41. Thirty-seven
Thirty-seven
Beau
“ W e can’t let it happen,” my sister said as I stepped into the house with Jake behind me.
The sweet son of a bitch wanted to say goodbye to Jason and Kate before they left in a few hours. Besties being besties. It was the best.
I’d work on Adam.
Jason’s arms wrapped around my sister as they sat in the living room. Hearing my arrival, they quieted. Kate’s red-rimmed eyes met mine when I joined them, and my heart dropped to my toes.
I rushed into the room. “What? What’s wrong?”
Kate sniffled and shook her head, choking on emotion and not answering.
Jason jumped in.“Your dad is selling the shop. After an abysmal summer and the difficulty of keeping the place running, he has no choice. Paul Kranz approached him with an offer.”
Kate balled her fists. “Cranky Pants Kranz. That son of a bitch is lowballing Dad because he knows he’s in a pinch, weasel that he is. It’s not Dad’s fault it’s been a slow summer. That offer is offensive. He can’t sell at that price. He’d have to take hourly work at the shop in retirement. Working in retirement!”
I stiffened. Jake stood beside me, just as still.
“It’s great when it’s good, but the fact we’ve had a thirty percent drop in customers this summer, boycotting the shop simply because the owner’s son is not only queer but polyamorous, is all you need to know about how thick the shit can get in a town where my guy has few options.”
“We can’t let it happen,” Kate repeated. “We have to do something. Help him float the shop until he can find a reasonable offer.” She swiped her cheeks and faced me. “How much can you chip in?”
My face heated with anger and embarrassment in equal measure. It was my fault. It was already tough to keep his shop going when bigger shops in Woodburn and Spokane offered more competitive rates.
With a significant age gap between my parents, my dad would be running on fumes well before my mom. The shop, his work… it wasn’t just waiting out his clock. He wanted to take care of her, even when he was gone.
“I’m broke,” I rasped. “I’m—shit, Kate. I’ve got nothing.”
“Consider who’s willing to stand with you when you make your choices, and who you’re willing to stand with when those choices come to light.”
When my dad told me that at The Pub, I assumed he had been talking about Fallon and Jake.
I was wrong. He spoke of himself. And everything I’d done had left him alone in the wind.
My heart cracked, breaking apart with love and gratitude and guilt and anger. I wasn’t worth his sacrifice. I didn’t deserve it. He was an infinitely better man. It shouldn’t fall on him to suffer on my behalf.
I dropped my head, sucking in a breath and trying not to hyperventilate. Blood rushed through my ears, drowning out whatever my sister was saying to me.
“Hey,” Jake whispered, rubbing my back. “Hey, we’ll—”
“No.” Eyes squeezed tight, I shook my head. “No.”
“Just. Don’t freak out.” Jake spoke softly, his hand circling over my shoulder blades.
I swallowed, unable to open my eyes. “I’m not going to freak out.” I was definitely going to freak out.
“You promised to give me time. I’ll figure it out.” With his voice low, it was difficult to discern whether that was a threat or a plea .
But I didn’t need Jake to figure it out. Maybe I already had a solution. I cleared my throat. “There’s this guy, Richy Purdue—”
“Beau,” Jake said softly. His softness made it all so much worse. “You’re freaking out.” He glanced at Kate and Jason.
“Beau?” My sister rose from the couch, slowly approaching. “Why are you freaking out?”
“I’m not freaking out,” I barked, tugging on the collar of my shirt. It was hot in my folks’ house. Stifling. Suffocating.
The damage this would do to everyone. The damage I would do to everyone.
Backing against the wall, I willed my lungs to take in air. My skin pulled tight enough to split. Stupid to come back at all. Fucked it all up. Wouldn’t have likely fucked anything up on Sasha’s couch.
“Don’t freak out,” Jake repeated for the one-hundredth goddamn time, his hand reaching for me.
I pulled away. “I’m not—”
“You are,” Kate said. “Deep breaths, dumbass. I’m the queen of panic attacks. You think you’re dying, but you’re not.”
I licked my lips, my mouth dry, and patted my chest.
Kate rubbed my back. “Not a heart attack, either. Give it a minute. I swear you’ll survive, much to my chagrin.”
“You’re such an asshole,” I managed to sputter.
“Still right, though,” she mumbled as I regulated my breath. I was still a sweaty mess, face paled, knees shaky, but at least I was breathing.
