Sweet

Chapter Nineteen

Easton stared at me like I was the biggest idiot he’d ever encountered in his life. “That’s not going to work.”

“Sure it will,” I said cheerfully, even though I had no idea if I was right or not.

My thought was twofold. One, I was going to attempt a different tactic to get Easton to like me, because let’s face it, I was in this house for good and I didn’t want him glaring at me at random intervals. My angle couldn’t be Rory’s—I wasn’t baking any pies, and I couldn’t be counted on to give stellar advice or keep from swearing. But I could show him fun in a positive way, one that didn’t involve dirty magazines or throwing snack foods at people’s butts. Second, it was only mid-June and my skin was breaking out from being in a constant pool of sweat. Easton and Jayden were ripe, seemingly oblivious to the awesome merits of deodorant, so we all needed to cool down.

With all of our nerves stretched taut because of Riley being at the courthouse for the final custody hearing on Easton, I had spent twenty-five bucks on an inflatable Slip ’N Slide. Only when we got back to the house, I realized the ancient hose in the garage was cracked in about six spots. Not willing to be defeated, I went and found the roll of duct tape and was wrapping it around the hose to plug the leaks.

It was Friday, five days after Riley had proposed to me on the top of the church steps, and I was happier than I’d ever been. I loved being with him, and I felt like I was stepping up and tackling challenges instead of passively moving through my life. It may seem basic to some people, but taking on a busted hose was a personal triumph for me.

“Where does the water come from?” Jayden asked, chewing his fingernail as he watched me.

“The faucet.” I was sweating, hair flopping in my eyes. I kept checking my phone to see if Riley had called, even though it was in my pocket and I would feel it vibrate. I wasn’t sure what would happen if the judge ruled against Riley, but it wouldn’t be good.

Tyler was working a drywall job he had picked up, and I had wanted to go with Riley, but he had wanted me to stay with Easton, who was well aware what was happening. I was supposed to be a distraction, and in that regard, I supposed I was being successful. I had driven them to Walmart in Tyler’s car and it had taken us almost an hour of debating, well, me debating, which slide to buy. I was a little concerned about the whole inflatable bumper thing but they all seemed to have that now. I guess the head injuries from crashing into the garage were a thing of the past.

“Do we have a faucet?” Jayden asked, looking around.

Huh. “That’s a good question.” I had changed into my bikini top on pure optimism and heat exhaustion but I regretted not snagging a hair tie in mine and Riley’s room.

“There it is,” Easton said, pointing to the wall next to the back door.

Thank God. That would have been the ultimate fail.

“Does it work?” I asked.

Jayden twisted it and water sprayed out all over him. “It works!”

“Excellent.” I eyed the hose and the Slip ’N Slide, which I had yet to inflate. “What end goes where?”

“Read the directions,” Easton said.

“Nobody reads the directions,” Jayden said with a scoff.

Yeah, I had a hard time picturing Tyler or Riley flipping through instruction manuals. The only thing they flipped through were the channels on the TV. I didn’t think it was that offensive of a statement, but Easton shoved his brother.

“Hey!” Jayden said, shoving him back.

Realizing that Easton was feeling anxious, I didn’t think it was the time for Jayden to go head-to-head with him, so I stepped between them. “Jayden, come here and start blowing this up, please.” I was fairly certain that my breasts would distract Jayden from Easton and I was right.

He appeared dazzled and didn’t even bother to hide his gawking. “Yeah, okay,” he said to my chest.

A few minutes later, I left the duct tape roll dangling from the hose, sure I’d gotten all the cracks, and was heading to the faucet with one end to screw it in, Jayden swearing he was going to pass out after blowing up approximately five percent of the slide walls. Easton was throwing acorns at the garage.

Riley came around the corner and came to a stop when he saw us. He was wearing his least abused jeans and a plaid button-down shirt that looked like he’d borrowed from someone it was so foreign to his usual wardrobe. “What are you guys doing?”

“It’s a Slip ’N Slide,” Jayden told him.

“Jessica took us to Walmart and got it,” Easton said. “She bought us deodorant too.”

