Keep You (2 page)

             
“Hi, guys,” he greeted with a smile. “Good day at school?”

             
“What, are you Mom?” Jordan asked.

             
But Jo nodded and walked around so she could climb up onto the stool beside her oldest brother. He had a short stack of Chips Ahoy on the edge of his plate and she snitched one, stuffing the whole thing in her mouth at once. “My team won at kickball,” she said around the cookie, but it sounded more like, “mife tmm wmm ‘t kiffbomm.”

             
Walt was fluent in cookie-speak. He reached over and ruffled her messy mop of hair. “I’m guessing that’s where you skinned your nose.”

             
She nodded and reached up reflexively to touch the fresh scab forming on the tip of her nose. She swallowed. “Home run…and then I tripped on home plate.”

             
Her brother laughed, and she knew he was laughing
with
her and not
at
her.

             
“You know what’s for dinner?” Jordan asked as he went to the fridge in search of a snack.

             
“Roast.” Walt gestured toward the crock pot that was plugged in on the opposite counter. “Can’t you smell it?”

             
It was just starting to emanate meat-and-potatoes aroma into the room, but the scent of the coffee had covered it well. Jordan wrinkled his nose. “I hate roast.”

             
“You hate everything.” Walt popped the last bite of his sandwich in his mouth and pushed the plate of cookies toward Jo. “Mike’s bringing friends home this afternoon, or so I hear,” he told both of them. “Get your homework done before he gets here and turns this place into a circus.”

             
“Yes, Mom,” Jordan mocked.

             
But Jo nodded, accepted the kiss he placed on top of her head, and watched him gather up his travel mug of coffee and prepare to leave. When he was gone, it would be just her and Jordan until Mike got home because Jessica had cheer practice after school on Fridays and Mom worked till five and then had to make the drive home. For the next two and a half hours, they were suburban latch key children.

             
But, in keeping with Walt’s instructions, they completed their homework. Jordan had just turned on the TV and was flipping through channels, moving toward Nickelodeon, when they heard the middle school bus come to a grinding stop in front of the house. Moments later, the front door burst open, a blast of cold air flooding the house and carrying with it the loud, shouted laughter of a whole gang of thirteen-year-old boys.

             
Like a herd of wildebeest, Jo listened to them drop their things and go thundering into the kitchen. Cabinets were slammed, the pantry door banged back against the wall as it was nearly ripped from its hinges.

             
“And there go all the chips,” Jordan complained as he listened to the commotion.

             
Mike was the first one into the living room. Jo glanced up from her favorite, coziest spot pushed back in the corner of Dad’s big-enough-for-two chair and saw Michael’s newfound cocky grin and smiling green eyes. He was growing his platinum blonde hair out and it covered the tops of his ears now. Two nights ago, Jo had watched him at the kitchen table taking a pair of scissors to a perfectly good pair of jeans, and then he’d safety pinned the cuts back together. When she’d asked him why he didn’t just wait until he tore a knee out of his pants, which was sure to happen if he played whiffle ball with her in the backyard, he’d snapped at her that she “didn’t know shit about being cool,” and then Mom had cuffed him on the back of the head.

             
He was wearing those jeans now, and his skateboard sneakers, and the four friends who trooped in after him were dressed similarly. Jo let her eyes move over them with the jaded disinterest that all younger sisters use when scoping out their brothers’ gangly friends: the one with the pimples, the one with braces, the one with fire engine red hair, and…

             
Jo glanced away from the last one, her little hands curling into fists in her lap. Her heart fluttered, just a little, like it did on the first day of school. And because that sensation was troubling and she didn’t quite understand it, she forced herself to look at Mike’s dark-haired friend again.

             
Her sister Jessica had a poster of a shirtless Brad Pitt hanging on the inside of her closet door upstairs.
Their
closet door, because they shared a room. Brad Pitt was tan and square-jawed and had sun-streaked blonde hair and Jo walked past his brooding picture at least twice every day and didn’t spare him a second thought.

