Five Brothers, page 25
I raise my eyes. I guess that’s how it’s done in some marriages.
“You’ll meet him in hotel rooms,” Dallas continues, “or maybe his house in the Bay…”
Meaning I’ll be fucking one of them. Probably in the motel down the road. While wearing Jerome Watson’s huge, shiny rock on my finger.
“And you’ll let him rail you against a wall, because you like the smell of his workday on him, his dirty nails digging into your ass, and his tongue on your tits. It makes you feel alive.”
Dallas’s eyes sparkle. He’s dying for me to make a move, so he can make one back. I know that feeling. That incessant temptation to poke the bear, so you don’t have to feel guilty about channeling your anger onto someone you’re not really mad at. They’re just there.
“You know why?” he presses.
It’s a rhetorical question, but I know the answer. “Because I wish I could love the man I was married to in our home every day just like that.”
The problem is, Dallas is right. I want nothing to do with Jerome Watson.
I’d sell my body, but I know as sure as I’m sitting here that he’d be having an affair within weeks of the marriage, and just like Dallas said, I’d seek one out eventually to find even an hour of happiness—or an hour of mere escape—once a week.
And after it was over, I’d climb back into my clean, white Mercedes convertible with his sweat on my skin and the feel of Bay cock still inside me. I’d go home to wipe away the guilt and shame with pills or drinks before the feelings had have a chance to rise to the surface.
I lower my eyes, a memory playing in my head. “You know, I saw your parents in town once,” I say, feeling my collar suddenly chafe my neck. I don’t undo the buttons, though. “Just once, though. They didn’t cross the tracks much.”
Army stands at the sink, looking out the window into the garage, but I know he’s listening.
“Your dad was on his bike.” I glance at Trace. “And he pulled up to the Harbor Point Fishing Boat, stopping at the curb.”
It’s an old houseboat, sitting on a circle of land right in the median on Main Street.
I smile, remembering. “She’d been waiting for him. She came in close, bowed her head, and kissed him. He slid his hand up the back of her thigh.” I glance at Macon, but he still stirs the ice cream in his mug. “You must’ve been at least twenty or so at the time, because I was old enough to remember.”
He still doesn’t look up, his chest barely moving as he breathes.
“That long married, and they were still like that. But then when she pulled back, he slapped her on the ass, and she smiled before climbing on behind him.” I laugh to myself. “I asked my mom why he hit her and why she liked it.”
Dallas is frozen, unblinking. A whisper of a smile curls Trace’s mouth.
I tell them, “My mom said, ‘Make no mistake, honey. She’s the boss of him.’ Years later, I understood.” I soften my voice. “Women love being owned by a good man.”
I wouldn’t do anything Jerome Watson told me. But I would for someone.
“Someone I can’t keep my hands off,” I say more to myself. “Someone who climbs on top of me and pins my arms above my head before we’re both fully awake in the morning. Without a word. Slow and quiet. I’m the first thing he wants.”
No one moves. Army barely breathes.
“He’s late to work all the time,” I go on, “because I make the mistake of walking around in my underwear, and now he’s hard and needs his wife on her knees.”
We can hear the children playing in the distance outside, as the wind kicks up and blows a napkin on the table.
“I used to want to do certain things with my life when I was younger,” I tell them, “but now I don’t know what the hell I want, except just to be in love with someone and love our family. To be with people I care about and have great days and a football team living in our house, helping other people make memories and making sure we all smile ten times more than we cry.”
I don’t give a shit about tomorrow. I never did. I just wanted to be good for people.
When I rise, Trace rises with me. I stop, looking at him, but even he doesn’t look like he knows why he did it. I take my plate, and he follows my lead, both of us carrying them to the sink.
But Army is there, stopping Trace short and taking his plate. “You guys go. I’ll clean up with her.”
Macon sits back in his seat, gaze still down, and Trace looks back at Dallas.
“Now,” Army orders.
Trace casts a look at me, like he wants to take me with him.
He leaves my side, and after a moment, I hear Dallas’s chair move away from the table.
The oldest is still there, because Army doesn’t give him orders.
I veer around Army, setting down my plate, but he grabs my face in both hands. I gasp, forced up on my tiptoes as he presses our foreheads together.
“It’s going to be one of us,” he tells me. “Not Jerome Watson. You’ll be ours, or I’ll make sure we all fuck you before we give you back, so nothing compares. So you always regret leaving us.”
I can wonder if it’s my son he’s playing Daddy to…
I look up into his eyes, feeling his hard body against mine. Army?
He presses me into the fridge, hovering over my mouth as his fingers work my shirt.
What…
In three seconds he’s peeling my blouse off my shoulders, the breeze coming through the windows caressing my breasts. I bring my arms up, covering myself.
“We’re going to keep you,” he whispers. “Will it be Iron? Trace? Who do you want?”
He kisses me, wrapping his arms around my waist, but it only lasts a second before I hear my name.
“Krisjen…”
Army goes still, and so do I. I turn my face, seeing Macon at the table not looking at me.
But he speaks. “Come here.”
