Alex

SHE HAD BEEN IN town less than half a day and already Grayson Tyrer was her only friend. Girl was way worse than I thought if she’d go to the diner with that prick. She was like a fish out of water in this town. I’d lived here my entire life and everyone around these parts could spot a city dweller a mile off and it didn’t hurt that Celebration Falls had 382 inhabitants who knew each other’s families and stories more than necessary. Celebration Falls had been the haven where my grandparents met and married and where my grandpa grew up on the farm that had been forged in the pioneering decades, passed down from generation to generation. I guess my mom had bucked the trend by being a waste of space. I grew up playing in the streets with the local kids and rode the school bus every day with those guys. Grayson Tyrer was ten years older than me and I never could stand the guy.

I walked with Logan back to the truck where I’d left the engine running so that Sara would have the AC. She was laid across the back seat with Bear draped over her. She wore sunglasses and didn’t move an inch when we climbed back in the truck. The conversation with Sara was always non-existent. I heard her blabbing on her cell for hours with her friends and yet me; I wasn’t graced with even a hello some days.

Bear yelped when we climbed back inside with the food, the big guy was a greedy guts and every food smell made him groan. I’m with ya buddy.

Logan sat with the pizza boxes on his lap and Sara made no moves to put her seatbelt on so I drove anyway. I loved my sister, I really did, but we didn’t have one of those relationships where I was her guardian, even though I’d never asked for the job, and we loved each other fiercely. Nope. I was her temporary guardian now our mom was in rehab and she knew that if she got into trouble that child protective services would be up in our grills, so she tolerated me. I loved my siblings, but I resented them too and I really tried not to. I wanted Logan to have the childhood I didn’t, and I wanted Sara to be happy, but most days she made it impossible for me to be happy.

Mom had been trying to stay sober since Christmas. She kept saying that she could cope with social drinking; I knew she couldn’t. Sara’s behavior didn’t help matters. I was sure she had helped Mom into her latest spiral by being completely off the rails, disrespectful and being caught with some guy in the school gym after hours. Mom had some awkward sex conversation with her and begged me to keep my eye on her. She didn’t need to beg, but I wasn’t cut out for teenage girls shitty moods. Sara acted like the world owed her a favor but she was shit out of luck because that was far from the truth.

“Belt, Sara,” I grunted as we drove away at speed. Logan glanced back to her, and she didn’t move. I didn’t have the energy to fight her.

“If you die in a car crash, then I get your room,” Logan stated, ever practical, and I smirked but kept my eyes trained on the road. I knew she was hurting, I knew our home life was less than ideal. Sara probably just wanted someone to care for her and for her to feel good but I didn’t want her to get a reputation—at high school that was brutal. I’d had someone to take my mind off things, the same girl all the way through the last two years of high school. The same girl I always thought I’d marry but the same girl who let me down.  I got the need to escape, but it didn’t always help.

Sara sighed heavily and moved to sit upright, “I don’t need babysitting,” she added sourly.

“Hard to tell ‘cos you act like a baby,” I sighed.

“Fuck you,” she yelled just as Logan gasped and his eyes bugged out.

“Language,” I told her through gritted teeth, “your ten-year-old brother is in the truck.”

“He’s heard worse, have you met our mom.” Venom laced her voice, and I still didn’t hear her buckle up. I stopped responding and hoped to hell that one day she’d get into college or meet a rich guy to take her off my hands. I didn’t need this shit.

“Mom might call tonight,” Logan said excitedly as we pulled into the dirt road that led to our familiar old house.

“She’s on lockdown, Logan,” Sara added with sarcasm, “she has no cell and she’s probably in trouble for using again already, so forget it.”

“Sara!” I scolded, but it was too late, the little guy looked suddenly downhearted. “Logan, ignore her.”

He didn’t answer, and my heart ached for the little dude. My sister was a bitter teenager desperate for love and in the process was pushing away everyone who tried to love her. It was painful to watch and also hard to deal with as I tried not to quietly despise her.

As soon as we pulled up outside the house Sara jumped out and ran up to the front door with Bear. I walked round to help Logan out with the pizza boxes. “She’s angry at life, little dude,” I swatted his baseball cap, “you know that right? Mom is dealing with some stuff and she really wants to call and be here with you, but she has to get better and do what the doctors say.”