             
Mike’s friend did not look like Brad Pitt. He wasn’t tan and he wasn’t square-jawed. His hair, a little shaggy and a little spiky, was a glossy dark, dark brown, or maybe even black, she thought. He lifted his head up to scan the room and his eyes were as blue and clear as pool water. He was wearing a black AC/DC t-shirt (one of her favorite bands) and red sneakers peeked out from under his jeans (her favorite color). Staring at him like this only made her heart beat faster and Jo tore her eyes away as she felt a warm, unwelcome flush creep up her neck and come to full bloom in her cheeks.

             
No
, she thought to herself. She was not Jessica; she did not get all heart-pounding and head-spinning over boys.
No, no, no, NO
.

             
But he was coming into the living room and he was plopping down on the end of the sofa nearest her, resting his red sneakers up on the edge of the coffee table. And her heart was thundering against her breastbone. She felt a little nauseous.
Stupid!
She chastised herself.

             
“Move, midget.” She hadn’t been paying attention to Mike, who now stood in front of her, a bag of Doritos and a Coke in one hand, the remote he’d taken from Jordan in the other, and was waving it at her. “Move,” he repeated when she only frowned at him.

             
“I’m sitting here,” she protested, which for some reason made Mike’s friends laugh.

             
“Not anymore.
Get up
, Jo.” He had that look in his eyes that meant if she didn’t relent, he’d grab her feet and drag her out of the chair.

             
She wasn’t going quietly, though. Jo lifted her chin to a proud angle, stuck her tongue out at him with slow deliberation – to the sound of more laughter – then stood with all the dignity she could muster, realized all the other seats were taken, and settled cross-legged on the floor.

             
“You’re not staying, are you? Don’t you have homework?” Mike said once he’d taken the chair and realized she didn’t plan on leaving. His voice sounded like having his elementary school baby sister stick around would ruin all his cool fun time with his bros.

             
Which was exactly
why
she was staying.

             
Jo looked up to the TV, now set on MTV – she recognized the Linkin Park video playing – and she shrugged. “I already finished my homework.”

             
“We’re not watching cartoons, you know.”

             
“I don’t like cartoons,” she lied. She snuck a glance at Jordan and saw that he was pouting over on the loveseat, not happy about the invasion. But because he was a boy, he wasn’t catching any grief from Mike.

             
It wasn’t fair. She liked baseball, she liked good music, she kicked homeruns at kickball and didn’t so much as shed a tear when she skinned her nose; why was she the one Mike picked on so hard?

             
Jo lasted a half hour, but she was too aggravated with Michael to enjoy torturing him, so she retreated to the kitchen, perching on one of the stools so she could watch MTV by herself. When she heard footsteps in the threshold, she assumed it was Jordan coming to join her, and she glanced his way, only to have her breath catch when she realized it was Mike’s dark-haired friend instead.

             
She watched, silent, as he went to the pantry and rummaged around until he came up with a bag of pretzels. Did she speak? Probably not – she was only his friend’s little sister. And her voice might come out all squeaky given the way her throat seemed to be closing up. So, no, she wouldn’t say anything; she’d admire the way the incoming sunlight shone on his hair instead.

             
“What happened to your nose?”

             
Again, she’d been staring at him so stupidly that she’d missed someone addressing her. Only this time,
he’d
been the one looking at her and asking a question.

             
Jo swallowed the butterflies that were trying to come up her throat and forced her eyes to meet his sparkling blue ones. “W-what?” she asked.

             
The grin that broke sideways across his face was slow, easy, and she suddenly felt like throwing up. Why was this happening to her?! “Your nose.” He nodded toward her.

             
“Oh.” She wet her dry lips. “Oh, um…kickball.”

             
“Guess that makes you Jo: the one who wants to be a boy.”

             
She couldn’t explain the way all the butterflies dissolved in an instant, leaving a hard, ugly lump in the pit of her belly.
The one who wants to be a boy
. And what had she been thinking? That a thirteen-year-old would look at her and get jittery over her the way she’d done over him? Disappointment had never tasted so bitter.

             
“Yeah,” she said in a flat voice. “That’s me.”

             
He smiled at her again. “I’m Tam.”

**

              Through the years, the holidays, the Thanksgiving football games in the front yard, the graduations, recitals, modest vacations, weddings and funerals, among the rotating shifts of friends that entered the lives of the Walker children, Tameron Wales was the constant. Mom said he had “an unfortunate home life,” a phrase Jo’s ten-year-old mind didn’t understand at the time; but because of it, he was always granted a place at their table.

