decker
“Hey,Decker, seems you’re in quite a pickle.” Asa walks closer to the table. I stand up to shake his hand, seeing how he’s the only one of the Hart brothers who are here, at least, to do it. From what Leena mentioned, Deke is off in his own world, fucking off and being a dickbag. Though she loves him, at the same time, it doesn’t keep her from wanting to throttle Deke at times.
“Hey, nice to meet you, Asa, and you’re not wrong about that.” Asa takes the seat Leena vacated but gets up again when he realizes something.
“Beer?” he asks the group, moving to the mini fridge that’s attached to the outdoor kitchen that built of sleek stonework, matching the pavers on the ground, giving way to a pool. It has me thinking that it won’t be long until my niece and nephew will want a place to crash that has more than a pond to fish in and a game room.
“Sure,” I respond. The other men chime in, and Asa hands out the bottles of beer to each of us.
“Alright, last time we all opened our mouths, myself included, you remember what happened? Montana was crying, Leena was pissed and ready to walk away from Hart Construction forever. So, while I don’t know a whole lot except the fuck-up and that Williams Concrete fixed it and made sure we settled the right way. why don’t we let Decker here take the floor Plus, if Dad’s okay with little sister being married and to him, he must be an okay guy.” Shit, why I ever second-guessed Leena when it came to thinking all of them would want to kick my ass, I don’t know. I guess two out of four ain’t all bad, though who knows what Deke would do if he were here.
“I’ll interrupt this with a few sentences,” Bob says, sitting up in the chair, beer in his hand after guzzling a good portion of it since Asa made his rounds, making me do the same. Fuck, it’s not easy to admit your own flesh and blood was out to sabotage you and your family. “Your mother and I didn’t raise foolhardy idiots; well, we didn’t think so until lately, at least when it comes to our boys. Your sister has a good head on her shoulder, can see a weak link a mile away. She’s an observer, doesn’t say much unless it counts. So, yes, your mother and I will stand by her decision of marrying Decker. We all owe it to her to listen to what he has to say, even if we don’t agree with it. My family is not going to be torn apart again. Got one kid in Alabama. I’m still working on getting home; might know just how to do it, too,” Bob finishes, then sits back in his seat and brings the beer to his lips again, taking a hardy sip. I guess my time to talk is here.
Tanner, Keller, and Asa nod, telling me I’m good to talk about what really happened instead of the legal jargon we were told as a family unit to say. The three or four guys who went along with my brother and his hairbrained scheme were let go with a severance package and a non-disclosure agreement.
“First, I’m going to tell you when I met Leena, I had no idea who she was. The few emails I saw between her and my brother were all I saw of her. The only people I really dealt with face-to-face were Tanner and Keller. It wasn’t until I saw everything printed out on our marriage license that it all came together like a puzzle, the pieces fitting inside the border.” I take a deep breath before continuing, “I told her what happened, laid it all out, and gave her the details I’m about to give you. She still said yes, and I’m thankful as hell she did. And I hope this doesn’t get around either. The incident at Hart Construction sadly wasn’t the only one, and it took a lot of water to put out the fires.”
“Well, then, you know he’s a decent guy,” Asa responds.
“That’s yet to be seen,” Keller implies. I take a sip of my beer, wishing like hell it were a shot of bourbon.
“Yeah, well, no one knows an addict is spiraling until it’s too late. My brother, Elijah, we didn’t know he had a problem until his now ex-wife came to us letting us know she had a loan shark show up at their front doorstep while she was shuffling the kids out to school. Thankfully, Maya knows we’re her family since the pieces of shit she has by blood are worthless. Anyways, after the kids were at school, Maya called my parents, who then called me. We all met at the shop, and she let me know what was going on. What we didn’t know was that he mortgaged the house to the hilt. It was paid off, so Maya had no idea what was going on. Dad and I took off while Mom assured my sister-in-law things would be taken care of. Apparently, gambling wasn’t all he was doing. Cocaine and pills are his vice, and gambling was helping fuel the addiction. And within the next week of finding out that my brother was living a double life, job sites started calling in. So, I took the bull by the horns, went to all the places we had contracts with, figured out what was happening, and the rest, well, you know what happened. I’m not expecting you to understand; it would be hard to if you didn’t have someone you loved in active addiction. Right now, he seems to be in a decent place, but for how long, we never know. Some weeks, Elijah is present. More times than not, well, he’s not. I can tell you that he’s no longer allowed on job sites or on our payroll.”
This time, I do take a long drink of my beer, finishing it in one glug, not caring what they think of me. It can’t be any worse than what they thought anyways, and judging by the stone-cold silence, I’d say it’s not going to be good. That’s okay, though; they know the truth. It’s up to them now.