I gave a sheepish shoulder shrug, trying to gauge his mood. He didn’t look upset, but he didn’t look ecstatic either. “I thought it would be fun.” The Slip ’N Slide, not the deodorant.

“Wow, awesome,” he started to say.

Then suddenly, without warning, his face crumpled. He put his hands on his thighs and bent forward, like he was having trouble breathing or he was about to be sick.

“Riley,” I whispered, my heart sinking. Oh, God, no. It couldn’t be. I started toward him, dropping the hose. “Are you okay?”

He shook his head and when he glanced up at us, I could see the tears in his eyes.

“What’s the matter?” Jayden yelled in his overly loud voice, sounding terrified. I don’t imagine he’d ever seen his brother cry, except maybe at their mother’s funeral.

But Easton knew what it was. He bent over and picked up the Slip ’N Slide and threw it at the garage yelling, “No! No, they can’t fucking make me go! I won’t! I’ll run away, I’ll go to Canada! I’m not leaving!”

He kicked the hose, the dirt, the picnic table, and it snapped Riley out of his paralysis.

Riley start yelling back, “Hey, hey, calm down!” He went over to his brother and grabbed him by both arms.

Easton punched and kicked at him. I bit my lip, no clue what to do. I reached out for Jayden’s hand, needing to get and give comfort.

Riley pinned him against his own chest, getting his leg between Easton’s to prevent him from kicking, yanking his hands down to his sides. “Hey! It’s okay, stop! No one is taking you away from me. Not now. Not ever. The judge gave me full custody of you.”

The breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding escaped my mouth with an audible whoosh. I squeezed Jayden, feeling relief so huge I felt woozy.

“What?” Easton stopped struggling, and Riley loosened his grip on him. He turned around and looked up at his brother. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, I have custody of you. Legally, I’m your guardian and you’re not going anywhere.” He grinned at Easton and rubbed the top of his head. “What do you think of that?”

Easton had tears on his face and he wiped them, sniffling. His voice was shaky. “Oh. Okay. Cool.”

Then Jayden said, “Oh my God, why did you look like that? You scared the shit out of us!”

My thoughts exactly.

“Sorry. I swallowed my gum and I was choking.”

That was the biggest lie I’d ever heard. He didn’t even chew gum. But he obviously didn’t want them to know he’d gotten emotional.

“Well, that’s awesome news!” I said. “We should go out to eat when Tyler gets home and celebrate.”

“That’s a great idea, Jess,” he said, shooting me a grateful look. “So what do we have going on here?” He bent over and inspected the hose. “Huh.”

“It’s going to work,” Easton told him, yanking it out of Riley’s hand and dragging him toward the faucet. His confidence touched me.

“I’m sure it will,” Riley said, helping him screw it onto the faucet. He nudged his brother and gave him a grin. “Dude, Canada? What the hell was that? But I have to admit, it was kind of awesome.”

Easton shrugged. “I don’t know. It sounds far away. And I figured if I got there, you would come and get me, no matter what the stupid judge says.”

That made my throat close up.

Riley held his fist out for him, and they did a bump. “You bet your ass I would. You’re my brother. We stick together. No matter what.”

It was a sentiment that made me love him even more than I already did, and I hadn’t thought that was possible.

Then he finished blowing up the slide while I screwed the other end of the hose into the plastic liner for the slide.

“Turn it on,” Riley told Jayden.

The water shot up, only I didn’t realize there was a sprinkler feature at the end, right where Easton and I were standing. It got us both and I jerked with a shriek. “That’s cold!”

Jayden and Riley thought it was downright hilarious. “Isn’t that the point?” Riley asked.

I stuck my tongue out at him.

While Easton and Jayden stripped off their shirts and started their inaugural slides, yelling the whole time, Riley and I sat down on the picnic table. He lit a cigarette and I didn’t complain, knowing he probably needed something to calm him down in the aftermath of the hearing.

“So what was that about?” I murmured, reaching for his free hand. “You seriously scared the piss out of me.”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I was so relieved, so excited to get home and tell you all, and then I came around the corner and I saw this . . . I saw this perfect little fucked-up world we have going on here.” He took a drag. “I mean, what could be better than the girl I love hanging with the brothers I’d do anything for? I felt so damn lucky that it just overwhelmed me. This could have gone so much different.”