He sits there. I don’t move.
“Come here,” he tells me again.
My heart drops into my stomach, and I don’t even think. Keeping my arms over my breasts, I go to him, Army’s hands falling away.
I walk up to Macon’s chair at the head of the table, and he stands, rising above me. He tips up my chin, looking down at me, and I can already feel his arms around me. So tight. His breath on my temple and the warmth of his chest.
He reaches behind his head, pulling off his shirt, and I know he’s going to lift me up. He’s going to lift me into his arms and look into my eyes and not look away.
But he doesn’t do any of that. He slips the shirt over my head, covering me.
Then he looks at his brother. “You know she’s not her, right?” he asks him, a stern look in his eyes. “You do realize that?”
I glance back at Army and then up at Macon again.
Her? Who are they talking about?
14
Army
I square my shoulders, every muscle in my body going so tight they burn. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
I bare my teeth, seething as I walk around the island, glaring at Macon.
But he just looks away, saying nothing more. Stepping around Krisjen, he heads for the door to the garage, but I shove all the shit off the corner of the island, sending it crashing to the floor.
“You’re not leaving,” I growl. “Goddamn you.”
He turns his head, looking at all the dishes and food on the tile.
“You’re not leaving!” I yell. “Not anymore. I always make sure you never have to deal with me, but you’re not running off into your garage this time.”
He continues for the door. “Clean it up.”
A sob lodges in my throat, and I don’t know why my fucking eyes are burning. I’m not sad. I want to kill him. Goddammit. I grab the kitchen table in both hands and flip it over, everything toppling to the floor as the table crashes to its side. Krisjen backs up toward the sink, and I barely notice Macon pulling her back as he launches forward, getting in my face again.
But I’m way ahead of him. “You bring her into this?” I glare at Macon. “Fuck you! Fuck! I have been the only one by your side, protected you like a goddamn brick wall, so they never know how weak you really are! I’ve always been your brother! And you treat me like I fucking work for you.”
“You do.”
I rear my arm back and punch him, my fist exploding as it crashes against his jaw. Pain shoots from my knuckles, down the back of my hand, but I clench my teeth to hide the pain.
His head twists to the side, and he stands there for a couple of seconds before he faces me again. I get in his space, refusing to back down anymore as I meet him eye to eye. “I am just as strong as you are,” I say in a low voice, Krisjen not making a sound behind him. “I’ve been quiet, I’ve swallowed the shit because you’re the oldest and I respected you for having the strength to make all the decisions I never wanted to make and do the dirty shit I didn’t want to do when we were kids, but that doesn’t make you a man.”
“Neither does making babies you can’t support.”
I search his eyes. Brown, like our mother’s. Like the person behind them is two hundred feet under the water. Just like hers looked.
Tears well. “Do you love me at all?” I ask him. “Do you love us? Do you feel anything for Liv or Trace or anyone?”
How could he say that to me? He knows I loved her. He knows that my son will be hurt when he realizes his mother left him. He knows what I’m going to face. That I don’t deserve this.
But his only response is “You don’t have to live here.”
“Macon…” I hear Trace say behind me. I didn’t hear him come back in. Macon walks around me, into the living room.
But I follow. “No one lives here, Macon,” I spit back, his spine tensing. “No one really wants to be here.”
“Army, don’t,” Krisjen says.
I turn to where she’s standing in the kitchen. Looking so sad with those blue eyes. Blue just like Dex’s. Blue just like hers. “You want to go for a ride?” I ask.
I need to get out of here.
But Macon moves, and I look to see him snap his gaze to Krisjen. His jaw is still flexed—still tight—but for a split second I catch it. He lingers on her too long. He’s paying attention to her. Why?
I look at her and then back to him. “Oh, Jesus,” I say, and then shake my head. “How many times did you tell us to stay away from them? And now you want one. You want her.”
“I don’t want her,” he fires back. “I just don’t want to have to feed another one of your kids.”
You son of a bitch.
Everything feels like it’s bubbling over. I don’t know what I’ll do if Macon tries to leave, or what I’ll do if he doesn’t.
But then my phone rings, and I reach into my pocket, pulling it out and answering it.
“This is Highland State Prison,” a recording says. “Will you accept a collect call from Iron Jaeger?”
“Yes.”
I stare at Macon, the room gone silent. I know he hears the other line because he waits.
“Hey, man,” Iron says, and I almost cry, realizing how much I miss him.
“How are you?” I ask, my voice cracking.
“Still alive.” He chuckles. “Tell Dallas I get it. Having a boyfriend has proved useful.”
I laugh. There’s no need to go to extremes. We have Bay people in there, watching his back. He’s safe.
“How are all of you?” he asks.
I stare at Macon, Dallas and Trace staring at me. “Oh, you know us. It’s no party without you.”
“Yeah…” He’s quiet for a minute, and I almost ask about Thanksgiving on the inside, but I don’t want to know. He continues. “I wish I was there. I don’t want to ever come back here. That’s for sure.”
“Good.” I approach Macon. “We really miss you.”
