The Keys to Jericho (15 page)

She untangles her blue-jeaned legs and leans forward. “Yeah, but you’re not hearing
me
. You’re not the only one who needs to talk about it.”

“Who? Dad?”

“Yeah, Dad, but he’s been seeing a shrink for years.” That genuinely surprises me.

“He has?”

“Yep. He didn’t tell you?” For some reason, I slightly feel like a prick.

“No.”

“
I
need to talk, Jared. Yes, I could get a shrink, too, but you’re my brother and we went through this together. We both lost our mother on her own volition. She wasn’t taken from us. She left. We could’ve died and she wouldn’t have known or cared.”

I close my eyes. “Hadley, I don’t…”

“I do. I need to.”

I sigh and shake my head. “It doesn’t solve anything. It just…”

“Hurts? I know it does.”

Opening my eyes, I look up at the ceiling instead. “Don’t you talk to Finn about…?”

“A little, but he doesn’t understand like you do.”

My gaze falls to her. “That’s the thing. I don’t. Shit. Can’t we just play the game and forget? C8.”

She sniffs and looks down at her ships. “Miss.” I grab a white peg and she sighs. “Jared, I’m so… It still hurts. Why can’t I let it go?”

“Because you keep wanting to talk about it. Your turn.”

“C3.”

“Hit.” We both dig for a red peg, and as we do, yelling erupts downstairs—one voice rejoicing. The other is Finn’s.

I laugh. “Looks like you might not be getting laid tonight.” Peering up from my board, I see her half smile/half frown.

“Shut up.”

“Just remember, big sister, that our beds are on the opposite sides of the same wall and I have no way to block you out.”

“We’re not going to be doing…that.”

“Uh, huh. Maybe ride him instead, that way it’s quieter.
Not
doggie style. I don’t need you yelling into my wall or banging your head into it.”

“Jared Beckett!” she squeals, nearly dropping her game onto the floor.

Since I’m having fun, I go on, “Or, suck his dick and just tell him to put a pillow over his face.”

“Holy shit!” she loudly whispers, her eyes wide.

“Whatever you do, just keep it quiet.” Hadley turns as red as her game case. “Dad can also hear you, and that would be even more awkward for him to knock on your door, instead of me pounding on the wall.”

Glancing down, she shakes her head. “I can’t believe you just said all that.”

“Come on, Hadley. You’re no virgin and neither am I.” Fucking hell.

Raising an eyebrow, she says, “Maybe Finn and I haven’t had sex yet.” She tries to not smile, but can’t.

“Right. He nearly came all over you at dinner. E2.”

She laughs, her long ponytail bobbing. “Jared! Really! Miss, again.”

“It’s not like he’s the first man you’ve fucked.” Hadley gulps for air, not sure how to respond. “Didn’t you lose it to that guy you dated in high school?” I rapidly click my fingers, squinting in thought at the pictures of Hadley and me on the wall, next to the TV. “Matt something?”

“Max.”

I nod and point at her. “Yeah, that’s it. You were a senior when I was a freshman, but I remember his face.”

“Well, what about
you
? You never brought home any girlfriends.”

I look back to the pictures. “I don’t remember her name,” I quietly mutter, astounded that I just did and I haven’t had a drink all night.

“Are you serious?”

I grumble, “I was 14 and drunk, Hadley.”

She’s silent and then stutters, “Jared. Shit. I don’t know what to say.”

With the appalled tone Hadley uses, I feel more ashamed than I usually do.

“Do you remember it?”

Moving my legs to the floor, I lean forward and shrug. “Not much. F10.”

“Hit.”

She says, “Tell me something else. Have you ever been in love?”

My gaze still on my game, I reply, “Your turn.”

“You’re not going to tell me?”

Sighing, I briefly look over at her. “I’ve never been mixed up believing in that shit.”

She shakes her head. “Why don’t I believe you?”

“You can believe what the hell you want,” I snap. “So,
you
think you’re
in love
now? Maybe it’s a sham and you’re really not because it doesn’t exist. One wrong move from either of you and the other hits the road. Your darling
love
is suddenly gone.”

“I
do
love Finn.”

“You might think you do, like you did that guy in high school.”

Through her teeth, she says, “No.”

“How do
you
know it’s not any different?”

“Because
Finn
is different, Jared.”

“For your sake, I want that to be true. Finn Wilder used to be one of those guys in high school for someone else, I’m sure.” She shakes her head and I say, “Shit still happens, Hadley. Now, we’re adults, but life is still the same as high school, only now, we have grown-up jobs, car payments, and mortgages. He could want to try another girl or tire of you hounding him about marriage.”