“I know,” he nodded, and he gave me a brave smile. He was getting to the age where his awareness of our mom’s problems was rising and the blissful ignorance of substance abuse was behind him. Mom babied him because he was the only one who would hug her after she had downed a quart of vodka before dinner.

We marched to the front door and my phone dinged in my pocket, I pulled the thing out and saw a message from my ex.

Amber: How’s things? You busy tonight?

I’d made the mistake of having a one-night-stand with her the week before and now she thought we had a chance. There was no chance. After dating for six years Amber had cheated on me eighteen months ago. I'd trusted her, I'd loved her and I'd needed her. She'd been my rock, the person who held me when I cried after my grandpa’s death, the person who I always thought I would be with forever. Clearly, she didn’t feel the same way. We had grown up together and in this small town the choice of women wasn’t extensive so after a few beers I found myself in her bed.

I ignored the message and shoved my cell back in my pocket.

“Let’s eat,” I clapped my hands together. I grabbed napkins, Logan took the boxes to the living room and Sara poured OJ. I grabbed a beer from the fridge and we planted ourselves in the living room in front of the TV. Our mom was chaotic, she always had been, and I guess we were all just so used to it that we had learned to live with it. When she was gone, there was a peace, a calm over myself and my siblings, as if we could finally breathe.

Logan chose a channel that was showing comedy re-runs and as Sara ate even she began to loosen up. We didn’t speak so much, just devoured the three pizzas and kept our eyes glued on the screen. I didn’t need conversation, the quiet was a nice break from the attitude that I got most days. Most days I didn’t get to eat with them, most days I was working late in the fields but we had just finished up a big harvest two days before. The farm employed fifty staff members and some of them lived on the grounds but most travelled in.

I was now in charge of the schedule and the staff. Technically it was my mom’s job as she was employed by Lacey Davenport as the General Manager and I was Assistant Manager, but my mom had been in no fit state to do that even when we still owned the farm. So the days were pretty full and it was a seven day a week job. The staff didn’t work Sunday’s unless we had a big harvest on. There was a couple who had worked for my family for thirty years named Mabel and Eric. They had brought their kids up on Bishops Hill Farm and their kids had been friends of my mom’s. Eric still rode perimeter checks with me and was an old-fashioned groundsman. He took over where my grandpa left off, giving me advice and being there if I needed him. Mabel cooked for our team meetings at six am and she used to do dinner but since she got older that got too hard. We had about twenty employees who had been with us for a good few years and the rest were more fluid.

My right-hand man, Johnny, was my best friend at high school and totally got all the shit we’d been through as a family. He mostly managed the staff, and I managed the finances. I had a local mom of four who managed sales and organized shipping named Helen, and then there was Juan who organized upgrades to equipment and safety. Everyone else just worked for my team and on the land. We got a lot of casual labor during the summer months when the wheat was more plentiful.  The place was hard work, and it was a labor of love as you were never off duty. Looking after Sara and Logan had now become my other full-time job; most of the time I was exhausted.

The office we ran the place from was situated a little down the dirt road where the staff houses were. Currently there was Mabel and Eric, a house of four casual guys, Juan and his family, and then a vacant property. Lacey was now in the property that Mom and I lived in before Grandma died and that was the other way down the road from the big house. We had five barns where equipment was stored, two stables where eight horses lived and a huge garage that housed my grandpa’s workshop and our quad bikes and tractors.

It was a huge operation, and you had to love the land to do the job. I loved this land and this farm and one day I was determined to own it again. After dinner, Sara and Logan loaded the dishwasher in silence as usual and I grabbed another beer. “You okay if I go out to the workshop?” I asked Sara.

“Uh huh,” she grabbed her cell from her pocket and was scrolling through something on there.

“I don’t need a babysitter,” Logan whined, walking to the cupboard and grabbing himself a family sized bag of Cheetos. 

“Society thinks differently, bud; anyway I’m only outside,” I patted his head, and he grinned up at me.

“You’re not his dad anyway,” Sara sighed, “so we’re both stuck babysitting.”

I grimaced but with my head turned so she couldn’t see, “Go get your jamas on, buddy,” I told Logan and Sara narrowed her eyes at me as I turned to face her. She knew what was coming. Logan thundered off upstairs and Sara moved away to get herself a drink from the ice-cold water out of the double wide fridge.