“Miss you guys, too,” Iron tells me. “You’re telling Dex bedtime stories about me, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Does Macon want to talk to me yet?”
I pull the phone away from my ear and hold it out to my older brother.
I look at him, and he looks at me, the phone suspended between us, because this is my role, isn’t it? The one who cares. Who signed permission slips and went to conferences and took them to the doctor and the dentist and bought their Halloween costumes and what the fuck did he do? Oh yeah. He paid for it, so that absolves him for never showing up.
He doesn’t take the phone, and I pull it back, holding it to my ear and taking a second to clear my throat. “He’s indisposed in his bedroom,” I tell Iron, “with some, um, redhead, I think. You want me to interrupt him?”
“Are you serious?” I can hear the amusement in Iron’s voice. “Don’t you dare interrupt him. Jesus.”
I smile at the brother in my ear as I glare at the one in front of me. “Yeah. Call tomorrow. We can talk more.”
“Okay,” he says. “Take care. Tell everyone I love them.”
“Will do.”
I hang up, tossing my phone onto the couch. I look at Macon. “He says to tell you he loves you.”
And I rush him.
I slam into his chest, then he falls into the table against the window. Our mother’s handblown glass vase topples, and I grab him as he grasps for me, both of us crashing onto the floor with the vase. I throw him underneath me and get in a punch, digging my fingers into his throat.
“He just needed to hear your voice!” I shout. “What the fuck? What if he dies in there?”
He throws me off him, and I slam into the edge of the coffee table, an ache hitting my ribs.
Macon rises, grabbing the back of my head by the hair before I can climb to my feet. He pins me to the floor, my stomach pressing into the rug as he digs a knee into my back.
“Don’t,” someone says. “They need to do this.”
“No,” Krisjen cries.
I can’t see what she’s trying to do, but she needs to stay back.
Macon grips the back of my neck, squeezing hard.
“Fuck you!” I muster every ounce of strength I have and flip over. We roll, throwing punches, and I’m not even sure what I’m hitting, but I feel his fist in my gut and another in my side.
“Stop!” Krisjen cries. “Please!”
I notice her legs at our side, but she’s pulled out of the way before I can tell her to get back.
“Don’t,” Trace tells her. “You’re gonna get hurt.”
I’m on top, straddling him, but I’m not up there for more than two seconds before my back is bending backward and I’m flying over his body. He flips me over his head, my boots landing on our mom’s figurine table, all of her glass crashing to the floor. Some land with a thud, and some have that sound like ice in a grinder.
A fist squeezes my heart, and I tilt my eyes back to see Macon, on one knee, looking at the table and its contents at my feet. He’s not breathing.
I rise, feeling the tears coming and one spilling. It takes a minute, but I look down at the blue shards that used to be a vase, and the yellow ones that used to be a pitcher.
Trace and Dallas stare at the floor, Krisjen staring at me and then Macon.
“I’ll go,” she tells him.
She moves to the kitchen to get her stuff, but I grab her by the back of the shorts and haul her back into me, her back pressed against my chest. Wrapping my arm around her, I taunt Macon as I press my cheek into hers.
She’s not what’s causing this.
“Dallas?” I say, but don’t take my eyes off our oldest brother. “Trace? Go get drunk somewhere.”
Macon takes a step toward me.
Trace holds out his hand. “Give me Krisjen,” he tells me.
I shake my head.
Macon turns his head to the youngest. “Take her,” he commands Trace.
Trace looks at me, and again, I shake my head.
I hear Krisjen’s small voice. “Don’t leave,” she begs Trace.
But they do. Dallas first, and then Trace, albeit hesitantly.
Maybe he figures she’ll stop us from killing each other.
The door slams shut, Krisjen’s body shakes against mine, and I hold Macon’s gaze as I press my nose into her hair.
Everything about her is sweet.
And I know exactly what he needs.
I whisper, “We could share her.”
His eyes narrow. Her breaths grow smaller against my body.
“We could go to the boat…” I tell him. “Go out to sea tonight where the world doesn’t exist, and we could make love to her. On the dark water. Where she can come as loudly as she wants to.”
The pinch between his dark brows gets deeper, and I know I’m right.
I slip my hand under her shirt—his shirt that she wears—caressing her stomach.
“It’s been a long time since you felt something warm, hasn’t it?” I ask.
But I don’t need him to answer. I know everything that happens with him. It’s been ages since he’s been to bed with anyone.
“She wants you,” I tell him, feeling Krisjen’s breathing hitch. “She looks at you. Did you know that?”
His gaze falls to her, and I honestly don’t think he knew. Has he been on another planet?
She doesn’t make my food for me.
“She’s so warm,” I tell him. “Do this with me.”
He meets my eyes, steeling his spine. “She’s eighteen, you piece of shit.”
“Then take her to the boat yourself.” I release her. “Take her away tonight. Just you and her. She won’t say no.”
His jaw hardens.
“Touch her,” I beg him.
Please just fucking touch her. Be a fucking man instead of a machine or a piece of furniture.
