The Boys Down South by Abbi Glines
2
bray sutton
Last night I should have had a few beers and been done with it. But no. I had to drink a fifth of whiskey. It was my oldest brother’s bachelor party. He was the one locking it in with a woman, sharing bank accounts, a bedroom, bills, and all that shit. Not me. I should have given him my whiskey. We still had a week before the wedding, but Asher wouldn’t agree to a party where we would all stay up late drinking the night before his wedding. He wanted us all sober. He wouldn’t let Dixie down.
Instead of getting up and drinking coffee, taking a shower, and trying to feel like going to work, I was outside on the other side of our barn smoking a cigar. A Churchill reject to be exact. Tasted just as good and it didn’t hurt to pay for it. I’d bought it when this date had been set. Even then I knew I’d need it. Celebrating wasn’t my thing. Sure, I knew my brother was marrying the only woman he had ever loved. I was happy they had found that fairy-tale bullshit. But it was rare. Too fucking rare.
Seeing the spot beside Dixie Monroe not taken by her best friend would only serve as a reminder to me of what I had wanted. What I had been so damn obsessed with that I didn’t care who I hurt. My relationship with Brent, my twin, had been damaged. We had found a way to move on, to forgive, to live under the same roof. But we would never be the same. I knew that.
Taking a pull from the cigar in my hand, I looked out over the land that separated our farm from Dixie’s. I had many memories with Scarlet out there. Secret, hidden moments that I should regret. It was worse than cheating because it was cheating on my brother, but I wouldn’t go back and do it differently. Which made me an asshole but I was being honest. Scarlet was gone. Brent was moving on with Sadie something or another. She had pulled up in our drive lost about three months ago. Brent had been the one to go to her car and see if he could help. They’d talked a bit then he’d walked back out to the barn, grinning with a piece of paper in his hand.
He’d gotten the girl’s number. She was from somewhere up north. Moved down here for work. She was in life insurance. Brent had been in love after two weeks. To say it was hard to stomach would be an understatement. I wasn’t saving myself for Scarlet’s return or some crazy shit, but my heart was unattached. The women I spent time with knew I wasn’t in it for more than a good time. Until Scarlet, that’s all I was ever in it for. She’d been different. She’d seen me. She’d looked passed the fucked-up stuff others always saw. It wasn’t the bad boy she wanted. It had just been me.
“Asher just arrived with the tuxes. Wants us to try them on. Make sure they fit. No last minute problems and that shit,” Dallas, my youngest brother, said. I turned back to see him standing a few feet away. He was so much larger now. Bigger than all of us. His arms were crossed over his chest and he was frowning. As if I had done something wrong. It was a mother fucking cigar.
I held it up. “Want some?”
He walked toward me then, dropping his arms to his side. When he reached me, he held out his hand. “Sure.”
I didn’t need the whole thing. I had messed up a lot in this life. I was sure to keep messing up. But today, I would get it right. “Helps cure the hangover,” I told him.
He was too young to drink, but he’d been drinking with the rest of us last night. Technically, only Asher was of legal age to drink. But we’d been drinking since we were fifteen. I had watched Asher cut him off early. We’d lost our dad at a young age. Asher had stepped up then and helped Momma. We expected it. Respected him for it.
If I had tried to cut Dallas off, he’d have told me to fuck off. But Asher, he was going to obey. It was the respect he’d earned from all of us. Even Steel. It had helped Steel understand and let go of his own dreams of a life with Dixie. We had all known since we were kids that Dixie Monroe loved Asher. Never could figure out why Steel would ever want to be someone’s second-best anyway. Fuck that.
“Scarlet should be there. For Dixie,” Dallas said, handing the cigar back to me.
“She left all of us. Can’t say I blame her. But I sure as hell won’t forgive her,” was my response. I’d realized awhile back that her leaving was more than just running from the mess we had made. It was leaving me. What I had thought was unique. Intense. Fucking special, she hadn’t wanted to fight for.
“Don’t think she had much choice,” Dallas drawled, as if he knew and understood life.
“Ain’t the way I see it,” I said and took another pull from the cigar.
“You think she left you. And you’re stubborn and selfish enough not to forgive her for that.”
Dallas and I hadn’t talked about Scarlet in a couple months. He had tried this Doctor Phil bullshit with me then and I’d shut it down. Or rather Asher had overheard and told him to let it go. Wasn’t his business.
“She left. She made her choice. That’s all.” I would not get mad at my little brother today. My temper was an issue. Always had been. But I would control it. For Asher, I would manage. But Dallas’s stupid, immature comments were pushing me.
“She was scared, I reckon. She’d come between the two Sutton boys that were the closest of us all. I would guess she thought in the end, she’d lose you both. She’d be the one blamed.”
Walk away. That’s all I could do here. “You want the rest of this? I’m heading in to get something to eat.”
Dallas took the cigar from me, but he still had that concerned crease in his brow. It reminded me of our father. The few images I still held of him in my memories. That crease was his. One day I’d tell Dallas that. But not today. Because I needed to get some of Momma’s breakfast and stop listening to him blab on about Scarlet.
“I know where she is,” Dallas blurted out as I was walking back to the house. I almost paused. Almost looked back at him and asked him, “How? Where?” but I didn’t. She had made her choice. When the time came to fight, she left me here. Fucking broken, lost, and unsure when my chest wouldn’t feel as if it had been crushed.
It had taken time, but I was back to living my life as I had before she changed things. She was gone. She hadn’t contacted me once. But apparently, she’d been in touch with Dallas. Which was just another twist of the sword she’d jabbed in my back. Didn’t matter. This week I had other things to focus on. Like helping Asher move out and into the apartment in town he and Dixie were renting. Then there would be the wedding. I’d have bridesmaids to distract me. Scarlet’s absence would soon be forgotten, as I found the easiest kind of relationship. The kind that ended with a slap on some female’s naked ass before I told her thanks and sent her on home.
“I invited her!” Dallas called out again.
I let the kitchen door slam on his words and went straight to the coffee pot.
“Slam my door again and you’ll be building and hanging me a new one,” Momma barked from her spot at the stove.
“Sorry,” I muttered.
“Get it together, boy. We got stuff needs doing and a wedding to prepare for. Asher needs you this week. You remember that.”
I took a drink of the black coffee. Anyone else talked to me that way while I was wound tight from Dallas’s news and I’d have shut them down quickly with a few words. But there was one person on this earth I would not talk back to: my momma.
“Yes, Ma’am,” I said this time and looked her way, so she could see in my eyes I meant it.
