Chapter 6
MILES
This is at least the fifth load of soggy dead leaves and twigs I’ve hauled across this property and I’m sweating through my damn T-shirt. I wipe my forehead with the dirty wrist of my glove, then gather up the tarp and dump its contents into the bed of my brother’s truck.
Jude’s landscaping crew doesn’t work weekends, but, since all the fallen leaves make autumn their busiest season, he tends to work an extra Saturday here and there to keep on top of it.
He was hesitant to let me help at first, but it’s a win-win situation: he gets free grunt labor, and I get to make amends—slowly pay him back for all the grief I caused him while I was drinking.
The fresh air and exercise are solid perks.
So’s Murphy. I pull off one work glove and crouch down to give Jude’s sleepy old golden retriever a scratch on the head. He stirs, yawns, and gets right back to the important business: his mid-morning nap.
“Hey.” Jude comes up behind me with another wheelbarrow full of crap. “Think there’s probably one more load left over there.”
“This place is pretty dope.” I straighten and lift my chin toward the open cliffside overlooking the river, adding, “Like a fuckin’ postcard or something.”
“Yeah.” He follows my gaze, then scans around the yard. “This is where I met Olena, y’know.” With a shove, he wheels the load of yard waste up the aluminum ramp and onto the open tailgate.
“Wait…” I throw him a skeptical look as I put my glove back on. The story of how they met—the version I heard, at least—didn’t sound quite this picturesque. “Didn’t she chew you out on the side of the road or some shit? In the pissing rain?”
Not that I’m one to judge; my first encounter with Olena wasn’t exactly a meet-cute, either—showing up drunk and pounding on Jude’s door like a shithead. We’ve patched things up since then, thankfully.
“Yeah. The road on the way here, though. This was our first project together.” He empties the wheelbarrow, then brings it back down the ramp. “We got off to a weird start,” he adds with a smirk. “But we figured it out.”
I can’t stop my thoughts from drifting to the way I met Caroline, but quickly shove aside any comparison. We aren’t off to a weird start, because we aren’t starting anything.
“What’s with you?” Jude asks, lifting his chin with a brow cocked.
“What do you mean?”
“You’re all…” He gestures at my face.
“I’m all what?” I grab a rake, ready to head off for the next haul of cleanup.
Jude passes me the tarp and picks up the wheelbarrow, following me along a gravel path toward a wooden arbor. “Something on your mind?”
“It’s nothing.” The white lie slips out easily—old habits and all.
I give him a sidelong glance, my gaze falling to his tattoos; inked on each of his forearms is a tribute to the parents we lost too young—a hand planer for Dad, and a dandelion for Mom.
Regret needles at me, knowing they’d want me to come clean.
Rigorous honesty. That’s what they always say in AA.
“Okay, it’s not nothing,” I confess, gripping the rake tighter as we walk. “But don’t get all judgy big brother on me about it.”
Jude stops in his tracks and lowers the wheelbarrow as I turn to face him, giving me a long look. He’s totally doing the judgy big brother thing. “Okay…”
“That includes your face, bro.”
“I didn’t say anything!” He throws his hands out at his sides, but I’m sure he’s probably going through a laundry list of potential fuckups I could’ve committed.
“Dude, I’m not drinking again, if that’s where your head went.”
“Good,” he says. “So, then, what’s up? Do you need, like, more support or—?”
“What? No!” I say, realizing what he’s thinking.
“It’s okay if things are getting hard, Miles,” he adds.
Fuck. Just my dick whenever I think about Caroline.
“It’s not like that, man,” I say, though I know full well I don’t have a leg to stand on here.
This thing with Caroline tonight has hard written all over it.
And I’m partly to blame. She may have impulsively invited me, but I also impulsively leaned into it—too intrigued by the idea of spending an evening with her to take one of the multiple outs she offered later.
“This about that girl then?” Crossing his arms over his chest, he lifts his chin. “C’mon. Spit it out, scandal boy.”
I set my jaw, hesitating another moment before I relent. “Alright. Fuck. So I might’ve… promised to go with her to this fancy, black-tie fundraiser tonight.”
His eyebrows lift. “Thought you weren’t dating.”
“I’m not. It’s like a fake… thing.” I scrunch up my face, knowing I sound like a dumbass.
“A fake… thing,” he repeats slowly.
“Like a fake boyfriend thing. She needs me to pretend for the…” I trail off, scrubbing my forehead with the back of my glove. “Shit, this is stupid, isn’t it?”
“I mean, it’s not sounding smart, I’ll tell you that much.”
“Fuck off! I said no judgy shit. It was a rhetorical question.”
He holds up his hands in a silent fine.
