~ ~ ~
I call my brother’s cell, so we can borrow his pickup truck. When it goes to voicemail, we head over to my parents’ house. On the way, I glance over at Callie, her hair lifting in the breeze of the open window, her eyes lighting up when I beep, and she waves to Ollie Munson. There’s just something so good, so fucking right about seeing her in the car next to me—after all this time—that fills my chest with a peaceful, settled sensation. I thread our fingers together, holding her hand for the rest of the drive.
“Callie!” My mother engulfs her in a hug. They were close back in the day—sitting together at my football games, having Betty Crocker chats in the kitchen. My mom was pretty wrecked when we broke up. For years, every new girl I started hanging out with got the “not as (fill in the blank) as Callie” stamp of disapproval.
“Look how beautiful you are! You haven’t changed a bit. Doesn’t she look beautiful, Ray?”
“Beautiful,” my dad grunts, staring at the television remote in his hands like he’s disarming a bomb as he changes the batteries. “Good to see you, sweetheart.”
“Thanks, Mr. Daniels.”
Then he fixes his crusty, disapproving gaze on me.
Here we go.
“Your boys got crushed last night, son.”
Moral support was never his strong suit.
“Yeah, Dad, thanks. I was there. I know.”
“Your quarterback’s playing scared. He’s got no confidence.”
“I’m working on it.” I sigh, rubbing the back of my neck. I look to my mom. “Is Connor around? We need to borrow his truck.”
“No, he went by the house to see the boys. It’s not his weekend, but he had the afternoon off so he wanted to spend some time with them.”
It’s like a frigging scavenger hunt around here. While my mother pours Callie a cup of coffee and they start talking about all things San Diego, I try my brother’s phone again. Still a bust—straight to voicemail.
So, a little while later, Callie and I pull up to Connor’s stone-front behemoth of a house. His pickup is in the driveway, the blue spruce he planted the first year they moved in is growing in the front yard, and his German shephard, Rosie, is barking in the back.
But inside . . . all hell is breaking loose.
Before we get to the front door, I can hear Stacey and my brother arguing, yelling, their voices overlapping in sharp, angry verbal slashes. But their words are drowned out by the roar of a . . . chainsaw? Is that a chainsaw?
I look up at the upstairs window, half-expecting to see Leather Face staring back at me.
In the foyer my nephews look like they don’t know where to go first—like three baby bears who’ve lost their momma.
“Uncle Garrett!” Spencer runs to me. “Dad’s freaking out—he’s chopping the house down!”
And the sound of the spitting chainsaw roars louder.
“What the hell is going on?” I ask my oldest nephew, Aaron.
“Dad took us for ice cream,” he explains, his face tight and flushed. “We were supposed to go to the park after, but Spencer got a stomachache so we came home early. And Mom was here . . . with Mr. Lawson.”
“He’s her new friend,” Spencer says, all round-eyed innocence.
“He’s Brayden’s basketball coach,” Aaron adds quietly. “They were upstairs.”
“He ran out the back when Dad got the chainsaw from the garage,” Brayden finishes.
Jesus. Out of the four of us . . . Connor’s the fucking calm one.
“Wait here,” I tell the boys, then take the stairs two at a time.
Inside the bedroom, my brother’s just finished sawing off the last post of the four-poster bed and he’s getting to work on the footboard.
Stacey waves her arms, her dark hair flying around her face. “Stop it! You’re acting like a psycho, Connor!”
My brother just squints behind his safety goggles. “You want to screw someone else—knock yourself out. But it’s not gonna be in our bed. That’s where I draw the line.”
Zzzzz . . . boom . . . and down goes the footboard.
“Hey!” I cup my hands around my mouth. “You two geniuses realize you’ve got three kids downstairs?”
Only they’re not downstairs anymore. They shuffle through the doorway, staring at what’s left of their parents’ bed and getting a front row seat to the Jerry Springer-level marital dysfunction.
My brother switches off the chainsaw. But Stacey still screeches, ’cause that’s how she rolls.
“Tell your brother that! He’s decided to be Super Dad all of a sudden, even though he was never there for me!”
“I. Was. Working!” My brother pushes his hands through his hair, making it stick up at every angle. “I’m a doctor. When I get called in—I have to go, even if it’s fucking girl’s night out!”
And they go back and forth, hurling sins and grievances at each other like a tennis ball at Wimbledon.