Chapter 24
24
Brax
I came home from work Friday afternoon to find Essie wearing my sweats and standing in front of the fireplace, staring at the row of framed photographs lined up along the mantel. My mom and dad on their wedding day. Me and my mom. My brothers and I on horseback. Essie and I exchanging vows. And the last one…Essie, Jack, and the tip of my index finger.
“You’re home early,” she said, not turning around.
“Snow is coming down pretty thick,” I said. “The storm is supposed to be a gnarly one. Figured it was better to be home than get caught on the road.”
She nodded and picked up the photo of our wedding. “Who took this?”
It was a good question, since we hadn’t hired a photographer .
“Ben,” I told her.
My nephew hadn’t been interested in being a groomsman alongside his dad and Zack, and we weren’t doing flower girls or a ring bearer. When he’d asked if he could take photos, I’d agreed and not thought about it again until he sent me these.
“He used his phone. Can you believe that?” I asked, coming to stand next to her.
She stared down at the photo a moment longer before placing it back on the mantle. “He did a great job. I had no idea.” Her voice sounded odd. Subdued. She gestured to the line of mismatched frames. “It looks nice. Like something a real couple would do.”
Aha. There it was.
I wondered how she hadn’t figured it out yet. Essie wasn’t stupid. My guess was that she simply didn’t want to know. That hurt, but not nearly as much as it would if she said those words out loud.
“That’s the idea,” I said. “If anyone comes over, we should look like a happily married couple, right?”
“Who’s going to come over?” she challenged with a lift of her eyebrow. “I think they might notice I’m sleeping in the guestroom.”
“You can invite friends over, you know. You should, actually. This is your home, too.” When she blinked surprised eyes at me, I smiled. “Anyway, you don’t have to sleep in the guestroom. Feel free to come join me in mine. Nude. ”
She laughed. “Maybe I will. Should I bring this picture you stole from my bedroom? Don’t think I didn’t notice.” She gave me a sardonic look. “We can hang it on the wall right across from the bed. Make Jack watch us?—”
A loud pop cut her off and we were plunged into sudden darkness. Essie yelped and groped blindly for me. I grabbed her hand and directed it to the mantel, letting it ground her until her eyes adjusted.
“Stay here. I’ll grab the flashlights.”
Power outages during storms were common enough that I kept a handful of flashlights and a stockpile of batteries in a kitchen drawer. Since I knew the layout of my home like the back of my hand, the lack of light didn’t slow me down. I grabbed two, flicked them both on to make sure the batteries weren’t dead, and I was back by her side in less than two minutes.
“Here you go.” I handed her one and kept the other for myself. “I’m going to take a quick look outside and see what happened.”
She nodded. “Be careful,” she said, like a reflex.
I liked it. Three months ago, she would have suggested I drop dead instead.
It was dusk when I opened the door and stepped outside. The snow was already a couple inches deep and more came down in thick, fluffy flakes. Every house on the street was dark. A few other people were out, checking things same as I was, and we waved to each other.
I grabbed an armful of firewood and went back inside. “The whole street is out. Probably a power line down. It could be a while before the power company sends someone to fix it.” I kicked the snow from my shoes.
Essie nodded. “They’ll want to wait until after the storm. I guess we’ll just have to eat all the ice cream before it melts.”
I laughed. “Or we could stick it outside.”
Essie feigned a shocked gasp.
“All right,” I said. “We’ll eat the ice cream.”
“It’s what Mom, Jack, and I always did. Eat the perishables and play cards in front of a fire. Sometimes we’d paint each other’s nails if we got really desperate.”
“Jack, too?” I asked, even though I suspected I knew the answer. Jack wasn’t the kind of man who thought nail polish was a threat to his masculinity.
“Jack, too,” Essie confirmed. “He was partial to blue. Like, the shade of cotton candy.”
I could see that.
“I’ll get the cards,” I said. “You get the ice cream.”
“Really?”
“Sure. What else are we going to do?” I loosened my tie. “I’ll get a fire going and then I’ll change out of my work clothes. With the power out, it’s going to get chilly in here soon. ”
“I’ll take care of the fire,” Essie said. “Go ahead and change.”
I took a quick, lukewarm shower and changed into a pair of gray sweatpants, a navy hoodie, and thick wool socks. When I returned, the fire was crackling and the living room was cast in a warm, golden glow. On the coffee table was a tray of hummus, cucumbers, and carrots. I could hear Essie humming in the kitchen.
“Ready?” she asked, glancing up from the bottle of wine she was opening. Her gaze traveled down my gray sweatpants and she licked her lips.
“My eyes are up here, Essie.” I held up the deck of playing cards. “I don’t think wine is perishable.”
She grinned and handed me a glass. “Better safe than sorry. I figured we could eat dinner first, and then have the ice cream for dessert. Like real adults.”
I laughed. “Is that what the hummus is? Dinner?”
“It was either that or steak tartare.”
“I’m good with hummus.”
We took our glasses of wine to the living room and sat cross-legged on the floor.
“Thanks for cooking, dear.” I scooped a glob of hummus onto a cucumber slice and popped it in my mouth.
Essie smirked at me. “I can actually cook, you know. We should do that sometime. Cook dinner together, I mean. ”
I damn near swallowed my tongue along with my food. “Really?”
