28
Advice from all over
[Hank]
Fuck, fuck, fuck. I slap a palm on the mattress as I hear Chopper’s car roar to life. Sitting up and reaching for my boxers, I race to the first floor to see headlights swing out of the driveway.
“Was that Midge I heard?” Brut says behind me.
“Fuck,” I yell, hands fisting my short hair. I can’t believe I called her Kit. It just slipped out.
“What happened?”
“I’m an idiot,” I huff, spinning to face my brother standing in the doorway to the kitchen. He’s eating a cupcake, but I don’t have time to question where he got it.
“Whatcha do now?”
“I…” I step around the couch and fall onto the cushions. “I called her Kit.”
“You what?” Brut bellows, then points the partially eaten cupcake at me. His voice rises an octave. “During sex?”
“How do you know I had sex with her?” Brut’s eyes roam to my boxers. Sitting forward, I cover my face, swearing into my hands.
“What happened?” my brother repeats, taking a seat on the chair opposite me.
“I took her to meet Lawson. It didn’t go like I thought.” I scrub both hands down my face before brushing over my head, holding my neck.
“Told you to tell her,” Brut mocks with a mouthful of cake, icing sticking to his lips.
“She had the interview. It was more important for her.” My thought process was all her, despite finding out a few days ago about Lawson. Brut shakes his head, wiping at his lip.
“She broke up with me.” The thought startles me. Did she break up with me?
“What is it with you and women?” He snorts as if he’s some expert.
“She’s different.” Like a teenager, he rolls his eyes.
“She has a nice personality,” he singsongs before taking another bite of his dessert.
“Fine. She smells nice, and her skin is so soft. She’s like that cupcake, melting on my tongue, and yes, she is nice. She’s sweet, caring. I know I’m her first for a few things. The passion she’s willing to display with me.” I pause, inhaling, recalling upstairs. “And you should have seen her with Lawson. I’m standing there, trying to take it all in, and she gets down in front of him to greet him. And her boys. Her boys are her world. They’re good kids, and she’s making sure they’ll be good men despite her cheating ex-husband. And she likes me. I know she does. She isn’t Kit—”
“Then why did you call her Kit?”
“We were disagreeing…about Kit. It just came out.”
“Sounds like it should have stayed in,” Brut corrects.
“She says she’s fighting a ghost.” Brut raises his brow in question. “She’s not.” My voice falters. My heart knows there is no comparison, but my head got in the fucking way again. Calling her Kit. I smack my forehead. What a fucking idiot?
“I warned you about this shit,” Brut admonishes. He sighs, falling back in his seat, then adds, “Quite a pair, aren’t we? Both have our heads up our asses.”
“Admitting something about Lily?” I watch Brut crumple the cupcake wrapper in his fist.
“Lily and I are a dead issue. Twenty-one years dead.”
“Yeah, well, it took me twenty years to feel alive, Brut. I’m forty-three. I’d say there is still time for you, too.”
I stand, leaving Brut with his empty wrapper, and head to my room for pants. Minutes later, I find myself outside, staring at the cloth in the back of the garage. The tarp covers every inch, but the outline gives away the instrument. My fingers twitch inside my pockets. It’s been a long time, my old friend. The cement floor is cold under my bare feet. I’m numb again, staring at the set that gave me a dream for a little while.
“Don’t do it,” Chopper says from behind me. I don’t flinch although I didn’t hear him return.
“Don’t do what?” My voice chokes.
“Instead of thinking about crushing it, why don’t you play it?” I stare at the covered kit. At one time, sticks were a part of me, an extension of my arms. Then the music died, and I stopped.
“What do you know?” I snark, turning to look at my nephew. He’s the spitting image of Brut at that age.
“I know I just drove home a lady who silently cried in the seat next to me the whole way. Whatever you did, she wasn’t angry. That woman is sad.” He emphasizes the emotion.
“Angry?” I snap. “Why would she be angry? She just broke up with me.”
“The woman I drove home was not a woman who broke up with someone, Uncle Hank. She was heartbroken.” Chopper stares at me with the only part not matching my brother—the eyes of his mother.
“What do you know about heartbreak?” I chuckle without humor.
Chopper scoffs back. “I’m twenty-one. I know plenty.”
“Yeah, so worldly.” I snort.
“You need a grand gesture.” He shrugs, stuffing his hands into his jacket pockets.
“What the hell is that?”
“Something big. Something that shows you’re serious about her, about you two together.” I blink at my nephew.
“Like asking her to marry me?” I exhale. In a drunken stupor, she said she’d say yes, but I recall too well the poor decisions made under the influence of alcohol.
“If that’s what it takes to win her back. But from her tears, I’d say she needs something more than a proposal. Midge doesn’t need a husband. She needs a man.”
“How do you know these things?” I huff, rubbing a hand over my bare chest where I’ve developed a sharp ache.
He taps his heart. “Told you, I know plenty.”