Chapter 3 #2
Mom settled her fists on her hips. “I told you he only had two days’ leave. Now hug your brother and wish him luck.”
The sullen grump in a black hoodie at the top of the stairs was a far cry from the subdued graduate trying not to get in trouble before walking across that stage.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“Aaron! Is that any way to greet your brother?”
Luke patted Mom on the shoulder, ignoring Aaron’s outburst. “Hey, little bro.”
Aaron stomped down the stairs and glared up at him. “Answer the question.”
Luke blinked down at his brother, though he was closer to Luke’s height than he remembered.
“I’m on leave and wanted to come home for a visit.
” The coldness in Aaron’s welcome hit Luke directly in the stomach, but he refused to show weakness to the teen.
Aaron grunted and headed for the kitchen table.
“It smells great in here,” Luke commented to Mom, who sighed and shook her head at her youngest.
“You got my letter?”
“Yes. We’ll talk about that later.” He kept his arm around Mom’s shoulders as they followed Aaron. In the kitchen the teen had already served himself some pot roast and was eating.
“Aaron, you know better than to start before everyone sits down.” Mom chided him as she sat down. Luke pushed her chair in then took his own next to her, where he’d always sat when he lived at home. At least some things hadn’t changed.
Mom might be grayer and more wrinkled, and Aaron might be a brat, but this was still the house he’d grown up in.
The same fruit-themed wallpaper surrounded the kitchen, even if it peeled a bit at the corners.
The wooden table still bore the scars from the time he tried to build Mom a bird house and the hammer slipped.
“What are you up to these days, Aaron?” Luke scooped some carrots and roast on to his plate. He had to hold back a moan at the first bite as it melted in his mouth. Nothing beat mom’s pot roast.
“Nothing.” Aaron continued shoveling food in.
“How’s The Busy Bee, Mom?”
Mom patted her mouth with her napkin and took a sip of her water. “It’s going well. We just hired a new server because we’ve been so busy.”
“That’s great. Anyone I know?”
“No, she’s new to town.”
“How do you like working with her, Aaron?”
Aaron scoffed. “I don’t work there.”
Luke peered at him over the table. He clocked the shining metal watch on Aaron’s wrist and remembered what Mom wrote in her letter about money appearing from seemingly nowhere. “So where are you working then?”
He scowled at his nearly empty plate. “I’m working for my friend. He pays way better than Mom.” Then he shoved the last bite of roast into his mouth and stood. “I’m going out.”
“Aaron, take your plate to the—” Mom’s voice cut off as Aaron slammed through the side door. Luke placed a hand on Mom’s shoulder.
“I’ll take care of the dishes, Mom.”
“You don’t need to do that,” she waved him off.
“I insist. Now tell me about your new server.” He listened to Mom talk about the charming woman who’d come in for a bowl of soup when Mom was working by herself, cooking and waiting tables, and ended up walking out with a job.
“She’s a fast learner, and she charmed all the regulars right away. Shorty and I never have to question her handwriting. With Katya’s kids getting sick so much she’s been a Godsend.”
“That’s awesome.” When they’d finished eating, Luke carried their plates to the sink to rinse them off.
As he loaded the dishwasher, his mom put the leftover roast into the refrigerator.
He smiled to himself. They were still a well-oiled machine, just like always.
The only spanner in the works was Aaron.
When the kitchen had been cleaned up, he leaned against the counter and studied Deb Graham. “So, what’s all that about with Aaron?”
She sighed and reached into an upper cabinet for a tea bag.
“Honestly that’s the most he’s spoken in months.
He stopped doing any chores, his room is a disaster, he sleeps all day and leaves after dinner.
I don’t know where he goes all night. It makes it so hard to sleep.
” Luke noticed the dark shadows under her blue eyes and worry spiked in his gut.
“Are you getting any sleep?”
“A bit.” She put the old kettle over the burner and fired it up. “Do you want some tea?”
“No thanks.”
She gave him a sheepish look. “I don’t have any beer here, sorry. Not since you moved out.”
“It’s fine, I can get some.” Then a thought occurred to him. “Unless you don’t want any in the house with Aaron being underage.”
She stared off into the darkened yard through the window over the sink. “I don’t think he’d drink it, but then again… I don’t know my own son anymore, Luke.”
The weight his mother must have been carrying for too long bore down on Luke, and his throat grew tight. “It’ll be okay, Mom.” He came up behind her and rubbed her tense shoulders. “I’m here to help.”
The next morning, Luke woke up in his childhood bedroom.
He’d taken the old band posters down when he was in his twenties so it didn’t look like a teenager’s room anymore.
But Mom had never bothered to repaint so the green he’d picked at ten years old was still on the walls.
He pulled himself up from the twin bed and cracked his back.
That would take some getting used to; he wasn’t as young as he used to be anymore.
He showered, gave his dark beard a quick trim with his clippers, and then got dressed.
Mom had long ago left for the early shift at the diner, but she’d said she’d sleep easier knowing he was home for Aaron.
