I separated tax forms and any documents that looked business-related from birth certificates and photos I’d known nothing about—two or three of my mother and a few dozen of Brent and me, but none past the age we were when Mom left. I unearthed the flat box containing Brent’s Silver Star Medal. Inside, along with the Medal, were his dog tags and a laminated photo. I slipped the chain over my head and dropped the tags into my shirt.
The photo was a selfie of Brent and Arianna on the beach. Behind them, the sun was coming up over the water. It was scratched up like it had been in a wallet, taken out often. He’d probably had this photo with him—either on him when he died or with his effects. It had been eight years, which some days felt like a century and some days like yesterday. I flipped it over.
Arianna had written: Your home is right here next to me ~ A.
In my mind, my big brother had always been older and stronger than me, but he’d been my age when he died—twenty-two—and now I was weeks from turning the age he’d never be. The only decent parts of me were there because of him. Tears that hadn’t come when Dad died came all too easily for the brother who’d been more of a father to me than my old man had ever been. But when Brent was a boy, getting called words a kid shouldn’t even hear, taking punches from a full-grown man to protect our mother, to protect me, who’d stepped in to be a father for him?
• • • • • • • • • •
Mr. Amos’s office was the front room of his wood-frame house off Palm Drive, where he lived alone. I parked in the driveway, next to a well-used boat sitting on a trailer, ready to be hooked to the white Silverado backed up to it. A couple of palm trees and a massive oleander shrub shaded the porch swing to the left of the doorway. The only way I knew I was at the right place was the wooden sign hanging beside the front door that said Barney Amos, Attorney at Law.
I handed over the box full of possibly significant papers and checked out his office walls and shelves while he examined them. In addition to his law school diploma (Loyola—I’d heard of that one), there was a pic of him with fishing buddies, one with the mayor, one of his daughter on her wedding day, and one of Austin—a smidge older than Mateo’s boys—holding a bass as tall as he was. In Cub Scouts, we’d called him Bug on account of his eyes.
I’d forgotten Bug had a sister and couldn’t remember her name, but she looked a lot like him—same thin nose and big eyes. She’d been few years ahead of us in school and moved away with her mom after the accident. Despite a DUI conviction, Mr. Amos—so wasted he hadn’t known what had happened until the next day—hadn’t been held responsible for the wreck. A drag-racing kid had run a red light and T-boned the passenger side of his car, flipping it three times, killing Austin instantly and permanently injuring Mr. Amos in ways both obvious and not.
During one of his few AA sponsor visits with Dad, I’d heard him say, “If I’d been sober, maybe I would’ve heard him coming and hit the brakes. Maybe I wouldn’t have been in that intersection. Maybe Austin would be alive.”
Dad didn’t give a shit, I guess. Wasn’t moved the way I was, thinking about Bug, who would never turn seven. Frozen at the age he died—just like Brent.
“No new will or divorce papers, Boyce?”
“No sir, none that I could find. What happens if there’s no will? And maybe he just didn’t keep the divorce papers? I can imagine him lighting them on fire well enough.”
“Yes, yes—that’s true, but it’s a little more complicated than that. Have a seat, son.”
I sat and watched his face—the right side of it, anyway. The left side, in its permanent droop, gave no clue to whatever it was that made him stick a finger behind the collar of his shirt and give it a yank like his tie was on too tight even though he wasn’t wearing one.
He took a deep breath through his nose and folded his hands. “Bud had a will, Boyce. It was made before your mama quit town. I have a copy of it here.” He placed a palm on a paper-clipped set of documents.
Seeing as how I’d been searching that damned trailer high and low for a will, it seemed odd that he had it. I waited for him to explain, because I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what the hell was going on.
“It names your mama as the primary beneficiary. I drew it up myself—after insisting that he and Ruthanne each needed a simple will because they had minor children. My intention was to protect you and Brent.” He took another slow breath, lips pinched. “I was hoping you’d find a new will, revoking any previously made. But more importantly, I was hoping you’d find divorce papers.”
