The Boys Down South by Abbi Glines

13

asher

“You better eat them biscuits. I didn’t get up and fix them for you just to look at them,” Momma said, as she stared at my plate and the food I’d barely touched. My appetite was gone. Vanished.

“Yes, Momma,” I replied before I forced a bite into my mouth and chewed.

Steel had hurried up, finished his breakfast, then left. Didn’t even look me in the eye, not once. That was good. He needed to keep his distance until I was able to calm down.

“Can I have another?” Dallas asked like a damn five-year-old.

“Go get it yourself! She’s not your waitress!” I snapped at him angrily.

His eyes got big as he stood up with his plate and headed to the stove.

“Okay, what’s got you all tied up in knots? You weren’t here this morning and Bray was out looking for you while the rest of them tried to distract me. I raised every one of you. I know when you don’t come home at night and I know when Dallas is trying to charm me so that someone else can get away with something.”

Dallas smirked as he sat down with another plate of biscuits smothered in tomato gravy. “Figures.” He laughed.

I refused to tell Momma what was wrong. There was no reason for her to suffer that kind of pain right now. She had good memories of my dad and it needed to stay that way. Telling her wouldn’t make it any better. Hurting her for no reason was unnecessary.

“I’m adjusting to being home again. Steel broke it off with Dixie and I’m not gonna lie, I’m glad. Dixie needs to move on and not with one of my brothers.”

I hoped my voice didn’t betray me. Damn, it sounded like it did.

Momma cocked an eyebrow and sat down across from me with a cup of coffee in her hand. “I call BS,” she said then sipped her coffee and studied me. “BS, you hear me. I don’t buy it,” making her point now more aggressively.

“Momma, let’s just leave him alone,” Bray said. He was the only one brave enough to say something like that to Momma. Except for me, and I wasn’t speaking.

Momma turned to glare down the table at Bray who was now looking like a little boy with his hand caught in the cookie jar. I would’ve laughed, if I wasn’t so fucked-up. Dallas and Brent both snickered. They knew what was coming next.

“I don’t recall asking you what to do. I carried him for nine months and through ten hours of labor. Then I cleaned his nasty butt, nursed him when he was sick, held his hand while he got stitches, and let him puke all over me whenever he got food poisoning. So do not tell me what I can and can’t do. If and when I want to know about one of my boys, I will ask and get an answer. And you might be next, so shut your mouth and eat your breakfast. You’re in my house.”

Bray dropped his head and replied meekly, “Yes, ma’am.”

Momma swung her attention back to me. “Now, last time I checked, you kicked that sweet Dixie Monroe to the curb, without even a backward glance. Wouldn’t say a word or look at her. I was worried about you getting too serious. You were young, so I didn’t push it. But three years have passed and when you should be attached to some girl you’ve met at college by now, you’re back here still looking heartbroken. Ain’t right. Don’t make sense to me. When a man looks like you, he has women beating down his door. But you’re alone. Explain that to me! It has to be you pushing them away. Steel loves that girl. He’s bought her a ring, God knows he can’t afford, and now he’s broken up with her two days after you get home. I smell shit. S.H.I.T.”

I glanced down the table at Bray, but he was eating and not looking our way. Momma had put him in his place. Brent was watching us with worry in his eyes. He knew I couldn’t tell Momma the truth. They all did, but not one of them was trying to help me out. Suddenly, they were all mute.

“Maybe he didn’t love her enough. Enough to fight for her and make sure she was protected from everything that could hurt her. Maybe he wouldn’t sacrifice his happiness for hers. Maybe…” I stopped and stood up. “Momma, I love you, but I can’t talk about this. Not right now,” I said, leaving my plate on the table and heading for the door. If Steel could run out, so could I. Facing Momma right now wasn’t the best idea.

“You found them letters…now, didn’t you?” Momma’s words stopped me as my hand touched the screen. I froze. The letters. If she knew about the letters, then she knew…

What the fuck?

Turning around, I looked at her and saw the sadness in her eyes. “What letters?” I needed her to spell it out. If she was referring to the letters I found, then she shouldn’t have allowed Steel or me anywhere near Dixie Monroe in the first place.

“The letters from that woman to your daddy. I didn’t know where he hid them. But three years ago, you found them, didn’t you?” She nodded as if I’d confirmed this. “I wondered once back then when you looked so miserable, but then I thought, no, surely not. If you found something like that, you’d ask me about it, but you never did, so I figured it was something else. Now I see I made a grave mistake.”

I stared at my mother. She knew. But she… “Why would you let us, let me be with Dixie that way if you knew?” I was trying to grasp the fact that my mother had knowingly allowed Steel and myself to commit incest. The fucking world that I knew was imploding before me.

Momma stood up and shook her head. “I’d have never let such a thing happen. That girl ain’t your daddy’s child. Luke Monroe has a paternity test that proves Dixie is his. Millie Monroe was the most beautiful woman in the county and probably the state, too. She could seduce a man like nothing I’d ever seen, but that woman, she was insane. Mentally screwed-up, I tell you. She set her sights on your daddy and that meant she eventually got him. Your daddy was a man, that’s the only excuse I got for him back then and now. I forgave him a long time ago. Understand this, he never stopped trying to make it up to me. He did love me, he just let temptation get the best of him. Not the first and definitely not the last man to do that.”

If my daddy were still alive, I’d go kill him right now. Listening to my momma talk about him being seduced by another woman pissed the hell out of me.

