The Imperfections by Sam Mariano
7
Brant
As I look downat Alyssa’s face all stained with tears, I’m torn between wanting her to learn all the lessons this dumbass mistake has to teach her and the desire to save her and her baby from any kind of misery.
On one hand, I know it’s her responsibility to stand back up from all this, but on the other, she’s so damn young and without the support system a family should offer. It’s hard not to want to lend her a hand.
Alyssa breaks away from me on her own, walking around the shop and looking at things while she gets her bearings. I stand back and watch, knowing she just needs the time to collect herself, and I want to give her that dignity.
Once she has recovered from whatever bout of misery got its hooks in her, she comes over, holding up two squares of wood—a project I finished shortly before she came into my life.
“These are gorgeous,” she says, running her hand across the surfaces. “What are they?”
“Coasters.” I walk over closer and look down at her.
“I love the way they look,” she says, still inspecting them.
These particular ones are pretty fancy. The finished product turned out neat; each coaster looks like little cuts of wood floating in vibrant pools of blue and pink. I used resin to give them a little color. They’re a gift for Bri, actually, but given Alyssa was just upset about Bri’s worthless husband, I don’t bring my sister up.
“I’m planning to make a cutting board to match. I won’t put the resin on the main part where you’d actually cut the food, but I figured I could make a nice little handle,” I tell her, glancing up to see if I’m boring her.
She seems genuinely interested, though, nodding her head and looking thoughtful. “I bet that would look awesome. Do you sell this stuff?”
“Nah.” I shake my head, tucking my hands into the pockets of my jeans. “I usually just make things for people if I have the time. Obviously you’ve taken up my free time this weekend, but generally if I’m not working or out hiking with Scout, I’ve got some time to kill.”
Looking over the coasters again, she says, “Well, consider it time well killed. These are beautiful. It looks like you do really good work.”
I can’t help puffing up with pride. I didn’t think Alyssa would much care about my workshop or any of the stuff I do out here, but I like her approval, even if it is just over a set of coasters.
“Wanna move on to the next part of the tour?” I ask her.
She walks over and gently puts the coasters back where she found them, then she flashes me a smile and follows me to the door. “Let’s see the cellar beneath the shed where you keep the bodies.”
I crack a smile at her insistence that I’m some kind of psycho. “Jesus, a man shows up in your bedroom with a gun one time and you think he’s nuts.”
Shaking her head in mock agreement, she says, “Right? I’m such a hardass.”
I’m glad to see her smiling again. She can make all the cracks about me she wants as long as she’s smiling instead of crying.
I’m a little worried about how she might take the next thing, given the breakdown she had in my workshop. I don’t want to make her sad again, but I don’t know all the places I might step that will accidentally trigger that landmine. I have a hunch the next thing might be one of them. I have such a hunch, I almost consider telling her we’ll check out everything else later and just taking her on a hike instead. Then later I can bring her to the cabin.
The place doesn’t currently have any lights, though, so if I get carried away and it starts to get late before we head back to the house, she won’t be able to see it as well as she would now.
I guess I’ll chance it. If she gets upset, I’ll just let her get it all out, and then we’ll move on to more pleasant activities once she feels better.
“Is this the cabin where you come to premeditate all your murders?” she teases as we walk up the little stone pathway to the small cabin on the edge of the woods behind my house.
“I would never premeditate,” I joke. “That adds years to my sentence.”
“Only if you get caught,” she states, like she believes I wouldn’t.
“Ignore all the maps and red string you see pinned in various spots on the wall when we get inside, all right?”
Alyssa grins, following me into the cabin. I don’t even keep it locked right now since I’ve never used the damn thing. I don’t know anyone with the balls to trespass on my property, let alone squat in any of my buildings, but I walk in first, just to be safe.
“What is this?” she asks seriously, once we’re inside.
Right when we walk in, there’s a kitchenette ahead of us, a laundry nook just beyond that, and a dated, round kitchen table with two chairs. As we step farther inside, there’s a living area to our right, then stairs leading up to two tiny bedrooms and a small but functional bathroom.
“When I bought the property, it had this guest cabin out here, but I’ve never really had any use for it. It’s obviously on the small side, but it’s nice enough for what it is. It needs some cleaning and updating to make it more livable. I’ve never had a reason to do anything to it, which is why it doesn’t match my house on the inside. The house I did work on, but this… well, I haven’t. Not yet.”
She nods, walking over and running her hand along the countertop. “It’s like a little apartment.”
“But with a yard,” I offer. “Now, the inconvenient part is there’s no heat run to this thing, so you have to heat it with a woodburning stove. I have a couple of those and a fireplace in the house. I don’t use ’em much, but I keep a bunch of wood chopped outside the shed, anyway.”
Alyssa smiles. “I want to see you chop wood. Do you do it shirtless? Wait! Don’t answer. I’m just going to pretend you do, because I like that mental image.”
I shake my head at her. “Focus on the task at hand, would ya?”
“It’s a very nice cabin,” she states obediently, thinking that’s what I mean.
I hesitate, looking around at the place. In my head, it didn’t look so damn old, but I guess it’s been so long since anyone has stayed in here, there’s no reason it’d look updated.
