Chapter 6
Kelsi
“You’ll never plow a field by turning it over in your mind.”
~ Rowan O’Sullivan
“We’re almost there.” I reached over the console and nudged Milo’s arm. “Get up.”
He shifted away, slumping further down in the passenger seat. His eyes remained closed as he mumbled, “I’m up.”
We were already running late since he refused to wake up this morning. As soon as we got home from the bar, he’d stumbled into the house and passed out on the couch. I’d left him there, hoping he would be able to sleep some of his drunkenness off before he had to be here today.
When I’d tried to get him up this morning, it was useless; he was out cold. I’d had to resort to pouring freezing cold water over his head. He’d been furious, but he’d left me no choice. That drastic measure had been enough to royally piss him off and propel him off the couch. It took me another ten minutes to corral him to the car. Once I managed to get him in it, he immediately closed his eyes and was back out.
I hadn’t slept a wink since arriving home. I’d been telling myself that it was because I didn’t want to oversleep. But the truth was that even if I’d tried to go to sleep, it would’ve been a fruitless endeavor. My mind was stuck on a Bryson O’Sullivan loop. My entire body was buzzing with awareness. My emotions were strapped in and ready to go on the roller coaster ride that falling for him was sure to take me on. I was doing my very best to shut all of those things down, but I’d been failing miserably.
“I’m serious, Sleeping Beauty. Sit up. Open your eyes!” I raised my voice as I shoved a bottle of water in his face. “Drink this.”
His hand lifted, clumsily swatting at the plastic container.
In the short ride from town to the address that Bryson had given me, I’d managed to get a half a piece of toast and about a third of the water bottle down him. And I was pretty proud of myself for achieving that. Was it enough sustenance to cure his hangover? No way. He was going to be in pain with a capital P today, but at least I’d tried to relieve some of the inevitable misery he was facing.
When I thought about what he had in store, my heart sank. Today was going to be horrible for him. He could barely walk to the car without assistance. I couldn’t see how manual labor was going to happen. Plus, if the weather report was accurate, it would be in the nineties by eleven a.m. Manual labor, plus heat, plus hangover was a recipe for disaster.
My teeth sank into the inside of my cheek as I pictured him doubled over, upchucking into a trashcan. Since I could remember, whenever I was nervous I would bite the lining of my mouth. I’d been nervous a lot lately, and the tender, swollen flesh that rested against my teeth was taking the brunt of my anxiety.
I’d been so tempted to use the number that Bryson had given me to see if Milo could start tomorrow, but I knew that would be the worst thing I could do. I had to keep reminding myself that Milo brought this on himself. He was the one that decided to sneak out in the middle of the night, break into a bar, and drink his weight in alcohol. I needed to start practicing tough love or my brother was going to end up in the same place our mother was. Behind bars.
A surge of determination filled me, replacing the empathy and concern.
Adopting Danger Zone’s method, I barked, “Sit up. Now. Drink.”
When he didn’t respond, I decided on a different approach that was more me. I turned the radio on full blast. It was set to an eighties station, and Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” blasted through the speakers.
“Ahh!” Milo cried out as he covered his ears, lifted his knees up and curled into a ball.
As if eighties pop wasn’t enough torture for him, I started singing at the top of my lungs which was its own unique form of cruel and unusual punishment. I was pretty sure, in any court of law, subjecting him to my vocal stylings would be considered child abuse.
“Okay, okay, okay.” He sat up, holding his hands in surrender before grabbing the bottle and downing it.
I stopped singing but kept the music blaring. Pointing to the one and a half pieces of toast sitting on a paper towel on my console. I re-summoned my inner drill sergeant and commanded, “Eat.”
He shoved the bread into his mouth, and I lowered the volume as I turned onto a long dirt road that my navigation indicated our destination sat at the end of. I was awed by the kaleidoscope of colors that were dancing across the fluffy marshmallow clouds. There was nothing as beautiful as nature.
Before moving here, I had never taken the time to appreciate things like beautiful starry nights, breathtaking sunrises, babbling brooks, or fresh, clean air. The last one wasn’t technically my fault, however, due to the fact that there wasn’t an abundance of fresh, clean air in Detroit or Milwaukee, where I’d followed the last loser I dated before meeting Russell.
Russell owned a brewery, and since watching reruns of Laverne and Shirley was one of my favorite things to do growing up, I thought it was destiny. And for a while, it had been. Things with Russell had been great until I changed the rules mid-destiny, that is.
I glanced over at Milo, and my heart squeezed. I had regrets in my life, but none of them had to do with any promises I’d made to Russell. They all had to do with the promises I’d broken to my brother. I couldn’t change the past, couldn’t change that I’d left on my eighteenth birthday and hadn’t looked back. All I could do was focus on the present and the future.
What was that saying?
The past is your lesson. The present is your gift. The future is your motivation.
I need to learn from my past. Enjoy the moment I’m in. And set goals to strive towards.
Taking a deep breath, I pulled up alongside two trucks and was putting the car into park when I heard Milo beside me.
“Whoaaaaa.”
My eyes cut to where he was staring, and I saw Paul Bunyan, in the flesh. I’d always thought that those stories were fictional, but I’d been wrong. The man standing in front of a large pile of wood had dark hair, a beard, and was the size of a mountain. And he was wearing a red and black plaid shirt to boot. I was sure that at any moment a blue ox would appear at his side.
I was so entranced by the mythical, or fictional man come to life, that when a knock sounded on my window I jumped straight up in my seat, banging my head on the roof of my car.