3

Now

             
The living room of Michael Walker’s bachelor pad was a study in black leather, glass and muted gray fabrics. It was clean, modern and masculine, and the felt-topped poker table nestled in the bay window had a perfect view of the Buckhead nightlife that unfurled like a blanket of earth-bound stars beyond the townhouse. Opaque clouds of cigar smoke churned beneath the pendulum lamp above them, the smell overwhelming the pizza and whiskey stench of their dinner. It was one of the last, precious guy nights they had left before Mike signed away his life, and any sense of identity, to Delta Brooks.

             
Tam clenched his cigar between his teeth and reached for his tumbler of Jack on the rocks, contemplating his longtime best friend over the rim of the glass as he lifted it and traded smoke for liquor. Mike had, like all of them, grown up. He wore his hair crew cut short now, he was always clean-shaven. Even in casual clothes, as now, his khakis had been pressed, his loafers shined, and his Ralph Lauren oxford shirt had not a stain or wrinkle in sight. He was a proper businessman now, a gentleman, much more so than Tam for sure. But even despite all that, it was hard to come to terms with the fact that the guy was marrying
Delta Brooks
of all people. If he’d been looking to his sisters for inspiration while choosing the kind of woman he wanted to spend his life with, he’d obviously looked to Jessica…though at least Jessica was sweet.

             
“Yo, Wales, you in?” One of Mike’s coworkers, an accountant named Johnson whose first name Tam couldn’t remember and whose personality was so stereotypical of every bad boss joke ever – “Johnson, I wanted those reports yesterday!” – who Tam could barely refrain from making fun of, had spoken over on Tam’s left. He was twitchy, a lousy bluffer, and his forehead was so shiny with sweat it reflected his hand of cards.

             
Tam bit back a comment and glanced at his own hand. “Yeah,” he said, moving a short stack of chips to the center of the table. “I’m in.”

             
“Oh,” Mike said, and Tam thought his smile pulled sideways in an almost apologetic way. “Speaking of ‘in,’ did you get the invitation yet?”

             
“To the wedding?” he asked. “Or to this stupid-ass castle trip the missus is planning?”

             
Of the six of them around the table, only Tam was a childhood friend, and the others, all work or gym buds, laughed nervously. None of them had deigned to insult the bride-to-be yet. At least not openly.

             
Mike chuckled. “Wedding invites go out tomorrow. I meant the Billingsly invite.”

             
“Well aren’t you the groom in the know.”

             
“You have to be,” Mitch Huddle said with comical earnest. “When I got hitched, I had this whole list of shit I was responsible for. And if I screwed any of it up…” he trailed off with a dramatic shudder and, to Tam’s amusement, three other guys, including Johnson, nodded in agreement.

             
“That’s sad,” he said, reaching for his drink again. “You couldn’t any of you marry chicks who didn’t scare you shitless?”

             
“You just wait, man,” Mike said, “you’ll be in the same shape someday.”

             
But of that Tam was certain: he would never be in that shape. Being single was more valuable than hitching himself to some harpy whose main goal in life was turning his balls into a necklace she wore for the sheer joy of humiliating him. He’d met one girl in his twenty-six years whose love didn’t come with a rulebook and bloodthirsty agenda. And that girl wished he’d get hit by a bus.

             
It had been three weeks since he’d seen her last, and before that, their last meeting had been two years prior. Three weeks ago he’d found her trying her best to be a wallflower, fidgeting with the hem of a clinging burgundy dress that flaunted her body but that seemed to be making her uncomfortable. He remembered the glass of Jack and Coke in her hand, the casual twist of her honey hair, thick locks of it coming loose down her back and gleaming under the thousands of twinkling party lights that had been strung up on the arbor in the Brooks’ backyard. All night he’d snuck glances of her with her sister or brothers, had watched her feign interest in the other bridesmaids’ inane gossip, and he’d waited until he could get her alone. He’d let his eyes wander over every sweet line of her oh-so-familiar face and then down her lithe curves all the way to the stilettos that were sinking in the grass like aerating spikes. And then he’d stepped forward when the pressure in his chest had become debilitating.