“I don’t understand,” I said, but that was a lie. I got the gist of what he was saying. I just couldn’t wrap my head around what, exactly, it meant. Because there was no goddamned way it meant what it sounded like.
“I’ve sent to Austin and the surrounding states for a divorce decree, but nothing’s come up yet. In the absence of a divorce decree, which would invalidate any wills made prior to it—”
“Are you seriously about to tell me that even though she left us—left him—fifteen years ago, she’s going to get the trailer and the stuff in it?”
I hadn’t thought the man could look more pained than he normally looked, but I was wrong.
“Assuming she’s alive and was still married to your father upon his death, your mother is entitled to everything that belonged to Bud. If there hadn’t been a will, she’d still inherit all their community property, because she is—as far as I can find—his legal spouse.”
I sensed there was more and what it was before he said it.
He swallowed and unloaded the worst of it. “If he never incorporated Wynn’s Garage—I’ve spent the past two weeks searching but can’t find any evidence that he did so—then the garage was a sole proprietorship, indistinguishable from the individual upon his death. Making it part of his estate.”
Holy fucking shit, this was not going down. “So I own nothing? I’ve worked for my dad since I was thirteen years old—unpaid for the first several years, not that it stopped him from having me do every oil change and tire rotation that came in. I took responsibility for everything when he got sick. I’ve done everything for the past year—”
“I understand, Boyce, and this is as inequitable a thing as I’ve ever—”
I stood. “I have to go.”
He nodded. “I’ll have to institute a search for her. If she’s worked or applied for credit, an apartment, a loan of any kind—it won’t take more than a week to find her.” He grappled with his collar again. “One last thing. I made a will for her as well—a duplicate of your dad’s with him named as her beneficiary—which made her my client. I will not represent her against you, but I can’t represent you either. It would constitute a conflict of interest in the eyes of the court.”
“Well, fuck,” I said, in one of the many understatements of my life.
Pearl
Saturday afternoon, I was studying when a knock rattled the front door. Besides Mama and Thomas, only Melody knew where I was living. As I expected, she’d gone utterly silent when I called and told her, like that dead calm right before the worst part of a squall hits. “Mel?” I said, and she sputtered to life, firing interrogations without waiting for answers and citing all the reasons she was certain I’d gone off the deep end.
Mel was in Dallas though, so whoever it was had probably come for Boyce, who’d taken a box of documents to the attorney who was helping him sort his dad’s affairs.
I’d spent the morning in a futile job search, the details of which wouldn’t quit replaying in my head. Most places had already hired for the summer, and I had no job history or employable skills to entice the few that had an opening. Dressed like it was rush week instead of a Saturday in the most laid-back town on the coast, I’d filled out applications and smiled until my face ached. Everyone had the same questions: Have you worked retail? Waited tables? Run a register? Worked with the public in any way, shape, or form?
No, no, no, and no.
When the knock sound
ed again, I tiptoed to the door. There was no peephole, so I lifted a mini-blind slat. Brittney Loper. She turned my direction and I dropped the slat.
“Boyce, I saw you. Open up, dammit.”
I was so not in the mood for Brittney Loper.
Granted, I was never in the mood for Brittney Loper.
“Boyce, c’mon! I need you.”
Oh God. Hoping she didn’t mean what I feared she meant, I turned the bolt and pulled the door open to cutoffs, boots, and a tank sporting the name of one of the touristy bars on the main drag. Her chest could still influence gravity. I wanted her to look worse for wear, but she didn’t. Blinking thick lashes and tilting her head full of dirty-blond hair like an adorable puppy, she checked the metal numbers tacked into trailer’s siding and then the existence of the garage next door.
Why hadn’t it occurred to me that his life included this. Boyce was a man. Men had needs. Needs that would be filled by women who looked like Brittney, if they looked like Boyce.
Her gaze swung back to me. “Pearl Frank? Right?”