His day of traveling had wiped him out though, so he hadn’t stayed up to talk to Aaron like he wanted to.
Luke poured himself a bowl of cereal and ate quickly, then looked around the kitchen for something to do.
The dishwasher wasn’t quite full enough to run, but the garbage was stuffed.
Wasn’t that Aaron’s job? It had been his at that age.
But from what Mom had said the night before, Aaron wasn’t doing it, so Luke decided he’d take care of it.
While taking the garbage out to the garage, Luke spied the gutters along the sides of the house.
They were chock full of leaves and ice. Luke shook his head.
Someone should have cleaned those in the fall.
He found Dad’s old work gloves in the big red toolbox and hauled the ladder out.
But he wasn’t going to be stupid about this.
Luke checked the time on his watch and decided ten in the morning was as good a time to wake Aaron as any.
He made lots of noise entering the house, made sure to wipe his boots on the mat and then thudded up the stairs, letting his full weight fall on every step. “Aaron! You up?”
Bounding up to a door with a “You can knock, but I won’t answer” sign on it, he ignored the warning and knocked, anyway. “Aaron?”
“Go away,” came the muffled reply.
“Come on, it’s ten A.M. I need help outside.”
“I said go away!”
He tried to open the door, but it was locked from the inside. That seemed odd. He didn’t remember ever doing that as a kid.
“I just need you to hold the ladder so I can clean out the gutters.” It was a wonder they didn’t have icicles weighing them down already.
“No.”
“Please, Aaron? Mom obviously didn’t get to it in the fall and I don’t want her on the ladder in winter.”
“Do it yourself.”
This wasn’t getting him anywhere. Luke scrubbed a hand over his face and sighed. He stomped back down the stairs and slammed the door, hard. If Aaron was going to insist on being lazy, Luke would not make it easy on him.
He hated to do it, but he walked next door to where his best friend growing up had lived. Felix’s parents weren’t any younger than Debbie Graham, but he could ask Mr. Acker to hold the ladder for him.
When he knocked, a familiar face greeted him. “Luke!”
“Felix!” He gave his childhood pal a back-slapping hug. “I didn’t know you still lived here.”
“I took over the house when Mom and Dad wanted to move to an apartment. We swapped. They live over the shop, and I live here, now.” He took a sip from a mug. “Come on in. Have you had coffee yet?”
“Nope, Mom usually makes hers at the diner and I didn’t want to waste the whole pot.” He followed Felix into a house he no longer recognized, and gave a slow whistle. “You redecorated.”
“Yep,” Felix called from the kitchen. “Wanted to put my own stamp on it.” He returned with a mug of liquid gold. “I didn’t want it to feel like my parents’ house anymore.”
“It sure doesn’t.” He’d kept it simple with overstuffed couches in dark brown leather, a huge flatscreen television over the fireplace, which he’d covered in river rock and a thick timber mantle. Replicas of movie swords hung from the wall next to framed posters from the Lord of the Rings movies.
“What are you doing here?” Felix asked.
“I’m home visiting for a bit. Apparently, Mom never got around to cleaning out the gutters but Aaron isn’t interested in holding the ladder for me.”
Felix rolled his eyes. “I didn’t even realize your little brother still lived there. I only ever see your mom.”
Well, that made Luke’s ears perk up. And it told him a lot about what Aaron was not doing, even if it didn’t tell him what he was. Felix drained his mug and set it on the counter.
“Let me get dressed and put my shoes on, then I’ll help you before I go open.”
“Thanks, man.”
“Any time. Don’t be such a stranger.” Felix grinned as he headed up the stairs. “Be right down.”
Luke finished his coffee and set his mug in the sink. When Felix returned, they walked across to Luke’s house like they’d done a million times as kids. “How’s the store going?”
Felix’s dream had always been to open a book and game store here in Hawthorn Hills. While Luke had gone to university for criminal justice, Felix had studied business at the community college.
“It’s going great. We’ve got a weekly game night for Pathfinder campaigns on Tuesdays if you want to play while you’re in town.” Felix grabbed onto the ladder as Luke ascended and started scooping leaves and clumps of snow from the gutter.
“Pathfinder?” He’d been out of the loop for so long. The last tabletop role-playing game he’d played had been Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 in high school.
“Yeah, it’s everything we used to love about D&D but they have more pre-written campaigns. Grace and I play with Joe every week.”
Luke grinned. “You and Grace, huh?” He couldn’t keep the teasing out of his voice as he looked down at his friend. “When did that finally happen?”
Felix rolled his eyes as Luke descended the ladder, and they moved it further down the yard. “We’re just friends, Luke. Nothing’s happened.”
The flush on Felix’s cheeks couldn’t just be from the chill. He’d had a thing for Grace since they were in high school, but she’d friend-zoned the poor nerd. Luke decided teasing the man preventing him from falling off a ladder was a poor life choice and let it go.
“Tell me about this game then.”