“Ease up on the little guy.” I had to be super careful around Sara, she was a ticking time bomb who could explode at any moment. In fact, her moods seemed to signify the atmosphere for the whole house. I grew up with my mom on my own and I was no stranger to girls and girlfriends in high school but Sara was a breed of female that I hadn’t had much contact with in living quarters before... a teenager. She would cry like a baby one minute and then scream like a banshee the next. She could be cute and caring and then attack me, like physically. I had to restrain her once when Logan had gotten into some eye makeup palette that she had saved up for, he used the color to dust a school project. It looked pretty rad, he was supposed to make an 80’s outfit and he designed a t-shirt using one of my plain white tees. She lost it and grabbed him by the scruff of his neck, I had to intervene. So pretty much we had no idea what mood she was in from one second to the next.

“Fine,” she snapped, through pursed lips. Her body was rigid though and her eyes narrowed. Fine was not good.

“Can we just talk for a sec?” I patted the other side of the counter to where I was leaning and she shrugged but did take one of the high stools that pushed under there.

I sighed and covered my eyes, “Sara, I know you’re sick of me riding your tail but I sort of have to and I don’t want you guys in foster care.”

She nodded but didn’t meet my eye. I took a calming swig of my beer, “You and I know that our mom isn’t the best but Logan is only ten and I’m trying, for him, to not diss Mom and also be positive.”

She looked up with those dark blue eyes that were so much like Mom's it was scary. I knew she was tough, I knew she was strong and the problem our mom always had was that she wasn't. “I know, Alex, okay?” she whined.

“Just remember he’s a kid and just try to keep things mellow for him, okay?” She blew out a breath and looked bored. “I need you to watch him when I can’t... I gotta work, you know?”

“Jesus, Alex,” she stood up. “I know, okay? I get it. God!”

“Also,” I shouted out before she walked off through the kitchen door to the living room, “no inviting anyone over here, right?”

She continued to walk away, and I heard a scream of frustration as she left the hallway, closely followed by a whine from Bear who was never far behind her. I’d been into school the week before because she was caught making out with some guy in the locker rooms and so she was grounded. I had no idea who her friends were as the sweet girls she’d known as a kid seemed to be long gone. I guess I needed to find out.

Logan came bouncing down the stairs as I was about to walk out the front door, “Seeya ,Alex,” he said as he rushed into the living room to start arguing with Sara over the TV.

I spent most nights in my grandpa’s old workshop; it reminded me of him and I loved working with wood like he’d taught me. He was an amazingly talented craftsman and I could only hope to be as good as him one day. Most things I did each day was stuff he’d taught me and it kept him close to my heart. The other kids didn’t remember so much about him, he had a heart attack almost ten years ago when Logan was just a little baby and Sara was four. Grandma was still in a home with dementia back then, she died three years later. Grandpa came home after his heart attack but was weak and died from complications six years later. My mom struggled to cope most days with their support but after they died, that’s when she started really losing it.

At night the farm was so quiet and the only light came from the stars in the sky, the sky that seemed to go on for miles. It was peaceful, beautiful and made everything that we had been through worth it. Eric always roamed around at night on his quad, checking on the horses and maybe riding out to the fields checking up on things that he’d noticed during the day. So I often heard the distant hum of the quad and it gave me some comfort. Without Mabel and Eric, the farm would have gone under years before. The fact that we managed to sell it rather than fold was a miracle.

One day I would buy it back, one day Bishops Hill would belong to a Miller once more.

I walked in the dark for five minutes to my workshop. I was currently working on a dining table set that I had been preparing to sell at a furniture store that showed bespoke pieces sixty miles away in the nearest big town, Lakeview.

As I walked to the shop, I noticed something parked up outside and groaned. Amber’s beat up, old red Honda. Shit. I pulled back the iron door and sure as the day is long, there she sat. She smiled broadly when I walked in and shook my head.

“You shouldn’t be here,” I sighed, rubbing the back of my head awkwardly. I looked up, and she did look real hot in a short denim skirt and red vest that showed off her amazing breasts as they pushed out of the top, making me lick my lips. I didn’t need this.

“Alex, we need to talk,” she purred, walking towards me, accentuating her long tan legs and criss-crossing them as she did like a supermodel in training. 