“I don’t!”

More loud yelling travels up the stairs as Hadley and I stare each other down, at a stalemate.

She finally breaks the stretching silence between us, growling, “D12.”

I curtly say, “Hit. F11.”

“Hit. D11.”

“Hit. F12.”

She snarls, “You sunk my fucking Battleship.”

“Fucking good.”

“What are you two doing?” Dad asks, walking into the living room.

“Baking a cake. Want to help?” I retort, not taking my eyes from my sister’s death glare.

“Mets won, 4-0,” he states rather pompously. “It was a fast win.”

“Finn pouting?” I ask, still locked with Hadley.

Before Dad answers, Finn comes up behind Hadley’s couch. “No, I’m
not
pouting.” Yep. He’s pouting.

“You were crying,” Dad teases.

Finn scoffs at him, “I never cry.”

Dad walks over and slaps Finn on the back. “Thanks for watching it with me, buddy. I know that had to be rough.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Finn says, rolling his eyes.

Dad says, “I’m going to bed. Night.”

We all echo goodnight to him and Finn tells Hadley, “I’m going to grab a shower.”

“Okay. I’ll get one after you.”

He smiles at her, and bounds up the stairs. Hadley says, “We didn’t get very far with our game, but we’ve been playing for hours. Time flies.”

“Don’t expect me to bring it into your room tonight to play on your bed.”

“That’s a relief.”

She gets up from the couch and before she leaves, I say, “Hadley, I just don’t want to see you get hurt.” That’s the truth.

She stands in the middle of the room, seemingly contemplating that. She then says, “I don’t want to see you hurt, either, but I think you are. Badly. I wish I could help you, but since you won’t let me, just remember that I’m here for you. You probably think that’s stupid, but I’m always here for you. We used to be best friends. I don’t know what happened.”

Clasping my hands between my knees, I shrug and avoid looking at her. “We grew up.”

“That’s not it.”

I abruptly look up at her, and she gives me a sad smile before going upstairs.

For the second time tonight, I feel like a prick.

As I shut off the bathroom light and walk out into the dark hallway, heading to my room, which is next to Hadley’s, I hear Finn’s deep voice, hoarsely whispering, “Becks, don’t stop. You’re so beautiful. You’re
mine.
Fuck.”

He moans and Hadley whispers, “Baby, shhhh.” She softly giggles with the slow, rhythmic squeaks of the bedsprings, before loudly gasping, “Oh, Finn. You feel so good.” More loud kissing is heard, drowning out their moans.

Goddamn it.

Pissed off about being plagued with mental images of them fucking, I go in my room and grab a pillow. At the last second, I stop myself from pounding on the wall, unbeknownst to me why, maybe even more sympathy thrown to Finn tonight, now for his team losing and for not getting laid unless it’s the weekend.

I flip off the wall, separating our rooms, before stomping downstairs to sleep on the fucking couch.

My sister. What a bitch.

CHAPTER 9

Without my dad waking me up at the ass crack of dawn, I slept in until 11:30. When I awoke on the living room couch, I heard the TV in the basement, and I went down to see Finn sitting in a chair, watching ESPN while texting.

“What’s going on? Dad and that girl who I destroyed in Battleship, did they ever come back?”

He looks up and says, “No. I think they’ll be gone until later this afternoon.”

“Do you have to work or something?” I glance at the TV and then at his phone.

“Oh. No, I’m just catching up, so I’m not behind Monday.”

“We still fishing?”

His responding grin is instantaneous. “Yeah. Let’s do it.”

I nod and shift, pretending to look out the window. After last night, all I can think about is hearing him having sex with Hadley. As much as I should expect that, it’s still disturbing to actually hear it happening when it’s my sister involved. Weirder yet, I suddenly want to protect her. What the fuck is my problem? I’ve never really felt the urge to before. She’s a big girl. Well, she’s older than me, I should say.

With the thoughts of last night invading my head, refusing to leave, and from what Hadley told me, I need to air my grievances; however, if I bring them up here, where my dad and sister can walk in at any minute, they would instantly side with Finn, and Hadley would never talk to me again. Not that she talks to me much now.

Taking a few steps back, I glance around the room as I say, “I’ll get the gear together and we can go.”

“What do you need me to do?”
Stop fucking my sister
.

“Nothing right now.” I head up to the kitchen and out into the garage with relieved enthusiasm.