My sister glanced between Jake and me. “What the hell is going on?”
It took two years for my life to go to shit well enough to drag someone else down with me, but a concise five minutes caught my sister up.
“Bestie,” Jason whispered, shaking his head in his hands. “Why didn’t you tell me it was that bad?”
I shrugged, staring at the shag carpet in my parents’ living room. Unable to meet the eyes watching me, it seemed better to bury my gaze in the pilled fabric.
“The threat of sexual interrogation leading to spilled intel,” Jake offered, picking at his nails beside me on the couch. “That’s when I became the secret keeper.”
Kate squinted. “What?” Shaking her head and deciding not to bother, she faced me from the other side of the coffee table. “I have a little bit saved up, but not enough to push this sale for more than a month or two.”
She glanced at Jason, but he held up his palms. “I’m a P.E. teacher, about to be a grad student again. I’m just as useless as Beau.”
“Jason!” Kate and Jake shouted in unison.
“It’s true,” I said quietly. “I’m useless to help. I fucked it up for him, and I’m useless to fix it. I have no money, no sway, no fame, no success. I can’t wave around a Hemsworth card. Nothing to ease the sting of my existence.”
Kate blinked a few times. “Okay. Well. Existential Dread Beau is decidedly not my favorite model.” She aimed her determination right at me. “When life gives you lemons, you—”
I waved her off. “Make lemonade. I know, I know. Try again or whatever.”
“No!” she scoffed. “When life gives you lemons, you squeeze them into the eyes of those who’ve wronged you.” Her palms wiped over the cushion, her focus acute. “There has to be a solution, and it’s not Dad selling for peanuts because of some yahoos.”
Jake leaned his elbows on his knees, nodding. “I’ll figure it out.”
I rubbed the back of my neck hard enough to scrape off the skin. He wants to help. He wants to help , my brain chanted. Warmth crept up my spine, a trail of comparison and inadequacy with a running list of failures that others now had to fix for me.
Because you can’t do it yourself .
“We’ll figure it out,” Kate said in a clipped but polite tone, gesturing between us. “I’m sorry, but this is a package deal. You sign up for one Dalton; you get them all. There’s no solo act.”
Jason raised his hand. “I’m a Dalton by unofficial adoption, so. We’re kind of brothers, right? Besties by the transitive property of friendship?”
I nodded solemnly. “That is how it works.”
We grinned at one another, and I didn’t even hate my sister for roping him into forever. He’d have been there, regardless.
Surprisingly and without protest, Jake muttered his agreement. He pressed his fingers to his lips. Those dark eyes swirled with ideas, the cogs working in his brain for a solution. One that might not exist.
I flexed my fingers repeatedly against my leg and avoided eye contact. “I was offered a gig a while ago, and I could see—”
“No,” Jake interrupted, flagging his hands like the traffic controller of my life choices. “Not a chance.”
“I could go and see—”
“And not come back?”
“If it’s meant to be—”
“You work for it.”
The darting gazes from Kate and Jason ping-ponged with the ensuing argument, ending when Jake raised his voice loud enough to win King of Interrupting Dickheads.
“You said you’ll stay. You promised you’d give me time to figure it out. I’ll figure it out.”
“We’ll,” Kate muttered under her breath .
Jake softened his voice. “Trust me. I know from experience that distance doesn’t help. If this is what you want, Beau, if we’re what you want, distance won’t fix it.”
“Yeah,” I murmured, wishing I could backtrack and undo everything I’d just said. I felt stupid and on display presently, a sheen of sweat on my forehead giving me away.
“You gotta go to work.” I nudged Jake’s shoulder. “I’m fine.”
“For now,” he protested quietly, his hand landing on my thigh and grasping tightly. “Let me stay with you.”
Unclear if the request reflected my mental health or his fear that I might get in my car and drive the house in my trunk back to L.A. as soon as he stepped out the door.
Jake would only chase me down to kick my ass before returning home with my head on a spike. He might even wrap it up when he gifted it to Fallon.
“I’m fine. Go to work.” I scratched my cheek and cleared my throat. “I need to think through some things, but I’m fine, bestie. Swear.”
Jason exhaled in relief. “Good, buddy. You’ve matured recently. Despite my initial skepticism, I think these guys are good for you.”
“Other bestie,” I said, gesturing to Jake. “I was comforting him, OG bestie, not you.”