“No,” I shook my head and held my hand out to stop her. “I don’t want to talk, Amber.” I walked around her and to my workbench at the back of the large converted old barn. 

“Alex,” she huffed, following me. “The other night was amazing. I know you still care about me and you are all I care about.”

“Amber, I don’t think so.” I didn’t turn, instead I grabbed my cloth and started wiping white spirit onto my favorite carving knife. I could feel her behind me.

“Just look at me, Alex,” she uttered, and I blew out a frustrated breath, turning to see her stood before me. She used to be the most beautiful girl in every room to me and with her stood so close to me, it was easy to see why. I had loved her so hard, more than anything else ever and she had been my everything for so long. Her dark hair was shorter now, cut to frame her face and her big, brown eyes pleaded with me.

“What?” I managed to grunt, trying not to look affected by her closeness. I knew what she had done to me, but my body still wanted her.

“I’m sorry,” she added softly. “Every damn day I’m sorry. I love you Alex. I did something terrible, something unforgiveable but we’re meant to be together and I want you to accept that.” She stepped forward and touched my chest. I tensed and closed my eyes. Her familiar perfume filled my nostrils, and I tried to ignore the pull she had over me. It didn’t help that I hadn’t had sex in almost a year before the other night and the night had been sweaty, frantic and a well needed end to my dry spell.

“Amber,” I opened my eyes, “whatever we do now is not us getting back together, we had a great night and that was all it was. You and I are over, get that?”

“I missed you, Alex. Please, I love you.” She moved even closer and ran her hands over my chest and up over my shoulders. “Please give us another chance,” she whispered as she moved to kiss my neck and an involuntary moan escaped me.

I closed my eyes and willed myself to push her away, “You cheated on me, Amber, the same month we lost the farm, the same month my mom went into that facility and...” I sucked in a deep, steadying breath as one of her hands moved to cup my tented jeans. “Get your hands off me,” I added weakly.

“One bad decision doesn’t erase years of what we had, we’re soul mates,” she cooed as she began to drop to her knees. I opened my eyes, and she kept eye contact and licked her lips."I love you and I know you still love me.”

“Amber,” I moaned and tried to move her away, but she had already helped my cock out of my jeans and into her mouth. “Oh God.”

“Tell me you love me,” she asked, looking up at me and I grabbed onto her short hair.

I swallowed hard. I did love her, goddamn it. She was my girl, had been my girl, but I needed more. I needed someone who was mine. I’d lived in chaos my whole life and thought she was my calm, instead she pushed me to the very brink that I spent most days keeping my mom from.

“No,” I pulled back, turned away and zipped up my jeans. “You need to go,” I gruffed out.

“Alex,” I could hear the hurt in her voice, but I just braced myself on the workbench, arms outstretched and my head bowed.

“This needs to be the end of it, Amber. I mean it.”

“Please,” she began to cry behind me and I got it. I got what she was mourning because I’d been there too. We were there for each other through so much shit growing up that I couldn’t have imagined life without her. She was my happy place, and I had no doubts that she could be that again for the rest of my life. I wasn’t vindictive, I wasn’t nasty and yet when I found out what she’d done, I wanted to forgive her but it was too hard. Instead I just let her go. I forged ahead alone, and I dealt with my shit. Letting her back in would be to let that tough son of a gun down.

“Amber, please just go. This can’t happen. We’re over and I need to be able to get on with my life.”

“Then why?” she was behind me again and her arms were wrapped around my stomach, “why did last week happen, if we can’t ever get back together?”

“I was drunk, lonely and horny Amber, but...” I turned back and held her away from me at arm’s length, “it was a mistake, it won’t happen again.”

She swallowed and nodded solemnly, “I won’t give up on us, Alex. I need to keep trying because I know that you’re wrong.”

“Amber, you gave up on us when you started banging Grayson Tyrer,” I told her harshly.

“Alex...”

“Just go!” I almost yelled and her tears fell silently as she turned to leave. I heard the tires screech not long after and staring at my tools realized I had lost my appetite for hard graft as the last thing I needed was to be left alone with my thoughts.

I grew up knowing my family was different. I grew up knowing that I had to depend on me and watch out for my siblings more than any big brother should have to do. I realized these last couple of years that the responsibility of being that guy was damned lonely.