35. Tilly
THIRTY-FIVE
Tilly
Removing the Shoring: The bracing comes out and the wall either stands or it does not. There is no way to learn the answer while the shoring is still holding it up.
Libba is barefoot on the couch with a blanket over her legs when I come downstairs after showering. She's scrolling through something on her phone with the television on low in the background.
She looks up as soon as I walk into the room.
“So?”
I stop halfway to the kitchen. “So what?”
“Oh, please. You spent all day at Oak Moss with Rhodes, then he came to dinner with Dad. You know I need a full rundown on what the hell is going on, now.”
“Oh, God, Libba. I was hoping I could live in denial. Why do you do this to me?”
“Consider it therapy. We don't have to talk about it if you don't want.”
I go into the kitchen and open the refrigerator. “There are leftovers if you’re hungry,” she calls.
“I just ate enough oysters to qualify as a shellfish emergency.”
“Well, I have your favorite Jeni's in there if you want dessert.”
I take out a bottle of water and come back into the living room. Libba shifts her feet so I can sit at the other end of the couch.
“No ice cream?” she asks.
“Maybe in a minute.”
Her eyebrows go up.
“So, it was a good day.”
“That sounds suspiciously positive.”
I twist the cap off my water. “The shell shipment is handled, and the first load comes Monday. The rest should be here by mid-February. Rhodes figured out how to consolidate everything so we aren’t paying three different companies to haul partial loads all over the Southeast.”
“And what about Rhodes?”
“I thought you said if I didn't want to talk about it... Real clever bait and switch.”
She smiles and waits, so I take my time. I have no idea how I want to direct this. “It was nice.”
“Nice how?”
“We worked. He helped me with the staging issue and then came out on the marsh for a while. I made him wear waders that were too short.”
Libba laughs. “Please tell me you took a picture.”
“I should have. But I didn't. I don't even know where my phone was.”
“Losing track of your phone is a statement of its own.”
“He looked ridiculous.”
“And yet I’m guessing still annoyingly hot.”
I give her a look.
“What? I have eyes.”
I shake my head, but I’m smiling. Libba watches me for another second.
“So it really was okay? I mean, are you two going to be able to get past all of this and let our families hang again?”
“Yeah.” I lean back against the couch. “More than okay, I guess. It felt normal for a little while.”
“Only for a little while?”
I think about him following me through the marsh without trying to run the day, asking what I wanted to do when the carrier changed the plan, and then letting me make the calls.
“I mean, it was normal the whole time. I just got in my head.”
She studies me.
“That sounds healthy.”
I leave out the kiss, and I do it on purpose, because the second I put it in the air, she is going to want to know what it means. I’m not handing anybody a piece of this before I have decided what it is myself.
I know why I did it. He stood in that shed with the cold coming off the water and handed me a decision he could have made without me, the third one he had handed me that day, and I kissed him for it.
Nobody talked me into it, and nobody was watching. I was not being carried along by one single thing outside my own body, which is the entire reason it counts. It was the least accidental thing I’ve done in a year.
My phone starts vibrating on the coffee table. I reach for it, expecting Dad or maybe Jo.
But it's Rhodes calling. My stomach pulls tight. Libba sees the screen before I can turn it over.
“Oh.”
I look at her.
“He probably has an update on Monday.”
“At nine-thirty at night?”
“Logistics never sleeps. He told me that.”
The phone keeps vibrating. I finally answer.
“Hey.”
His voice is different immediately. “Hey. Are you somewhere you can talk?”
I sit straighter. Libba doesn't take her eyes off me.
“Yeah. What's up?” I ask as nonchalantly as I can muster.
There is a beat on the other end.
“Cooper knows.”
Everything inside me goes still. I look at Libba, and she mouths, "What?"
I hold up one finger and stand.
“Hold on,” I say to Rhodes.
I cross the room, open the front door, and step onto the porch before closing it behind me. Cold air slides under the sweatshirt I put on after my shower. I walk to the end of the porch and lean against the railing.
“What do you mean he knows? Knows what?”
“He came out to Oak Moss this afternoon.”
My heart stutters as the realization of what that means crashes over me.