“I understand.” I did. “And I bet that somewhere up there in heaven, where there’s no heroin, your mom is watching and she’s proud of you and happy.”

He pursed his lips and rested his chin in his palm, smoke drifting over his face, his eyes dark and serious and luminous. “Yeah. You’re right. And thanks for understanding that I don’t wish her dead. I never have.”

“I know.”

“I hit her once,” he said quietly. “She was waling on me, using an unopened beer to just clock me in the head over and over, and I was trying to push her off, and I nailed her right in the face without meaning to. I feel so guilty for that.”

And that was why I loved him. One accidental contact on a woman who had abused him for years, and he felt guilt. “She forgives you, just like you forgive her. Her life was a painful struggle but look at what she left behind . . . you and the boys are a beautiful legacy.”

He smiled. “And you’re beautiful.” Leaning forward, he gave me a quick kiss. “Do you know that I need you? I don’t just want you, I need you.”

My heart squeezed. “I feel the same way,” I murmured. “I feel like with you, I finally know who I am.”

For a second, we just stared at each other, the words settling in, the future mapping out.

He gently kissed me again, then gave me a grin. “Why don’t you go and jump on that slide? I really wouldn’t mind seeing you in a wet bikini.”

“Perv.” Not that I minded in the slightest. We were inching ever closer to total completion of our relationship (read: sex) and all this extended exploration and anticipation had given us an intimacy that I hadn’t even known I was capable of. If he wanted me soaking wet, well, I could totally manage that.

When Tyler got home, he fist bumped all his brothers with a big grin, having gotten the text from Riley. “Hell, yeah,” was his opinion. He rubbed Easton’s head. “I’m going to get you the next Harry Potter book with my next paycheck.”

I was lying on the picnic table getting some sun and I rolled onto my side. Riley was sitting on the bench behind me, his hand lazily stroking my thigh below my shorts.

“Cool!” Easton was a little high on life, running around the yard, soaking wet and clearly relieved. “Riley says we’re going out for burgers and milkshakes!”

“I know. You guys go and change and by the time you’re ready Rory should be here.”

“Rory’s coming?” Easton started doing some sort of jump and spin thing.

“Yep. She figured today is an important day, man, she wants to be here for dinner.”

“Excellent,” I said, genuinely pleased. I missed her and I had a lot to catch her up on. “I won’t be the only chick for a change. Having all these sexy guys around me is starting to spoil me.”

Riley made a rude sound. “If that’s a hint, sell it somewhere else, because I ain’t buying.”

“I am,” Jayden said.

That made me laugh so hard I’m sure my breasts gave him enough jiggle to fuel more than one fantasy.

After an awesome and rowdy dinner at the burger joint we came back to the house, laughing and talking. I hooked my arm through Rory’s as the guys dropped down in the living room on various surfaces. “Come on, I want to talk to you privately.”

“Where are you going?” Riley asked.

“Our room. Rory and I want to do girl things.” I meant paint our nails and gossip.

But he raised his eyebrows and said, “If you two are going to make out, can I watch?”

“Riley!”

“Dude,” Tyler said to his brother. “Seriously?”

Rory was blushing. I threw a couch pillow at Riley.

“What?” Riley asked Tyler. “I mean, come on, if they were going to make out, wouldn’t you want to watch? Seriously, be honest.”

Tyler grinned. “Yeah, I can’t lie. But I meant, you know, maybe you should watch what you joke about it in front of certain people.” He jerked his head toward Easton.

“Oh, yeah. Sure.” Riley made a face. “Oops.”

“Jesus Christ,” Tyler said.

“I’m working on it!” Riley protested.

“We’re going away,” I said firmly. “Come on.” I pulled Rory. “You have to see our room.”

When I opened the door, feeling triumph, Rory started laughing. “Oh my God, Jess, this is awesome! I mean, I can’t believe what you did with the whole house, but this is classic. I can’t believe Riley, of all people, sleeps here.”

I jumped on the bed. “Sit down. It’s a freaking waterbed, can you stand it?”