“Ouch!” My hands flew to the top of my head, my face scrunching in pain as I turned and saw Bryson leaning down with a worried expression.
He mouthed sorry as Milo burst out laughing. It struck me that in the three months I’d been back in his life, I hadn’t heard the sweet sound of his laughter. When he was a baby and toddler, I’d been able to make him laugh so easily. He’d been the happiest little guy. I’d missed that sound. But, I knew that if I let on that that was how I was feeling, he’d retreat inside his teenage turtle shell of anger.
“Really?” I shifted towards my brother as I rubbed my head, hoping to keep the mood light. “You’re not even going to ask if I’m okay?”
“Are you okay?” he managed to get out through fits of laughter.
“That sounded real sincere.” I grinned as I reached for my door. Before my fingers wrapped around the handle, it opened.
“I didn’t mean to scare you. I’m sorry, are you okay?” Bryson apologized as he held the door open for me.
“Please, don’t get out.” Milo plead-whispered. “Just leave.”
I remember being embarrassed of my mom when I was his age, but she was a hot mess. I might be a mess, but I wasn’t a hot mess. I was a room temperature mess at most. He had no reason to be embarrassed.
Pretending that I didn’t hear his request, I stepped out of the car. Milo got out as well.
“I’m fine. I’ve always been hardheaded. It takes a lot more than a little bump to hurt this noggin.” Making a fist, I knocked on my head and immediately regretted it.
Milo’s head and shoulders dropped, and I could hear him groan with humiliation.
Okay, so maybe my little bro had a couple of reasons to be embarrassed.
I bit the inside of my mouth as my cheeks heated up.
Bryson just smiled, unbothered by my dorkiness. “You look…beautiful.”
“Thank you.” I couldn’t help the smile that spread across my face.
Instead of sleeping, I used the time to shower, blow out my hair, unpack my best jeans and apply a light coat of mascara and a new lip stain I’d just gotten called Just Kissed. It was supposed to make your lips look like they’d just been kissed. I’d justified all of those actions by telling myself I wanted to look presentable, but the truth was I’d wanted to inspire the very look that was in Bryson’s eyes.
His blue eyes looked even bluer this morning in the breaking daylight. His turned up lips were even more knee-weakening, and his jet black hair was even shinier, shimmering with highlights that I hadn’t seen in the dim bar lighting.
I’d wondered if he would be as good looking when I saw him again, and now I had my answer. Nope. He was better looking. I was still trying to reconcile how that was even possible when Paul Bunyan joined us. He stepped in front of my brother and I, blocking the sun and casting a shadow over us both.
“Kelsi, Milo.” Bryson stepped closer to me. “This is Sawyer Briggs. He’s going to be working with us.”
“Nice to meet you, Sawyer.” I held out my hand and extra-large fingers enveloped me, and I felt like I was Sprout to his Jolly Green Giant.
Bryson stepped closer to me, and the protective way he did it caused a warmth to spread through me. If I hadn’t strictly forbidden myself from participating in any type of flirting, I would’ve let my hormones do the happy dance. But since I had decided that under no circumstances was there going to be any sexy time going on, I went full John Lithgow from Footloose and declared that there was no dancing in the city limits of my body.
Sawyer crossed his arms as he sized Milo up. For a moment I thought he was going to say something about the trouble that my brother had gotten into, but to my great relief, he just asked, “You ever frame a room before?”
“No, sir.” Milo shook his head.
With the slightest inclination of his head, Sawyer indicated to Milo that he wanted him to follow him and my brother did.
I watched the two of them walk away, and I couldn’t help but feel a little nervous. “Is he going to be okay?”
“With Sawyer?” Bryson asked.
“Yeah.”
“He’ll be fine. Sawyer is the oldest of nine; he knows how to deal with teenagers.”
“Nine?” I gasped. I’d never wanted kids in the first place, and the thought of having nine made my uterus shrivel.
“Yep. Eight boys and one girl.”
“Poor girl.”
Bryson’s head fell back. “If you met Harmony, you’d probably be saying, poor boys.”
I could tell that he wasn’t putting her down, there was genuine affection in his voice.
“You met her fiancé last night. She’s engaged to Hud.”
“The sheriff?”
Bryson’s chin dipped in a nod.
“This is a small town.” I didn’t mean to say it out loud.
I heard a bark in the distance and saw Bryson’s eyes close briefly as he sighed. “I better get going. Goliath likes to scare the poor ducks in the pond out back.”
I couldn’t help but smile thinking of the big, goofy dog.
Before he walked away, I pulled out the information I’d copied for Bryson. “Here is a copy of Milo’s medical insurance and a medical release form, giving you consent to authorize any care he might need. It has my cell. But, I mean, I gave that to you last night…so you have it.” I bit the inside of my lip. I wanted to break the habit, but between my nerves from seeing Bryson again and my brother possibly getting maimed on a construction site, I didn’t think that today was the day that was going to happen.
“Thanks.” He took the paperwork from me, his large fingers grazing mine.
A shiver of pleasure raced through me. Instead of enjoying it, I reminded myself that if I was responding this way, he was a bad boy. He might be a bad boy that ran a bar and renovated his parents’ house, but he was a bad boy.
Danger Zone. Danger Zone. Danger Zone.
I sucked in a shaky breath in a useless attempt to try and get my body under control as I slid back into my car.
“He’s going to be fine, trust me.” Bryson winked before shutting my door, turning and walking away.
As I watched the muscled planes of his broad back ripple beneath the thin cotton of his white shirt, all I could think was that maybe Milo would be fine but I wasn’t so sure about me.