“Yeah. I like trying new recipes, but it’s more fun to cook with someone. Mom is a great cook, obviously, but by the time she gets home from the bakery, the last thing she wants to do is cook more food, you know?”
“That makes sense.” I took a gulp of wine to slow down my next words. To make them sound less eager than I really was. “Sure, we can do that whenever you want.”
She hummed happily and bit into a carrot with a loud snap.
“Speaking of your mom, what was that about at dinner the other night?” I asked. I focused on getting the perfect amount of hummus on my cucumber slice. Maybe if I didn’t look directly at her, she wouldn’t spook. “She didn’t seem to be very happy that you aren’t barrel racing anymore. Is she still hung up on you retiring?”
“Oh, that.” Essie made an annoyed sound and snapped a carrot stick in half. “She’s never been a big fan of change, you know. I mean, she started working at Sweetie Pie when she was sixteen, and she’s been there nearly every day since. Don’t fix what ain’t broke is probably her favorite saying ever.”
I laughed. How many times had I heard Cat say that exact phrase? Too many to count. “That’s true.”
“She’s worried for me. That’s nothing new. She’s been worried about Jack and me since the day she peed on a stick. Worried I’d get pregnant. Worried I’d break my neck. But now it’s morphed into something different.”
I watched her play with her food and took another sip of wine. “What’s that?”
“I don’t know. Like she’s disappointed, maybe?” Her shoulders slumped a little. “Something changed when I turned thirty. People stopped worrying about me doing things too fast and started worrying I would do them too late, or not at all. Things like settle down, get married, have a baby.”
“I know the feeling,” I said. “Dad has hinted more than once that I was dropping the ball on his dream of having a baseball team worth of grandchildren.”
“But at least people think you’re a normal thirty-two-year-old, even if you aren’t married with kids yet. People have different expectations of men.” she said. “No one thinks I’m normal. It’s like everyone else got a memo on how adults were expected to behave, and no one told me. I keep disappointing people, and I don’t even know what I’m doing wrong. I mean, I’m responsible! I have a good savings account and I even put money in a Roth IRA. I have a job. But I guess none of that matters if you live with your mom or have rainbow hair.”
“Or if you retire early from a career when you’re still at your peak and pivot to a job where you’re a lowly apprentice?” I asked gently.
She groaned. “Mom will be mad about that forever. ”
“Why did you quit, anyway?” I prodded.
Her chin jerked up. “I didn’t quit. I was done.”
I smirked a little at her fierce expression. That was my hellion, through and through. “Okay, why were you done?”
“Hm.” She looked at the fire, her face thoughtful. “Do you know who Serena Williams is?”
“Best tennis player to ever live? Never heard of her,” I deadpanned.
She rolled her eyes. “Okay. Well, you know she wasn’t unbeatable, but she was the best. And no one else during her career was ever going to be better, even if they beat her. That’s how it was for me in barrel racing. I wasn’t Serena Williams. Abigail Bryson was. Sometimes I was ranked number two in the world. The year I retired, I was ranked number three. Sometimes I won against Abby, and that was always fun. Mostly, though, she beat me. And that was fine. Honestly.”
The firelight flickered over her face and fuck, she was so pretty sitting there, eating hummus and drinking wine, telling me about herself. It was so quiet in here, without the hum of electricity powering the fridge and heat, the snow muffling the outdoor noises. There was just the sound of crackling fire, and Essie. I hoped the power never came back on.
I had missed this. Our friendship. I had missed this so fucking much.
“The thing is, though, I wasn’t getting any better,” she continued. “I probably could have stayed right where I was for another decade, if I wanted to. Maybe I would eventually become number one in the world, if Abby had a bad year or went on maternity leave or something. But I still wouldn’t be better than I was right then. I knew that, and so I didn’t actually care if I ever got to number one. I had more than fulfilled my dreams, and I dreamed pretty big, as you know. I didn’t have anything left to work for. No new goals. I was…bored,” she confessed. “I know that sounds ungrateful, but it’s true. I wanted a new challenge. I was just…done.”
“I don’t think that sounds ungrateful,” I said, and meant it.
“Well, good. Because I didn’t mean it. It’s what I say because so many people think that’s what I am, anyway. People thought I was selfish for going after my dream, and they thought I was ungrateful for leaving it behind.” She paused. “Not my mom, though. She never thought I was selfish, even though sometimes I agreed with the people who said I was. She sure thought I was crazy sometimes, though.”
There was a look in her eyes when she spoke of her mom, and of sometimes feeling selfish. Like maybe she really did believe it.
I couldn’t take it. I scooped her off the floor and sat down on the couch with her on my lap. “You listen to me, Essie Price. You are not selfish. She followed you to shows because that’s what she wanted to do. She did things for you because she was your mom, and that’s what parents do. It doesn’t mean you owe her your career. You get to live your own life however you see fit, and you don’t owe it to anyone to live it for them .”
She stared at me for a long time, fiddling with the hair at the back of my neck.
“Okay?” I insisted.
She nodded, a little smile playing on those lush lips. “Okay,” she said.
“Good. Because now you’re going to get the ice cream, and I’m going to deal the cards. What are we playing?”
She shrugged, her blue eyes heating in the glow of the fire. “The only game I know is strip poker.”
“Fuck, yes.”
The power could stay off forever, for all I cared.