“That’s me,” I gritted out. “Boyce isn’t here, Brittney. He’ll be back in an hour or two.”
“Whoa. I didn’t know you and Boyce—” She snorted a giggle. “Ah, this explains a whole helluva lot! But I thought you were away at college or something?”
“I graduated.” What explained a lot of what?
“Cool. And you decided to move back here… for Boyce? That’s kinda—”
“No, that’s not—”
“—sweet.”
“—why.” Sweet? Was she high? Knowing Brit, that was entirely possible. “I just needed somewhere to stay, and Boyce has a spare room since…”
“Since his worthless turdass of a father kicked it, finally. That guy was barely a step above my old man.”
A step above?
“So when will Boyce be back? An hour, you said? Because my piece of shit truck is shaking like a tweaker between hits.” She pointed a thumb over her shoulder at the beat-up pickup in Wynn’s driveway. “I dunno what I did to it, but it’s pissed. I gotta have that thing to get back and forth to work or I’m screwed.”
Even Brittney Loper was employable.
That’s uncalled for, my conscience tut-tutted. “I have the opposite problem. Working car, no job.” Small talk? Shut up, Pearl.
“But your mama is married to Dr. Frank. Don’t they, y’know, give you money?”
My face warmed.
Before I could answer, she added, “If you and Boyce ain’t getting busy then why are you living here instead of there? I haven’t been to the Frank place since we graduated, of course—what was that, four years ago? But shit, girl, they’d have to pry my ass outta there with a crowbar if I was you.” A crease popped up on her forehead. “Unless Dr. Frank—”
“God. No—no. He’s great. I just had a little disagreement with them about what I’m doing next. They expected me to go to medical school and I… don’t want to.” Why was I telling her this?
“You know you’re an adult, right?” she said slowly, as if I were dense. “You went to college even! Not married, no kids… You don’t have a kid, right?”
“Uh, no.”
“Free as a bird. And look at you—you’re a cute little thing. If you wanted Boyce, you could land him. Honestly, if you’d been a bitch in high school like your best friend was—no offense—I wouldn’t point this out, but I mean be real. Plenty of the dipshits we went to school with are still living with their mamas, but Boyce has his own place and his own business. Sure, he was a fuckup in high school—weren’t we all—well, not you—me and Boyce and Rick, etcetera. But Boyce turned out pretty decent I’d say, and Lord-have-mercy hot to boot.”
I snapped my mouth closed once I realized it was ajar. “I thought you and he… uh…”
She laughed, displaying a mouth full of white teeth. I meanly concentrated on her small overbite. “Well, yeah, but it’s never been anything serious between us. You, though. You’ve got the goods. He’d be an idiot not to go for it. Just make him work for it. Boyce doesn’t set store by anything that comes too easy, if you get my drift.”
• • • • • • • • • •
Boyce was silent when he returned, dropping the box in his room, checking the fridge and shutting it without removing anything. Unless he’d eaten while he was out, he’d missed lunch.
“How’d your meeting go?”
He shook his head but didn’t reply, staring out the window into a backyard that had been allowed to go wild.
“That bad?”
“I’ll figure it out.” His eyes shifted to mine and away. Just as I meant to press him to let me listen or help, he said, “I missed my workout this morning. I’m gonna go do that.”
He left his room five minutes later and headed straight outside wearing unlaced sneakers, mesh shorts, no shirt, and dog tags I’d never seen him wear. My body threatened mutiny at my self-imposed celibacy while sharing quarters with that. As soon as the door shut behind him, I went to stand six inches from the AC unit in the window, which couldn’t blow cold enough to cool my feverish skin. I’d handled Boyce Wynn in bits and pieces all my life, but living with him was testing every bit of willpower I had.
My body didn’t get it. I couldn’t deny that I wanted him on a purely physical level, but if I gave in to that, my heart would wake up and want more. I couldn’t play that game with Boyce. He would break me.