I’m going to warn Finn, not for just my sister’s sake, but for his own, as well, and he had better listen to what I have to say, or I will forget about him catching more fish than me, and shove him into the bay like I really do to Calder.

Dash can’t say I didn’t warn him, either.

“You didn’t have to buy me a license,” Finn protests again as I park my car, following our second stop at Sandy Point State Park.

Walking to the back of my car, I look over at him, since we’re both wearing sunglasses, and shrug as he walks along the other side. “I had to get mine anyway for fishing this year.”

When I open the trunk, he says, “Yeah, but you also just bought a season pass to the park.”

Gripping onto the edge of my car, I warily frown. “So? Dash and I fish here almost every weekend during the summer. I had to renew it anyway and since you came with me, you were included with the pass. Who cares? Shut up about it already.” I shift my hat to scrape at my hair—a weird habit of mine. I like wearing my Colts cap, but hate flattening my hair. I hang out with Dash Calder entirely too much.

“Thanks, though, but I’ll pay you back.”

Pulling out my phone, I check for a call from that fucker or Rio, but nothing yet about tonight, so I stuff it back into my jeans. “You bought the damn bait, even though I told you to shove it, so we’re even.”

He laughs as he reaches in and grabs the containers of night crawlers and bloodworms, while I tuck our bottles of water under my arm, and pick up the poles and tackle box.

We walk toward the semi-crowded beach, staying in the grass, so we don’t have to dodge as many people, and since the sand is rough, not wanting a shoeful of it. I lead Finn out to the long jetty, which is essentially a manmade pier of large, blackish rocks, with a view of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge in the not-so-far distance.

At least it isn’t crowded. Only a man, about my dad’s age, and another, maybe Finn’s or my age, are fishing on it. We carefully walk out to the end of the stone wall and park our gear behind us, among the rocks.

As I unscrew the cap on a water bottle, Finn gazes at the bridge. “Wow.”

I swallow my mouthful, distortedly asking, “What?”

“The bridge looks so different from here. It’s beautiful,” he wistfully says. Finn called my sister
beautiful
last night. Half of me wants to admire the guy, while the other half wants to vomit because I heard him say that while inside my sister.

Finn turns to me, nodding to the bridge, and asks, “Don’t you build them?”

I nod as I also recall my dad telling me about Finn’s dares. “Don’t you jump off them?”

He bites the corner of his lip as he nods, and I say, “What a pair we make.”

He sighs and squats to open a container of bait. “I don’t jump them anymore.”

“Why not
anymore
?” Looking up, an eyebrow crooks up from behind his glasses. Shaking my head, I ask, “What does Hadley have to do with it?”

“She has everything to do with it.” I watch him pick up a pole and start to bait the hook with a bloodworm.

When I pick up the other pole to do the same, I say, “Go on.”

“I used to jump off the New River Gorge Bridge in West Virginia every year during their Bridge Day Festival. Seven months into us dating, she saw me jump for the first time during my live segment. When I came home, she gave me an ultimatum: her or the bridge.”

“Do you really think you made the right choice with that one?”

As he stands up, he laughs, but when I don’t, a confused look crosses his face. “You’re serious?”

I shrug and stand, walking to the edge to cast my line. “Maybe your life would be easier without her.”

“How?”

I look over my shoulder for clearance as I pull back, and then whip the pole forward with a smooth whirring. “She wouldn’t be giving you ultimatums about how to live your life.”

Finn faintly shakes his head. “I understand why she did it.” He finally casts his reel to the left of us as I watch my line bounce around with the rippling water, idly reeling it in, but not greatly caring about fishing for the moment.

“Why didn’t you just call her bluff?”

“Because she was dead serious. She was so upset, crying and begging me not to do it anymore. She said she’d leave me.”

“So you gave that up for her? Just like that?”

Finn nods, looking away from the water to me. “It
is
the most dangerous stunt I do—did. I still do other stunts and jump off other things, but New River is where she drew the line, so yes. I stopped BASE jumping from it. Where are you going with all this?” I feel him watching me as I reel my line in and cast again.

Observing where my line plopped into the water, I tell him, “It was something she told me last night. She wants to marry you, but you know that, right?” I look at him, but he turns to the water, licking his lips.

Finn slowly nods at the bay. “Yeah. She’s mentioned it.”

“She said you don’t want to get married. Why are you even with her?”

He warily looks at me, my sunglasses mirroring in his. “What do you mean?
Why
am I dating your sister?”

