Lynx

 

 

The pounding is driving me crazy, and I use the distraction of the sounds to drown out the restlessness that has filled me day and night for so long I don’t know how I’ve spent months pretending that it isn’t there.

“Boss, that sheetrock just came in, but I don’t think you’re gonna like it.”

I look at Keith, my foreman, and groan because I’ve been waiting on the stuff for four weeks flat now, and if I have to send it back and wait for them to cut it all to specification, it’ll be another four weeks just waiting for delivery.

This project is already on a tight budget, and further delays will only blow it apart. I’ve had my company for two months now, in which time Pop and I have completed a house and remodeled a room in a plantation home down the road from ours.

I enjoy the work, and I don’t regret leaving Bear’s firm to open my construction company, but on days like today, when all I want to do is escape, it’s crystal clear that running the business isn’t the distraction I’d been hoping for.

Instead of exhilarating me and driving out the demons I live with, it’s frustrating and driving home exactly how alone I am. Especially on a day like today, when everything seems to be going wrong and I know I’m destined to go home with this feeling of dissatisfaction.

“I’ll look it over in a minute. Did Manny call back with the time frame on the countertops?” I ask, knowing he didn’t or Keith would have told me by now.

“Not yet. Want me to get on his fat ass?”

I laugh because everyone calls the guy Fat Manny when, in reality, he’s rail thin and so pale Danny almost ran away when she laid eyes on him. Thinking of my sisters-in-law and the joy my brothers get from having women they love and babies on the way makes me smile.

And grimace because that’s the exact thing I’ve been avoiding for years.

And there isn’t a damn thing I can do about it, because if the Wylder curse is true, then I just have to wait for it to happen to me. Searching for love isn’t easy, and it’s doubly hard when you factor in that I’ve wasted eight years expressly avoiding it because I didn’t want to fall for anyone while I was involved in a vendetta to root out and kill the man who had my baby sister killed.

Those days were dark and bitter, the grief almost tearing my family apart, so you can understand why just thinking of bringing a woman into it was not an option I had.

And now I’m so averse to going through the same pain my brothers did that I don’t think I want to find someone. But this life, it’s lonely.

“Boss?”

“I’m going, Keith. Get on Manny for those counters, and pray that rock is right because if it isn’t I may kill a man today,” I snarl, curling my fist because I’m just aching for a fight to release the tension burning inside me.

The fucking rock is all wrong, I discover minutes later, and I feel my temper spike hard and hot, the anger I’ve been keeping in exploding to the fore when a call to the supplier sees me arguing with a man who doesn’t know his ass from his elbow.

“I got the measurements right here, Mr. Wylder. We did it right.”

“Listen, you idiot, I have the paperwork too, and I see the measurements. You got it fucking wrong!” I yell, breathing to calm myself when Pop walks into the site office in the yard and motions for me to give him the phone.

I’d protest and keep cussing the fool out, but Pop isn’t one for yelling and cussing, and anyway, he’s much better at dealing with people than I am lately.

“Now, listen here, Dwayne. I’m not having this argument again. We’re sending it all back, and you can take the loss. I already have someone else who’ll cut it right and deliver in three days.”

Just like that, the call is done, and I grin when Pop looks at me and rolls his eyes.

“What crawled up your ass, boy?” he asks, giving me the same look he’s been using since I was five years old and started blazing a trail in the world.

“Nothing. He just annoys me so fucking much, Pop. It’s the second time he’s done it, and the first time we had to pay for the stuff because it chipped on site. I’m not paying for another thing on this build the suppliers screw up.”

It’s a weak excuse for my anger, but it’s all I have. I’m twenty-eight years old, twenty-nine in a few months, and I can’t sit here and explain to my pop that I’m in a bad head space because I feel restless and I don’t know why.

He’ll just give me one of his heart-to-heart talks that drive me nuts because I know that a part of my problem is loneliness but I can’t fix it because I don’t want to.

Part of me wants to settle down with someone I can love, but it’s not the overriding part of me, and so I find myself at odds, wanting and yet not wanting something I’ve both longed for and dreaded for eight years.

Women…

I just don’t feel a spark, and I should have by now because I screw any woman who looks my way suggestively. And yet I know I don’t want to find the one, so why I’m still looking is beyond me.

“It’s more than that, Lynx. I’ve been watching you for a while, boy, and you’re on the edge.”

I sigh when he settles into a chair and take the other seat, thankful that Mika is out of the office on lunch so I don’t have to sit here and pour my heart out in front of her.