Even if I’d experienced brief moments of wishing I could be more than a friend he found attractive, I had never let myself imagine him falling in love with me. Exception: those few hours between our only time together and seeing him on the beach with a girl on his lap—a temp fuck—that’s what he and his friends called the tourists’ daughters they hooked up with.
Playing house had put relationship mirages in my head where none existed before. Or maybe I’d just been able to repress them before now. Damn Brittney Loper and her cruel promptings to land the boy I’d loved all my life.
Nine weeks, two days.
“I forgot to tell you—Brittney Loper came by for you,” I said when Boyce came inside.
He paused before pulling the fridge door wide and staring inside. “What did she want?” The waistband of his shorts was damp with perspiration.
“She said her truck was shaking.”
He grabbed a bottle of premade iced tea and a small tub of grilled chicken and turned around, his lips quirked. “That can’t be abnormal for her.” His shorts hung lower than they had an hour ago—showing off the sweat-sheened ladder of muscle notching his abdomen and sculpted chest.
“Boyce.”
“What?” He chuckled, spearing slices of chicken with a fork and wolfing them down.
“Double standard much?” I snapped, pointlessly angry.
“All right—down, ethics police—I’m just playing. God knows my TA’s been known to shake now and again.”
I wanted to punch him, but he probably wouldn’t even feel it. He looked like a bodybuilder, skin oiled to highlight the hard-won cuts and rock-solid curves.
“She say when she’s coming back?”
I stared down at my book. “She said she’d come back tomorrow. She’s at work now.”
“Tomorrow’s Sunday—that’s my only day off.”
“I guess she believes she has a… special influence with you.”
He grunted. “The fuck she does. No one has influence over my Sundays.” When he finished off the chicken, he tipped the iced tea back and drank all of it without stopping.
Efforts to keep my eyes glued to the open book in front of me were a giant fail. I watched him through my hair, ready to feign total concentration on the text I was supposedly reading at the least indication that he was about to notice me staring like a creeper.
“I’m gonna grab a shower and go out. I’ll probably stop and check Brit’s truck.” He turned to look at me and my eyes dropped to the textbook. “Wanna go with, get a beer?”
“No thanks. I
’ve got to get through this chapter.” Bullshit. I was more than caught up. There was just no way I was going to go watch him flirt with Brittney or the vacationers who’d begun to show up en masse in the past two weeks. And when he brings someone home—which could happen tonight? my practical side asked. I was of a mind to tie and gag my practical side. “I have to apply for more jobs tomorrow too.”
“No luck this morning?”
“Zero. But I’ll find something,” I said, professing more confidence than I had. “I just have to keep looking.”
chapter
Seventeen
Boyce
Brittney plopped a shot of Cuervo down on the bar in front of me. “Where’s Pearl?”
I asked if she wanted to come along. She said no—as usual. “We’re roommates, Brit, not married.”
“You wish.”
“What?”
“Oh, c’mon, like you haven’t thought about it. Or at least one part of it.” She grinned. “And y’all would make some cute babies.”
My mouth dropped open like I was bent on catching flies, and an image flashed through my mind like a video clip: I opened a door and a kid ran up and attached itself to my leg—a kid that looked like Pearl the day I met her. I closed my eyes briefly to clear it, but that image stuck like it’d been welded to my brain. “The hell? Why would you think a guy my age would be thinking about shit like that?”
She snorted. “If a girl like Pearl Frank doesn’t make you think of putting a ring on it, you’re a bigger idiot than I thought. Best fish or cut bait, Boyce Wynn, before that girl gets a better offer.”
I scowled, no retort coming to mind—a damned unprecedented state of affairs for me.
“I’m just sayin’! No need for a hissy fit.”
My teeth gritted. “Subject change. When’s the last time you’ve had your tires rotated?”
She arched a brow.
“You said your truck was shaking? Having the tires rotated and balanced would be the easiest, cheapest fix if that’s the problem. Unless you’ve had it done lately.” I sipped the tequila, back on solid ground.