I nod as I move my foot onto another dark gray stone. “You know. Are you just bored? Are you waiting for someone better to come along? Is marriage another stunt you won’t do?” He gawks at me before dropping his gaze to the rocks. “Help me understand, Finn. What goal do you want to achieve, besides having my sister as a steady fuck bud?”

Finn swiftly lifts his head, a surprised look on his face, as he raises his sunglasses, perching them on top of his dark blondish hair. “You think I’m using her for sex?”

I shrug, pulling off my own glasses. “Why not?” We stand, facing each other, with one hand uncaringly holding our fishing poles, letting them dip and tug with the current.

“Because I never could
or
would do that to her.”

“Maybe you’d be happier if you
could
use someone for sex instead, then.”

“What? That’s not why I’m with her anyway.”

“You never answered my question. Why
are
you with her?”

“I love your sister, Jared.”

“But you have no plans to marry her?”

“I don’t know. I’m not a fan of marriage.”

“I’m not, either. That’s one thing we have in common, so I absolutely get that. However, Hadley is holding out hope that you’ll change your mind someday.”

He squints from the sun and his forehead crunches. “She is?”

“Yeah. Nevertheless, you and I both know that won’t happen. You’re not going to change your mind because marriage is not something you believe in doing.”

Finn buries his unoccupied hand into his hair, jostling his sunglasses. I hate that he’s taller than me. “It’s not that I don’t want to be committed to her—I am. She’s my soulmate, but…I can’t marry her, not right now, at least.” He shakes his head as he drops his hand. “My parents divorced, and my sister… My best friend. I don’t want to risk it with Hadley. It would kill me to lose her.”

“So, you’re just going to string her along, hoping she’ll change
her
mind? You know that won’t happen, just as you won’t change yours.”

“Maybe I will someday.”

I roll my eyes and determinedly say, “Not good enough, Finn. That’s my sister you’re fucking around with.”

His brown eyes grow larger, even in the sunlight. “I’m
not
fucking with her.”

“Really? Because I heard you in her bed last night, and you had no problem fucking with her then.”

Finn has no control over his mouth falling open or what comes out of it. “I... It wasn’t… We were… What the hell?”

I press on because I have to. “You were what? You were playing an incredibly rousing game of Battleship? So you
weren’t
fucking Hadley?”

“We… I wasn’t using her.” He anxiously sucks in his top lip before, glancing at his fishing pole and muttering, “We were making love.”

I roll my eyes. “Whatever cutesy name you want to call it.”

Finn swings his head back to me, rather angrily asking, “Wait. You were listening to us?”

I can’t help rolling my eyes…again. “At least you think she’s
beautiful
and she’s
yours
.” Hit with the reality, he swiftly looks out at the bay and I state, “The walls are thin, remember my dad saying that at dinner?”

His Adam’s apple rapidly bobs as much as his fishing line. “You’re not going to tell her, are you?”

“No. I’ll spare her that detail. I like messing with Hadley, but I’m not out to eternally mortify her. ”

“Yeah, she would be.”

I reel in my line and set my pole down on the rocks to put more bait on the hook, since I made it an easy meal for the damn fish. “Then what’s the middle ground for you two? She won’t move in with you unless you change your mind about marriage, and you only want to live with her, but not marry her.”

He frowns as he jerks the pole and waits for another tug. “I don’t have the answer to that.”

“Why don’t you just cut her loose?”

Finn instantly turns to face me, his fishing pole droops toward the water. “I don’t want to break up with her!”

“Do it now before her hopes get too high and she’s left with even more scars. Let another man have her who
will
give her what she wants, who is willing to put her on display, and not hide her like she’s some kind of embarrassment. Is that what she is to you?”

“No! I just… I’m… I like to keep my private life and public life separate from each other. It’s not because I’m ashamed of her!” His dark eyes blaze and he passingly looks around before spouting, “Why in the hell do you suddenly care? You barely speak to each other and all of a sudden, you’re the protective brother, out to beat the shit out of me for being with your sister after two years?”

I cross my arms as he glares at me, still limply holding the pole. “All her hopes and dreams are resting on your shoulders. You’re her damn world.”

He snarls, “Well, Hadley is my fucking universe.”

“When it comes to my sister, blood is thicker than water. Remember that, Finn.”

“Yeah, but I’d gladly spill my blood just to keep her head above water, Jared. If she were suffocating, I would slit my throat just so she could breathe my air. I would gladly die for her.”