“When? While we were there?” The kiss flashes back so clearly my face heats despite the cold.
“Yes. He told me he left without saying anything. When we went to get a beer after dinner, he confronted me.”
“And?”
“He asked how long.”
I grip the railing.
“What did you tell him?”
“The truth.”
My stomach drops.
“Rhodes.”
“I know.”
“I’m not mad at you. I just need to figure out how I'm going to handle this.”
He exhales.
“What else? Did you tell him about what went down with Oak Moss?”
“No.”
I look back at the house even though I can’t see Libba through the curtains.
“Why?”
His answer comes without hesitation. “Because you asked me not to.”
Something in my chest loosens. I look down at my bare feet against the porch boards. A chill rushes up through me.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I know you didn’t want him to know. I couldn’t look him in the face and lie.”
“You don’t have to apologize for that. You were put in an impossible position because I kissed you where apparently my brother was lurking around like a psychopath.”
A short laugh comes through the phone.
“He’s pissed that I essentially lied by omission.”
I lean my hip against the railing.
“He also asked if I hurt you,” he says after several seconds of silence.
“What did you say?”
“That I did.”
The answer is so plain that I close my eyes again. “Okay.”
“I didn’t tell him why.”
“Thank you.”
“He also thinks I took advantage of you.”
My eyes open.
“Of course he does.”
“I told him that wasn’t what happened.”
“Thank you.”
For a while, neither of us says a word. Then he clears his throat. “Do you want me to talk to him again after he cools off? I can let him sleep on it and call him in the morning.”
“About what?”
“Ask him to keep it between the three of us. I know you don’t want your whole family knowing.”
I look toward Libba’s front window.
“No. I'll talk to him.”
“You sure?”
I take a breath. "Yes, I'm sure. It's something I need to do. Thank you for calling me tonight.”
We hang up. I stay on the porch for another few seconds, letting the cold get through my sweatshirt before I turn toward the door.
Libba is exactly where I left her, except now the television is muted and her phone is facedown on the cushion beside her. She looks at me the second I walk in.
“Well?”
I close the door behind me.
“Cooper knows.”
Her mouth drops open.
“What?”
“He saw Rhodes and me kissing in the shed this afternoon.”
Libba stares at me. Then she points at me. “You kissed him?”
I pull my sleeves down over my hands.
“That is somehow not the biggest problem I have right now.”
"Well, you left that out when you told me about the day. I'd say that is a pretty big development. Are y'all going to try again?"
"I don't know, Libba. That's why I didn't say anything to you earlier. I don't know if it means anything or not, and I'm damn sure not ready to consider trying again with him. It just happened."
Libba is still staring at me when I pick my keys up off the side table. “You’re going over to Coop's now?”
“Yeah.”
She throws the blanket off her legs and stands. “I’ll come with you.”
I shake my head. “No. I need to do this alone.”
“Tilly.”
“I mean it.” I pull my coat off the hook by the door. “I should have told him months ago. Making Rhodes lie to his best friend because I was too chicken shit to deal with Cooper wasn’t fair either.”
Libba’s expression softens, but she does not argue right away.
“You weren’t exactly dealing with a normal amount of shit at the time.”
“I know, but that doesn’t mean Coop didn’t deserve better from me.”
She studies me for another second, then reaches for the remote and turns the television off.
“Call me if he acts like an ass.”
“He’s definitely going to act like an ass.”
“Then call me if he graduates to unbearable.”
I smile and pull my coat on.
“I’ll be fine.”
“I know you will.”
I squeeze her shoulder on the way past and head out.
Cooper’s place is only a few minutes away, also downtown, so I barely have time to rehearse anything useful before I’m pulling up in front of his building. His truck is there, which answers one question.
I sit behind the wheel for a second with the engine running, then shut it off before I can talk myself into doing this by phone.
The porch light is on. I knock once. He opens the door almost immediately. His face changes when he sees me.
“Tilly.”
“Can I come in?”
“Yeah, of course.”
He steps aside.
His place is cleaner than I expected and still somehow full of shit he has not found permanent homes for yet.
A box sits against one wall and two framed photos are leaning on the console instead of hanging.