“It’s one night, okay?” I reason, my shoulders already tensing up. “Not a real date. It’s fine. It’ll be fine. It was either go with me or go with her dickhead ex, so…”
“Ah, right,” Jude says with a nod. “So you’re planning to, what, swoop in and play the hero? White-knight this thing?”
“I guess?” More like white-knuckle this thing. “I dunno. It was her idea. She was in a bind. Thought I could help.”
Letting out a long sigh, Jude walks a few paces over to the cliffside, craning his neck to peer over the edge. He mumbles something I can’t catch, like, “Forty-foot drop.”
“What are you doing?” I ask as he wanders back.
“Oh, just trying to figure out whether I should throw you in the river.” He tilts his head toward the cliffside with a smirk.
“Thanks,” I deadpan.
“C’mon.” He picks up the wheelbarrow again.
With a sigh, I follow him through the arbor and down a small set of stairs to a secluded garden, where we set up to do one last haul.
“So you must really like this girl, huh?” When I open my mouth to protest, he cuts me off. “Even though it’s all fake, like you said, and blah blah blah, you’re not dating yet, et cetera.”
“I mean, she’s… Like, she seems pretty cool and…
” I trail off, unable to deny to myself that I’m ridiculously attracted to Caroline.
That I haven’t been obsessing about her, despite my best efforts not to.
That I haven’t come more than once thinking about pushing up that fluffy sweater dress and losing myself between those thigh-high leather boots.
“The dopey distraction isn’t really reassuring, Miles.”
Snapping back to the present—and my frowning brother—I remind myself again that it’s not real. It’s one night. And we have nothing in common, anyway. She’s a privileged rich girl with a dad who’s all up in her business, and I’m…
Well, it must be nice to have parents who could be all up in your business. The only one I’ve got all up in my business is Jude.
“Whatever, man,” I say. “Doesn’t matter. It’s not a real date.”
“Uh-huh.” He doesn’t seem convinced.
My phone rings from my back pocket.
“Don’t be too long, ’kay?” Jude grabs the tarp. “I’ve got plans with Olena this afternoon.”
I nod and tug off my gloves as I jog back up the steps to take the call. When I pull out my phone, the name on the screen makes me pause. Cautiously, I swipe to answer.
“Hey, Benji, what’s up?” I haven’t talked to the guy since I left Seattle. Haven’t talked to any of my old friends, really. I’d needed a clean break from my old life.
“Miiiiiiiles, man!” he drawls. “Fucking settle a bet for me. Settle a bet. Okay. Okay. What was that chick’s name?
” There’s shouting and laughter in the background.
“Fucking get off me, man!” he says to someone.
There are struggle sounds in the background, then a thud.
More laughter. “Miles, fuck, who was that chick at Chap’s work party?
The one on the fuckin’ boat or whatever.
Houseboat. The houseboat. She had that… that fuckin’ neck tattoo of the—”
“Uh, I dunno, Benj.”
“—the snake—the cobra! Cobra. You remember her, man?” He sounds wasted. “Kayla? Makayla?”
I pull the phone from my ear to check the time. It’s 10:20 in the morning and these guys are already pissed. I take a beat to scour my admittedly spotty memory. “Don’t really remember that party, dude. Sorry.”
“Aw, fuck,” Benji says, sounding disappointed. “She was fuckin’ hot, anyway.”
“Okay?”
This is awkward.
“Thought we could hook her up with Chap. I think his virginity is growing back— Ow! Hey!” More laughter in the background. “Maybe try not being such an ugly piece of shit, Chap, ever thought of that?”
“Is that it? Like, is this why you—”
“Miles, what the fuck, bro? Haven’t talked to you in like… in like… I don’t even know. How the fuck are you?”
“Uh, I’m good…” I turn to Jude and hold up a finger like I need another minute—like this is an important matter of business and not some horrifying trip down drunk-memory lane.
Or no-memory lane, I guess.
“Yeah, I’m… I’m doing a lot better,” I say.
“Yeah?” Benji coughs loudly on the other end of the line. “That’s great, man.”
“Thanks.” I hesitate a beat, wondering whether to bother telling him. “I actually just met this girl and—”
“Fuck, Chap, will you stop with the goddamn ice?” Benji shouts, and I can’t help the way his distraction deflates me a bit. “Bitch, if you come near me with that, I’ll… Shit! Ah!”
“Hey, I should—”
“Chap just put ice down my shirt like a fucking asshole,” Benji explains.
“Yikes,” is all I say.
Yeah, fucking yikes is right.
Was this what I was like when I was sauced all the time?
“Hey, Benji,” I say over more shouting and laughter on his end. “I gotta run. I’m uh… working here.”
When I finally get a word in edgewise to say goodbye, I hang up and blow out a long breath, tapping my phone against my thigh a couple times before slipping it into my back pocket.
That was my life. Those were the assholes I called friends—too shitfaced to pay attention or listen. Or care.