We climbed up by the headboard, and leaned on it, our knees up. I had unpacked my boxes from our former dorm room and I had discarded the weird horse blanket dirty thing that had formerly resided on the waterbed. It had been replaced by my purple floral comforter with hot pink fuzzy pillows. The pattern was actually called garden floral, and it was like juicy daisies on acid. There was an orange throw at the bottom with dangling pom poms that I had learned served as serious entertainment for the cat at three in the morning. Over the bed I had hung my giant white J (okay, I made Riley hang it) next to which Riley had taken a Sharpie and drawn a huge R, right on the wall. So we were JR.

On the nightstand I had replaced the brass lamp with a purple blown glass one, and on the dresser next to the picture of his mother, I had set a ceramic hand, to hold my jewelry. The first day after I put it there, I kept finding it in weird places, like sticking out from under the couch cushions, and in the fridge. But once his amusement with using it to scare his brothers wore off, Riley started cramming his wallet between the thumb and index fingers and left it in place.

“I miss you,” I told her. “I’m glad you’re here for the weekend.”

“I miss you, too. It’s cool to see my dad and everything, but it’s just that I feel like my life is here now, not there, you know?”

I nodded. Rory was wearing a cute and very short dress, the feminine and floral print one only she could pull off. I would look like a giantess trying to squeeze into a toddler’s dress if I wore that. “I get it, trust me. I mean, I am upset about my parents, but at the same time, as long as they’re still willing to talk to me, and my dad is, what difference does it mean if they cut me off?” I had thought about it a lot, and there were worse things than being forced to grow up a little. “My mom will miss me eventually, but right now maybe we don’t belong in each other’s worlds.”

“You seem really happy, Jess.”

“I am. Riley asked me to marry him.”

“What?” She turned to me. “Holy shit, what did you say?”

“Yes.” I gave her a confident smile, enjoying saying that out loud. “I don’t know when, but I just know I will, at some point. I figure there’s a reason I never fell in love before.” I was waiting for him. “So do you think you’ll marry Tyler?”

“I would like to, eventually, but Tyler has this fear that I’ll become a doctor and ditch him. He needs to see that I’m going to stick around.”

“The Mann brothers have a lot of pride,” I said. “It’s got them through some nasty shit. But it also makes them loyal.”

“Totally. So we’re like sisters-in-law in a way.” She tossed back her auburn hair and gave me a grin. “I feel like such a girl saying this, but I love that we’re besties and dating brothers.”

Laughing, I said, “I know. It totally rocks.” It was petty to admit it, but when she and Kylie had been going on and on about how much they loved their boyfriends, I had felt left out of their friendship. Like I couldn’t share in their giddy secret. But now I got it.

“I can’t believe you did a Warrior Dash. I could never do that.”

“Tyler would go in front of you, clearing your path of everything. He likes that he’s the tough guy to your girly girl.”

“That’s true. Maybe that’s why our educational imbalance works out, because he likes to take care of me.”

“Riley likes me to tell people off. I think it turns him on.” I laughed.

“Then I guess despite the sheer number of human beings on the planet, we both found our perfect mate.”

“I love it when you sound like a scientist.”

“That isn’t science. Though arguably, we were following evolution and both sought out a partner we perceived was a strong candidate, who could protect us.”

Evolution had nothing to do with the gushy-gush I felt when I looked at Riley. “Whatever. Let’s paint our toenails.”

“Yeah, I don’t believe it either,” she said with a laugh.

“Hey, I was thinking of getting a tattoo. What should I get?”

“A portrait of Riley’s penis,” she deadpanned.

Seriously, sometimes Rory killed me. “I haven’t even seen it,” I told her.

Her jaw dropped. “Are you serious?”

“I mean, I’ve touched it, but I haven’t seen it, seen it, and it hasn’t been really all that close to my body. Yet.”

“Wow,” was her opinion. I knew what she was thinking, but she didn’t say anything, and I loved her for it.

“Pink or purple?” I asked her, pulling open the drawer to the nightstand. I held up the polish bottles.

“Purple. You must match your purpleicious bedroom.”

“One night when Riley is sleeping I’m going to paint his nails.”