There is a stack of mail on the counter and a pair of running shoes in the middle of the floor.
He closes the door behind me. I don’t know where to start, suddenly wondering what I’m even doing here. Then Cooper runs a hand over the back of his neck.
“Rhodes called you.”
“He did. He wanted me to hear it from him.”
Cooper looks away.
“I’m sorry you found out like that.”
His head snaps back toward me. “You’re sorry?”
“Yes.”
He gives a short laugh. “That’s not really where I thought this conversation was going.”
“I should have told you.”
He crosses his arms.
“I was embarrassed. Then I was angry, and after that it felt easier to leave it alone than explain any of it.”
“Any of what?”
I raise my eyebrows. Of course he wants details. I swear you fuck up once, and suddenly your entire life is up for dissection by your family.
“That part is between Rhodes and me.”
His jaw tightens immediately. “Til.”
“I’m serious.”
“So he did hurt you.”
“Yes.”
The word makes him go still. I hold up a hand before he can start.
“But not the way you think.”
“How do you know what I think?”
“Because Rhodes told me you accused him of taking advantage of me.”
Cooper looks irritated but not ashamed.
“You were living in his house. You were barely out of treatment. He was supposed to be the safe person.”
“I know what the situation looked like.”
“It looked bad because it was bad.”
“No. It was complicated because it was complicated.”
He stares at me. I take a breath and keep my voice even.
“Rhodes did not seduce me because I was vulnerable. He did not pressure me into anything. I wanted him, and I chose him.”
Cooper’s face hardens.
“I trusted him.”
“I know.”
"If you're going to be mad at anyone about this, you should be mad at me, Coop. Rhodes did what I asked him, which was to not tell anyone."
"That's convenient."
“No, what would be convenient is letting you turn me into some helpless idiot so you can hate him without having to accept that I made my own decisions.”
His expression changes.
“That is not what I’m doing.”
“It is exactly what you’re doing.”
“I’m your brother.”
“I know that.”
“I’m supposed to look out for you.”
“You can look out for me without deciding every bad thing that happens means somebody did it to me.”
He takes a step back and drags a hand down his face.
“I’m not saying you can’t make your own decisions.”
“You’ve been saying that for years while doing the opposite.”
He exhales hard through his nose. The room goes quiet. Finally, he says, “Just tell me he didn't cheat on you, or promise you something he didn't deliver.”
I look down at the floor.
“I can tell you he didn't do either of those things.”
He opens his mouth, then closes it again.
I step closer.
“Whatever happened between Rhodes and me belongs to us. I’m not keeping secrets because I’m scared of you. I’m telling you there is a line, and I need you to respect it.”
He looks at me for a long time. Then he lowers his arms.
“Okay.”
I blink.
“That’s it?”
“No, that is not it.” He points at me. “I am still pissed at him.”
“That’s between you and him.”
“I know.”
“And I’m still pissed at you.”
“I can take it. But I will ask you not to make me the reason you destroy a friendship you’ve had your whole life.”
His expression shifts.
“That’s not your call either.”
Cooper leans against the counter across from me.
“So what is this now?”
“I don’t know.”
“Y’all kissed, so are you still seeing each other?”
“No. I wouldn’t say we were ‘seeing each other,’ but we ended things in April.”
“Do you want to be?”
I shake my head. This is already going further than I am comfortable with him, and now he’s asking me questions I don’t want to consider.
“I don't know, Coop. Why is that any of your business?”
He studies me for a second. Then his mouth tightens like he is deciding whether to say something.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Cooper.”
He looks toward the kitchen.
“Rhodes said he loves you.”
My stomach drops so fast it makes me dizzy. “He said what?”
Cooper glances back at me. “He said he loves you.”
He watches me. “You didn’t know.”
I stand before he can decide what that means. “I should go.”
“Tilly.”
I turn. His anger is quieter now.
“You okay?”
“Yes.”
“You sure?”
I nod. “I’m sure.”
He looks at me for another second. Then he says, “I’m trying.”
“I know.”
He walks me to the door. When he opens it, cold air comes into the room. I step onto the porch.
He watches me for a second, then pulls me into a quick hug before I can object. I hug him back.