Pointing at the kitchen table, I tell her, “Obviously any of the furniture can be changed. I’d make you a better table than that one, and I’d probably even install a center island over here to give you more counter space since it doesn’t have much to work with now. Move the table back by the window over there, use the space you have a little better. Over here would make a nice play area,” I tell her, pointing behind the table, across from the living room. “I could make a small bookshelf to put against the wall there for books and toys to keep everything neat and tidy. I’m not saying the place doesn’t need some work, but it’s mostly cosmetic stuff, and it wouldn’t take too long to fix up.”
When I look back at her, she’s frowning in confusion. “What are you talking about? You want to fix it up?”
“I was thinking, if you don’t want to live at your house since it’s already so cramped but you’re not sure you can afford to leave, maybe you and the baby could live here.”
Her jaw falls open, so I hurry up and keep talking.
“It wouldn’t have anything to do with—” I gesture back at the house, lost for words to say what I mean. “I’ve got a lot of property here, and this isn’t even being used. It’s a waste. I know you’ve got a lot on your plate, and I just thought maybe it could help you out a little. I wouldn’t charge you anything to live here. Maybe you could let Scout out once in a while when I’m at work, maybe pop in and cook me a meal every now and then if you want to, but my company isn’t a catch. There are no strings to this offer. I don’t want you to think you’d have to keep sleeping with me in order to live here. It’s nothing like that—you don’t have to do anything to live here. I just don’t want you to feel like you don’t have anywhere to go, and this way the baby would have a big yard to play in, and if you did want—”
Before I can finish rambling at her, Alyssa comes back toward me, throws her arms around my neck, and hugs me.
“Oh,” I say, a little surprised. I wrap my arms around her tiny waist snugly.
“You’re such a good man, Brant,” she murmurs against my skin. “The best I ever met, hands down.”
I wasn’t sure how receptive she’d be, but I’m relieved at the way she’s reacting. Holding her a bit tighter, I tell her, “I’m glad you think so.”
“You don’t have to do all this for me, but it’s so sweet of you to offer.”
I pull back enough to look down at her. “Well, think about it before you say no. I really wouldn’t mind, and like I said, you wouldn’t have to worry about being put into an uncomfortable situation. There’s not a single string attached. You can do whatever you want out here. The cabin would be yours. I’d just be your neighbor, more or less.”
“You don’t make me uncomfortable,” she tells me, tilting her head and kissing my neck. “I don’t know why you’re so worried I’ll feel like I have to sleep with you for whatever reason. I don’t feel that way.”
“That first night—”
Pressing her finger to my lips to shut me up, she says more firmly, “I don’t feel that way.”
Slowly, I nod my head, then that finger pressed against my lips proves too tempting and I have to kiss it. Her pretty blue-green eyes remain on mine as I do, so I get to watch them soften with a sudden swell of desire. I saw it in her eyes a little bit ago, but then she started crying. Hopefully we don’t follow the same routine this time.
She still has one arm draped over my shoulder, and as I start to move my kisses along her finger, across her hand, down toward the sensitive flesh along her wrist, that arm tightens and she pulls herself closer to me.
“You said something about a bedroom?” she murmurs, peering up at me.
I crack a smile. “Two bedrooms,” I verify. “Unfortunately, I hauled the furniture out of them when I bought the place and I never replaced it. If you wanna move in, we’ll buy you a new bed.”
“I was thinking of something for more immediate use,” she says, dropping the hand I was kissing and rubbing it against the growing bulge in my pants. “As long as it has a floor, I bet we can make it work.”
“I’m sorry to tell you, sweetheart, I am too old to have sex on a hardwood floor.”
Laughing, she tells me, “You are not old—stop that.” Letting her arm skate along my shoulder and down my arm, her gaze follows appreciatively. “Besides, you’re in great shape.”
“I promise to fuck you later, when we’re in bed or you’re bent over my couch, or even on a blanket spread out on the grass, but not on hardwood floor.”
Her hand slides down until it’s entwined with mine. “Mm, picnic sex. I like it.”
“Or we could fuck on the couch while we watch Pretty Woman—then I don’t have to pay attention to the movie. I can fuck you and go right to sleep with you snuggled up on top of me. It’ll work out great.”
“Hey,” she says, wrinkling her nose up at me. “If you don’t want to watch my movie, you could just say so. We can watch something else.”
“Nah. You want to watch that, so that’s what we’ll watch.”
“I want you to enjoy my last night here,” she insists.
“I will definitely enjoy your last night here. What’s on the television won’t impact that.”
I don’t like thinking about it being her last night here, and I especially don’t like that I care one way or the other. This weekend sure has not gone the way I thought it would. On one hand, I can’t complain, because it has been nice having her here. On the other hand, now the weekend’s almost over and I’m not sure what happens next.
Not only is she still alive and breathing, and still carrying Theo’s baby, I just invited her to move onto my property so she has somewhere to raise the little rugrat. It’s bound to make my life harder if she says yes, but to hell with it.
I reach down and grab her hand. She naturally falls into step beside me as I walk her back toward the door. “We better go catch up to Scout or he’ll go down to the lake without us.”