Jake slid a bit closer, the proud bastard.
“Oh. Well. Never mind, then. Fuck those guys.” Jason winked. “I still love you, though. Don’t freak out. Not unless you want me to give you something to really freak out about.”
I flipped him off. “You think telling me about your gross sex life with my sister will freak me out? I’ve got ten times filthier shit to share—shit you can’t erase from your head.”
Jake elbowed me, but I ignored him. At this point, the man should be well acquainted with my blustering.
Kate had already given up, heading for the foyer to load their stuff into Jason’s truck. He lingered, lowering to whisper in my ear, “Oh, Beau. It doesn’t have to be naughty to freak you out.”
His eyes flickered to Kate, stumbling and planting her hand against the wall as she struggled with the straps of her sandals. “I’m going to ask your sister to marry me.”
The only thing stopping me from jumping to my feet was Jake’s heavy arms wrapping around my waist to hold me down. Might have hugged Jason. Might have strangled him. We’d never know now.
“You’re deranged,” I hissed, as if it didn’t thrill me that he wanted to marry my sister. Jason Dalton had a nice ring to it.
With two fingers to his temple, he pretended to shoot himself in the head. “Christmas at the fishing cabin. Mark my words. She’s going to say yes.”
“Cause she’s just as deranged,” I barked, but it was too late. Jason slipped out the door with shaking shoulders and a middle finger salute for me.
Spoiler: I would have hugged him if Jake hadn’t restrained me.
Jake shoved off the couch and headed for the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said to me. “I’ll be at my house tonight. You and Fal should have some time for yourselves. You call me if you need me.”
I joined my sister and waved him off. He shuffled uncomfortably before cupping my face to pull me in for a kiss—not the chaste Grandma-greeting kind.
His mouth felt so familiar, so wanted, that even Kate’s exaggerated gagging couldn’t steal my joy.
I guess it was retribution, given I stood outside her bedroom the other night making strange barnyard animal sounds through the crack of her door. It didn’t matter that she and Jason were reading. I cackled like a motherfucker when she launched from the bed to shut me up, only to get her leg tangled in the sheet and drop like an anvil.
Kate fanned her face when Jake dipped out the door. “I sense Jason and I are leaving you in capable hands.”
I crossed my arms, smiling as I leaned against the wall. “You want to hear about what his hands can do?”
She sighed, her eyes softening. “Why did you lie and back yourself into a lonely corner like that?”
It would have been easy enough to slip on a mask. The one with the smile and jokes I’d worn most of my life. The one that rotted my insides in a slow death because the men I admired didn’t need it when I did.
“I wanted to feel significant and important,” I murmured, my head buzzing and my heart fluttering with the admission. “It was always easier to laugh, joke, and hide my insecurities by pretending they didn’t exist. When I couldn’t pretend anymore, I panicked and didn’t want to admit things had gone to shit.”
God, this sucked. Fuck personal growth. Painfully itchy and agitating. People did this willingly?
“Beau.” Kate’s tone was as soft as the sympathy on her face when she tilted her head to take me in. “I’m sorry you held that all by yourself.”
“You’d have teased me,” I murmured, pressing my clammy hand to my heated cheek, hoping one could ease the other.
“Yeah, but I’d have hugged you afterward.” Practically an assault, her arms looped around my waist and squeezed tight. “You have two people in love with you, Beau-Bear. I’m not sure why you still feel insignificant. That seems pretty special to me.”
She released me, stepping back and slugging me in the gut. I huffed and clutched my stomach. Such an asshole, my sister.
“Love you, Katie-Pie.”
Kate squealed as I messed her hair with my hands, rubbing my palms until the static had the strands sticking to my skin.
She opened the door, chewing on her lip as she stared into the bright mid-day sun. “We’ll figure out what to do,” she said.
But I didn’t want them to have to figure out how to fix a mess I made. I wanted to fix it myself and prove that I could. Prove I was a man like Jake or my dad—men I loved and revered.
“This one is mine, Kate. My time to shine. I’m going to figure it out.” I rubbed my chin, considering my options.
There were scarcely any, but maybe one that could work, despite Jake’s protests. He’d done what was needed to take care of his family. I could get him to understand this would be no different. I would come back. I would.
My stomach tightened, a hard dread sinking like a weight, anchoring me in the uncomfortable truth of my worry. They might not want me when I come back in six months.
But they might not want me in six months, even if I stayed.