“Jaaaake-yyy!” I heard my name radiating from the kitchen, but it wasn’t who I wanted to be yelling it.
“Hey, James,” I said, greeting my sister-in-law’s best friend. He seemed to be spending more time at Bess and Lane’s country home than his own apartment in South Florida. “You’re back? Don’t you even work anymore?”
“I quit!” he exclaimed, then did a bad imitation of a hula dance, which I supposed was his idea of a “happy” dance.
I shook my head with a grin and let him rattle on since Lane had insisted James was good for Bess. He was part of the AA program, so he and Bess always went to meetings together when he visited them. Bess said that with James’s lifestyle, he’d likely never have a family of his own, so he was always welcome to be a part of theirs.
“I’m working for Lane now,” James explained. “He said he doesn’t want to have to think about wining and dining clients anymore when he travels, so I’m his new lead travel person. I do all the research on where he’s going, finding the best places and making his arrangements, which is a perfect job for me. I’m his own personal concierge.” He flashed me a big grin before he headed back to the coffeemaker, some huge fancy Italian or French deal that probably cost a small fortune.
“Great, I guess. Where is everyone? I told them I was coming down today.” There wasn’t the usual noise and commotion I expected whenever I showed up here. No shrieking baby or hyper dog anywhere.
James put a mischievous smirk on his face before landing the blow. “Oh, Maddy-girl is napping, which means the dog is spread-eagle underneath the crib, and let’s say, Bess and Lane are laying down.”
“Stop! Stop right now, James. Talk to the hand,” I said, raising my palm in the air. “That. Is. My. Sister-in-law.”
James cackled like the mother hen he was, and I headed for the back door to find my own brand of therapy.
Spring was in the air, the sky heavy with moisture and the ground wet as I made my way to the shed out back. It wasn’t Lane’s space, he rarely got his hands dirty with manual labor, but he kept it well stocked for his groundskeeper—and me. It seemed like the only time I visited was when I was in search of some sort of escape from my own damn head.
Sweat dripped down my brow and lined the seam between my jeans and my waist when Lane found me chopping wood a while later. I lifted the heavy ax and brought it down with force, splitting the log in half before I tossed it into the stack I’d already chopped. My breaths came in stilted puffs, shallow inhales and long exhales as I beat the shit out of the wood.
“Bro?” Lane called from a safe distance.
Ignoring him, I brought the ax down again and the snapping sound of the log splitting rang in the air, punctuating the silence. I grabbed another and made quick work of it.
“Bro!”
This time it came louder, and I sank the ax into the wood block with more force than necessary. “What?” I spat out.
“You’re the one who’s here at my house mutilating wood.” My twin approached with caution, his hands lifted in mock surrender as his ridiculous designer boots crunched the thawing ground.
“Right.”
My head hung in shame as I told him what had happened over the last few months, starting with landing my ass in jail over Christmas and everything since, all the way up to my offer to Aly and her running away.
Lane paced the narrow patch of grass as I spoke, shaking his head. “Christ, Jake! You were in jail and didn’t call? And why is it that you feel you have to fight everyone with your fists?”
We stood face-to-face in his backyard during our tense conversation, and I was pretty sure Bess was watching from the kitchen window.
“And you did what?” he said incredulously. “Sold your car, asked a woman to move for you?”
“So the fuck what!” I spit back.
“Pardon me for being confused, but you’ve done nothing but bed hop for years. I mean, I get it. I did it too.”
His said the last part in a low voice, almost a whisper, but I wasn’t sure why. Bess knew he was a man-whore before he met her.
“Yeah, I know that too, but isn’t this what men do when they fall for someone? Don’t they want to protect them? Look what you did for Bess.”
He grabbed his forehead and leaned against a tree. “Jake, I get where your head’s at, but you can’t boss women around in the real world like you do in bed.”
Frustrated, I turned and jerked the ax off the stump to split another log before I responded.
“Lane, I’m not you. Not everything I touch turns to gold. I’ve barely been hanging on for years. Now I’ve finally got my business going and I’m done messing around with Camper, and then I meet this woman. She’s the best thing I’ve ever seen, she’s got it all, and there’s this immediate need deep in my belly. I don’t want to hit it and quit it anymore. I don’t want to be that guy, but I have no fucking clue what I’m doing.”
“You could’ve talked to me,” he said with a smirk, “when you didn’t have an ax in your hand.” He leaned against the tree, grinning with his arms crossed over his chest as I split another piece of wood.
“Don’t be Mr. Funny right now, Lane.”
“I just never thought I’d see the day with you all strung out over a woman.”
“You can’t keep fixing shit for me, Lane! I may not have an MBA from a fancy school, but even I’m not dumb enough to believe I can continue living life as I’ve been living it. I’ve not taken any responsibility for myself, and I have to do something about it. The first step wasn’t calling you when I landed my pathetic ass in jail. As for the fight, I pretty much remember you beating AJ within an inch of his life when he went after Bess. And fucking sue me for wanting to get the girl all by myself.”
Tossing the ax down, I started pacing the yard, kicking up clumps of mud with my worn-in boots. The first time I came up here, I’d worn brand-new athletic shoes. Now I came prepared for mucking around in the woods. See, a man can learn.
Lane sighed. “I was in love with Bess, and that fucker almost hurt her. That’s different. You went to jail for Camper and her antics. Who the hell was this guy you went after?”
“That doesn’t matter anymore. What matters is now I’m trying to do right, and this woman is not listening to me.” I glared at my brother, our identical blue eyes staring each other down.
Lane grabbed my jacket by the lapels and pulled me tight toward him. “Jake, you’re whole life women have fallen at your feet, letting you lead them on just to have a chance to fuck you. You’ve never had to try to get a woman to like you for more than your body.”
He released my jacket and moved his hands to my shoulders, gripping them tightly. “Looks like you met your match. Listen to me good, brother. No lawyer—a public defender, no less—is going to fall into line if you boss her around. So put on your goddamn big-boy pants and deal with it. And it’s not because she’s smarter than you, you’re just going to have to work for it.”
Shrugging off his grip, I went back at it with the ax while Lane watched, my muscles flexing and straining with each lift. Sweat dripped down my back again beneath my shirt as I considered what he had said. Stopping suddenly, ax in mid-air, I confessed, “Maybe I don’t deserve to be loved after what I did. If Shirley were behind bars, maybe, but not with blood on my hands.”
Lane shook his head. “I’m not listening to this, Jake. We’ve been through this, hashed it all out. I went to therapy; you’re in therapy. Shirley is beyond the statute of limitations, and you were a little kid who did nothing wrong. There’s no blood on your hands. It’s all on her conscience, and she has to live with that.”
“Go!” I demanded as I turned my back on him. “I need a little more time out here, and then I’ll come inside and behave.”