I love my brother Lyon’s soon-to-be sister-in-law, but the woman has a mouth on her and a way of saying things that makes a man feel about two inches tall.

“I’m not on edge, Pop. I just don’t see the use in spending all my time arguing with people who can’t do anything right. That cabinet guy down in Tulsa used the wrong wood when I specifically told him twice the homeowners wanted oak, not pine. Billy quit two days ago and took off because his wife wanted to go on vacation and I told him to put in a request like everyone else. We’re going over schedule, and the fucking flooring was put in before they painted, and now we have to either rip it up or have it cleaned professionally.”

Little things, small things that keep adding up and adding to my frustration.

Pop smiles at me, and with a shake of his head, puts me right back in my place.

“Kid, nothing goes right all the time, and it’s time that you take a step back and smell the roses. Shit happens, Lynx. You fix it and move on. End of story.”

Yeah, but that’s the problem. I can’t move anywhere, because I have no place to go. Two months ago, when I started this business and moved into my own house, I thought that would keep me busy and satisfy the need I have to put down roots.

The business is doing well, but it isn’t giving me what I thought it would, and going home to an empty house makes me feel worse. I’ve been tempted to go home to Mom and Pop’s a few times, but how much of an ass would I seem if I ran home to my parents just because I’m lonely?

Not happening.

“Look, just go home now and take a break. Relax, kick back in the big pool you installed, and drink a few beers in the sunshine. This place will get itself done without you going mad every few minutes, and then we’ll move on. We have the charity rebuild for the Katrina houses that are still derelict coming up soon, and I need you at peak condition to deal with that. You know how annoying those fools can be when we’re dealing with ‘charity houses.’”

I sneer at that because it’s true. I have a buddy who owns his own little construction company, his crew only about ten strong, unlike the workforce Pop and I have, and he’s had headaches with the organizers forever.

Doing things at cost or as a freebie should be easy, but then you get the publicity-seeking organizations that don’t know their ass from their elbow on a site and don’t think about things like safety codes when they bring their cameras in.

Pain in the ass, and that’s without them expecting mansion-style homes for nothing and interfering with the construction.

But Pop is right, I think, ignoring the irritation I feel. I need to unwind for a bit, relax, kick back, and just take some time to not think. Two months ago, my brother Lyon was shot in the back on a job and almost died.

It pushed a lot of my buttons at the time, especially guilt because I’d just quit the security business when they had to go to Iraq to stop an arms deal, and I still feel like hell for not being there.

Part of me believes he wouldn’t have been shot if I’d been front and center with him kicking ass.

I know I shouldn’t feel this way, but I do, and then add the whole re-evaluating life scenario when the near-death experience hit my family and all I do is think about what would happen if I don’t find someone. Or if I do.

Lyon had Leila at his bedside, cheering him on and giving him a reason to fight for his life. I have no one, and it hurts because it scares me, thinking I could die alone.

I don’t want to spend my life alone, always searching, and then die in a freak construction accident like a chump. I want a woman and love and happiness. I want to come home to a warm house and children screaming in the background while I kiss my wife stupid and make lewd suggestions about what I’ll do to her after the kids are down for the night.

I want all that. I know that deep down I want to have that stuff, but thinking about being tied down again in any way makes me panic, and I just don’t know how to get past that.

I want to go to family barbecues and have someone at my side so Mom will stop reminding me that she needs grandchildren from all her sons. Mostly I just want another person who I can talk to about my day and sleep next to knowing she’ll be there in the morning.

“If I go home, someone will have to get Mika home. Leila’s loaning her the car, but it went in for tires this morning, and Lyon asked me to make sure Mika gets home. I was also waiting for the guy from Smart Glass to call me.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it. I’ll have Meek put the call through to me if I’m out of the office, and I’ll get her home. Good?”

“Yeah, okay. Thanks, Pop.”

He comes to me and squeezes my shoulder, looking down at me with love and understanding.

“Lynx, you’re the only one of my sons who doesn’t come to either me or Mom for help. Of the whole lot, you were always the most independent, and I respect that, but sometimes, if you need a break, you have to accept help, son.”

Yeah, I know that, but it’s just not me, and I don’t find it easy to admit that, but as self-contained as I keep myself and as much as I fool around and act like the family clown, it’s not always easy to keep it up.

I’m the joker. The guy who laughs at everything and uses humor to relieve the tension. They all look to me for a good laugh, and I usually give it, but right now, I don’t feel anything good or funny about life, and I just need to take some down time.

