happened to you?” another girl says as she walks in from the living room—a face he’s never seen before. She’s wearin’ a massive tee, dark curly hair, a ring on every finger. She slides onto a barstool. “Dang. That scar from a stab wound?”
Andrew glances down, seein’ his scar peekin’ out. He stands taller, straightenin’ his jacket, his shirt.
“That’s like… serious surgery,” Riley adds, studyin’ it. “From what?”
His gaze shoots to her, brows raised halfway. “Liver donation. Last year.”
Her eyes explode. “You donated your liver? To who?”
He cocks his head.
Was she kiddin’ with this?
Every time they’d hit him up in those four months, he reminded them he was recoverin’. Was laid up scarred, stitched, a part of him missin’, and now she’s lookin’ at him like it’s the first time she’s hearin’ about it. He didn’t know why that surprised him.
“My mom,” he says, deadpan.
Twelve months of checkups, bloodwork, hope, and an itchin’ scar.
She’s good now, up and cookin’, yellin’ at the TV, livin’ like liver disease was a bump in her road.
It made him even more paranoid that she’d slip.
Ma’d argue past the point of reason each time he checked the closet behind the shoe boxes, the bottom of the hampers, under the mattress where she used to stash the bottle of peppermint schnapps, ‘cause short women hid shit in low places.
And he watched her more closely, listened for the slur in her words, the stretched vowels at the end of her Italian.
He told himself he was overthinking it. Wanted to believe he was imaginin’ it.
That it was fear fuckin’ up his trust in her, but some nights, when he’d get home from work, he could swear he’d smell it on her.
But after seventeen hours of workin’, nine of those hours at the bar, slingin’ shots and dodgin’ alcohol breath, he couldn’t be sure.
“Shut up, that’s actually adorable.” Riley slaps the counter, head swingin’ to her friend.
“Jules, tell me this man didn’t just check every box.
” She turns back to him, draggin’ her teeth across her bottom lip.
“You’re givin’ off some strong I-do-dishes-and-eat-pussy vibes,” she nods, “that’s marriage material. ”
He huffs a laugh, ready to bounce now. “Nah—just tryin’ to keep my ma alive, y’know?” He lifts off the counter, crosses the kitchen to the sink, then crouches down and opens the cabinet door, testin’ the hinge. “Damn near perfect,” he mutters, then adds under his breath—“like it was never broken.”
‘Cause it wasn’t. And now he’s wonderin’ what the hell he’s really doin’ here.
Soon as Riley steps beside him, and she leans over the sink to whisper to Jules, who's sittin' on the other side of the counter, the familiar scent of pussy hits.
He knows that smell, faster than most guys would, and he hates how it instantly drags up the past. Almost a year and a half has passed since he's been with a girl, and he keeps tellin' himself he ain't goin' back to being that guy.
It makes him sick to even admit that part of him went through with the liver donation just to escape it, as if it was the only way.
To have a real fuckin' excuse he could use to say no.
Andrew’s gaze jumps to the dark corner of the cabinet and fixates on a bottle of Windex, heart beatin’ faster now that it’s lookin’ more and more like a setup.
But, nah. This is Matty’s sister, he reminds himself.
He’s known her for almost five years.
Not once has she ever come onto him.
She knows damn well Matty would lose his shit if anything happened between them. Andrew's just paranoid. It's all in his fuckin' head.
She wouldn’t try somethin'. She wouldn’t.
“I was tellin’ Jules ‘bout you right before you walked in,” Riley says.
He stands, closing the cabinet door. “Yeah? Was it good talkin’ or the kinda talkin’ where I gotta defend my honor? ‘Cause you really can’t trust anything Matty tells you.”
Riley brings her prayin’ hands to her lips. “If I asked you for somethin’… would you say yes?”
He shifts, studyin' her. “Thought that’s why I was here in the first place. You sayin’ you got more broken shit for me, Miss Independent?” He stretches a hand out between them. “Fair warnin’, if it’s a clogged toilet, better call a plumber. I don’t deal with actual shit.”
“No…” she says slowly. “What if it was… somethin’ else?”
His gaze drifts from Riley, to Jules, who’s still perched on the barstool, drink danglin’ in one hand. She’s not smilin’ like Riley is. She’s waitin’, curious, skeptical.
Yeah, they’re both suspicious as hell.
“C’mon—spit it out,” he says.
“Told her about what you do… y’know... for girls.
” Riley drops her head—bit lip, raised brow, full coquette from Bucks County.
Jules laughs into her drink. “She thought I was full of shit,” Riley continues, shruggin’.
“She’s in town for the weekend—one weekend.
That’s all we got. And yeah… we’re both kinda…
in a mood. So we were hopin’ you’d come through for us. ”
Andrew stares at the wall behind her, still confused about what she’s askin’ for. Makes him feel dumb for not readin’ between the lines, all ‘cause he don’t wanna jump to conclusions. “You wanna be a little clearer on what kind of favor you’re askin’ for, or we gonna keep beatin’ around the bush?”
He didn’t mean to snap, but damn.
The fuck’s happenin’?
You’re my friend’s sister.
Don’t do this, Ry. Don’t ask what I think you’re about to fuckin’ ask. Don’t put me in that position.