“When I was gone to the doctor one day, Millie came to the barn and, well…she did some things any man would have a hard time refusing. Your daddy made a mistake. Then,” she sighed and added, “Millie came back and did it again a few more times after that. Your daddy was weak, so when Millie got pregnant, we didn’t know if it could be your daddy’s child. He admitted it to me right then. Everything he’d done. I was pregnant with Steel at the time. I had three babies I was taking care of and money was tight, you see. Your daddy used Millie as an escape from the troubles we were going through. I thought I’d leave him for a while, but he was so pitiful, and I loved him very much. It took a couple of years, but I finally forgave him. Anyway, when that little girl was born, I wanted a paternity test. So did your daddy. If that baby was his, we needed to know, but it wasn’t. Dixie was Luke’s. Period.”

“Holy fuck,” Bray swore, reminding me we weren’t alone, my brothers were still sitting there and listening to every word.

“Can’t believe I was even born. You shoulda killed him,” Dallas muttered.

Momma turned around and faced the others. “I loved that man. He loved and adored all of you. He was a good man who had weak moments. He made a mistake and I forgave him. It don’t change the fact you were his whole world. He loved each of you.” Her tone was determined and it showed she meant what she was saying. I wasn’t sure I could ever forgive the man, but he was gone and being mad at him was pointless. In the end, he’d left us all anyway.

Momma looked back to me. “Where were those letters?” she asked.

“Loose floorboard in the attic,” I told her.

She nodded. “I should have checked that place out before I let you move up there. I knew you were sweet on that girl. She looks just like her momma, but she ain’t a thing like her. She’s got her daddy’s heart, and Luke Monroe is as good a man as you’ll find. He tried to make it work with Millie, even when he knew she was crazy. Millie ran off and left him with that little girl, and it was the best thing that could’ve happened, both for Dixie and Luke. She didn’t need that woman in her life. She turned out to be a fine young woman. The day I heard Millie had dropped dead out in California, I didn’t even feel pity. I felt nothing but relief that she’d never try and come back into Dixie’s life. Dixie is a beautiful woman inside and out.” Momma paused, then reached over and squeezed my arm. “A woman your brother loved enough to propose to. Remember that, okay, Asher?”

Remember that. There was no forgetting.

Three Years Ago…

I couldn’t sleep. Dixie’s face and the sounds she made while I’d been inside her the first time replayed over and over in my mind. It was a memory that would never grow old. I also wanted to do it again and again until neither of us could walk. I thought being with Dixie couldn’t get any better. I’d been wrong. The sex was life-changing. Feeling her naked against me, her thighs open, their insides pressed against my hips had felt like heaven on earth. Nothing that felt that good could ever be wrong.

I’d had sex with eight other girls in the past, all of them older than me and with tricks that I hadn’t known until they taught me. I appreciated those lessons. I enjoyed every one of them. I was a guy, so I won’t deny it. That sex was amazing. But none of those experiences had prepared me for how it would feel sliding inside Dixie for the first time, knowing I loved her. I didn’t want to hurt her; I wanted it to be a memory she could cherish forever. I’d been about to explode inside her when her nails dug into my back and she cried my name with a scream. Dixie’s head was thrown back, her body trembling with release, and I could feel her pleasure churning through her body like a twister. I knew from Bray’s stories that virgins didn’t orgasm the very first time, and even though I’d wanted that for Dixie, I didn’t expect it. I just wanted her to enjoy it.

While standing in the middle of my bedroom, I decided to move the furniture. I wanted to bring Dixie up here one evening, maybe next week when Momma was at church and my brothers were all gone. I wanted to be with her, here in my room. The squeaky floor under the bed would be an issue if we ever did it late at night when everyone was here and asleep. I wanted to be with her in a bed and not in the grass for once. She didn’t seem to mind the blanket on the grass by the lake nor did she mind my truck. But she deserved more than that.

It had been three weeks since we made love the first time, but we’d managed to do it as often as we could since then. Dixie was sore the first few times and I’d been taking it easy with her. But the more we did it, the wilder she was getting. The memory of her begging me last night was giving me a boner. I had those a lot lately just thinking of Dixie.

The shower would ease me some, but that was always just a short-lived release. I couldn’t seem to get her off my mind even after thrusting my cock into my hand in the shower. I was going to need to wear myself out. I could move furniture, then clean. My room needed it, especially if I was going to bring Dixie up here and make love to her in my bed.

I moved the bed away from the wall. Then I stepped into the space to make sure the headboard didn’t break because I’d yanked it sideways from the dry wall. The floor beneath my left foot moved and made a soft clunking sound. That had to be the source of the squeak. I looked down at the loose board now catty-cornered under my foot. I hadn’t noticed it when I first moved up here. But then I’d had my bed sitting over this spot all along.

I squatted, grabbed the board to see if it could be nailed down, but my eyes found something else. Something that had been hidden there for a very long time. I didn’t know that yet, but I was curious. I picked the old shoe box up, anxious to open it, the idea of there being a family heirloom inside exciting me to no end.

I sat on the edge of my bed and slowly opened the box. Several letters were inside, folded neatly one on top of the other. I lifted one from the pile and wondered if I should open it, if I had any right to do it. If they contained secrets, maybe those secrets were meant to stay hidden for a reason.

My curiosity got the best of me. I carefully unfolded the pages. The words were handwritten and as I read them slowly, my world as I knew it began to change. Darkness engulfed me and any joy, any happiness I felt, was ripped from me one word at a time. I wanted to stop reading and burn the whole box, watch it catch fire and pretend I never read any of it…but I knew I couldn’t. Every single word was seared into my brain forever. I read every letter, every page. I knew I had to break the heart of the only girl I’d ever love, even if that love was all wrong.