“I’ll be back in tomorrow,” I warn, letting Pop know that I’m not taking any more time off.

“I wouldn’t expect anything less,” he laughs, shaking his head. “I’ll keep your mom off your back if you don’t make dinner.”

“Thanks,” I laugh back. “Just keep reminding her that Leila and Lyon still aren’t even thinking about giving her another grandkid anytime soon.”

That sets Pop off because my mom is like a bloodhound when it comes to the married couples or, as it goes, the married and soon-to-be married couples in the family.

Danny is about six months along with Mom’s first little grand-victim, Lori is pregnant too, and Lyon’s fiancé, Leila, is not making even a peep about getting enceinte anytime soon.

I laughed the other day when Lyon confessed to me that he and Leila are still using the pill as contraception and he isn’t ready to go down the fatherhood route yet.

I get it. I was there when Lyon lost the love of his life to mourning and revenge, and I understand that he wants at least two years with Leila just for them.

Children are great, and yeah, I know that they make life complete or whatever, but sometimes it’s not about that. It’s about being with the person you love and not wanting or needing anything more.

Lyon loves Leila more than air. I don’t think that SOB will ever need anything else in this life but her, and I don’t see him wanting anything more for at least the next five years.

I don’t even need a passel of kids—God help me, don’t tell Mom—but the truth is that I’m not hankering for that as much as she would want. All I want is...

If I never have anything else, I wouldn’t even be disappointed. I know eventually it will happen, and it would be great. I would be happy if my woman had my kid, but I’m not especially needy for kids.

Dammit! Or a committed relationship either, I remind myself forcefully, trying to recall the evidence of the folly of love from the recent relationships I’ve witnessed.

Okay, sure, I get that my brothers and their significant others are together and happy now. I get that, but getting there was hard for everyone involved.

I don’t need that shit, I tell myself. I really don’t. Yeah, maybe happiness and love and all that smoochie crap is fine for my brothers, but I don’t want to go through the bad stuff, so I’ll just drop that ball right there and leave it. I don’t want the angst and complications a relationship will bring. I don’t, goddammit.

“Lynx, go home, boy.”

I do as Pop tells me because I need to and stalk to my truck with Keith running beside me taking orders for the rest of the day.

“If you need me, call.”

“Not on your life, man. Your pop scares the shit out of me,” he laughs. “I’ve got this. Enjoy the day, man.”

I snort and get into the truck, pulling away to drive through the traffic-congested roads before reaching my neighborhood. My house is an old place I bought a year ago and renovated whenever I wasn’t working.

I ripped out the back window and, after a lot of experimentation, installed an almost continuous glass wall overlooking the back, which leads to the river. And has a great view.

My nearest neighbor is a ways away, but to my right is a house I tried to buy but was assured was not for sale.

That pissed me off because I wanted to have complete privacy and having someone else that close was not my intention, but money doesn’t always get you your way.

Pulling in, I rest my head back for a minute and get out with a scowl because it still annoys me that I can’t go out in the back and swim without someone looking my way.

The realtor I used suggested a wall for privacy, but I refused that idea, not wanting to cut off my views.

My place is bright and filled with the smell of flowers when I walk inside, and I grin because who would guess that I do that froufrou shit. Yeah, I make sure there are flowers or at least cookies around to make the place smell homey.

I don’t bake it, so get your panties out of your ass. I buy the cookies from a single mom a few miles up the road. She supplies the neighborhood with incomparable goods, and we give her an income to look after her kid.

That’s the war, man. Natasha is a lovely woman, and she’s been a single mom since she was six months pregnant and became a widow. I haven’t been around all that much, but I’ve met little Elliot, and even at a year old that kid is a handful.

He comes over sometimes when I know Nat needs a break, and I swim with him and let him dig in the mud before dunking him and taking him home.

I live in a community, a street where everyone isn’t on top of each other, but we know the neighbors, and we do stuff like babysit in a pinch and go to barbecues.

And for me that’s the hardest part. If it had been different and I come home and just chill in my own brooding silence, it would be…tolerable. It’s going to friends’ and neighbors’ alone, the eternal bachelor that needs to be set up with ‘the perfect girl,’ and being the odd one out when everyone around me is with someone…

That’s not easy to deal with, and neither is going from this to Mom and Pop’s and seeing my brothers blissfully happy.

I am happy for them. I just can’t deal with watching them have a great time while I feel like the lone wolf.

And no, Hawk doesn’t count, because that SOB doesn’t seem to give a crap one way or the other.

Just me…