             
Joanna Walker’s almost-turquoise eyes had snapped up to meet his and he’d seen nothing less than hate shining in them.

             
Tam accepted it. He understood it. And he’d backed away without a word.

             
But how was he supposed to spend a week in Ireland, under the same roof with her and avoid a confrontation? No castle was
that
large.

             
“So the castle,” Mike lifted the thread of conversation again. “You’re coming, right?” It wasn’t really a question.

             
“I’m bringing a date,” Ryan Atkins volunteered, a leering grin spreading across his pretty-boy face. “Romantic castle equals horny chick, equals blowjob.” Laughter rippled around the table.

             
“Tina’s excited,” Mitch Huddle said of his wife, pushing his chips toward the growing pile in the center of the table.

             
“Jess too,” Mike’s brother-in-law, and Jessica’s husband, Dylan said.

             
Tam focused on the cards in his hands and tuned out the very, what he thought of as, feminine chatter around him. If the women were off somewhere brimming with excitement over the trip, then the men were excited
for
their excitement. And it all seemed so…
unnecessary
somehow.

             
He was happy for Mike – he was, truly – but sometimes, like now, he looked at Mike and wondered where his friend had gone. The townhouse was for sale and all the furniture promised to various friends and relatives; Delta didn’t want any of it in “their” place. They couldn’t live in his or hers, but had to buy a new home, one that was “flavored by their love,” whatever the hell that meant. He’d agreed to a bullshit fairytale wedding in Ireland, in a goddamn
castle
, with a bridal party larger than the staff necessary to run said castle. None of it was that extraordinary – Tam had heard stories of other such extravagant weddings – but he’d never pictured Mike of all people being so excessive. Or…more disturbing….maybe he’d always expected it, but he had chosen to ignore it.

             
Or maybe
, a tiny voice in the back of his head whispered,
you’re worried that after this, you won’t see Jo again
.

             
He scowled at his cards. He hadn’t been thinking of her lately. He’d tucked her and all his memories of her away in a corner of his mind (and heart) where she couldn’t torment him anymore, and sealed it off. If it hadn’t been for that party at the Brooks’, he wouldn’t be forcibly beating down the surges of obsession he’d battled the last couple of weeks.

             
So of the two of them, of him and Mike, who was so unrecognizable?

             
“Tam,” someone said, “you alright?”

             
He nodded and smoothed his expression.

             
An hour later the party disbanded and Tam was the last out the door, lingering at the table to cram his winnings in his wallet.

             
Mike was picking up empty beer bottles and dumping ash trays in the garbage, but paused as he returned to the table, hands stilling over the scattered chips that he would stack tidily back in their pockets. “Hey, Tam?”

             
He was contemplating lighting another cigar for the road and paused, his match hovering above the strike strip on the box, cigar clenched between his teeth. “Hmm?” he asked with a twitch of his eyebrows.

             
Mike had become very serious, his face that looked more like his father’s every year beginning to crease at his eyes and mouth as he frowned. He studied a point through the window, fingers drumming on the table’s felt. “Am I…” He paused, his frown deepened, and Tam thought he might be thinking better of his question. But then his eyes – Walker green and not the sea foam of his sister’s – cut over. His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat. “Am I making the right decision? Delta, I mean,” he clarified. “I should go through with this, right?”

             
It was on the tip of Tam’s tongue to say “no,” to try and talk his friend out of what he felt was a mistake; Delta would only become less cooperative with time and he might be saving the poor shithead a worse heartache down the line.

             
But maybe it was important for a man to make his own mistakes.

             
Maybe he had to make decisions that he knew were the figurative equivalent of digging a hole in his chest and planting a stick of dynamite between his ribs.

             
Yeah. Maybe so.

             
“Yes,” he said and watched Mike’s shoulders sag with relief.

             
“It’s just so…so much!” Mike ran a hand through his light blonde hair. “This wedding’s gonna kill me, bro. I need you there. At the castle. I can’t be cooped up a week with those assholes,” he said, and jerked a thumb toward the door; Tam had to laugh.

             
“Why’d you put ‘em all in your wedding then?”

             
“Delta has twelve bridesmaids. Had to keep up.”