Walk on the Wilder Side by Serena Bell

4

Rachel

“Rachel,” my mom says. “I need your help.”

I turn to look at her. She’s sitting on the couch, both feet on the coffee table, soft cast resting on a pillow. She’s propped up with all the other throw cushions and surrounded by books, her tablet for streaming movies, water bottles, and snacks.

“What is it, Mami?” I ask, ready to give her whatever she asks for.

Since I arrived back home, my mother has been desperately trying to snap me out of my funk. Smothering me with fragrant hugs. Cooking my favorite meals, fricase de pollo, carne con papa, lechon asado with all the fixings. She told me she never liked Werner anyway; he took me for granted (probably true) and had a stick up his butt. That comment caused me to have a terrible flashback to his rearview.

Finally, when all else failed to cheer me up, she introduced me to Crash Landing on You, her favorite Korean drama. Even though she was on episode thirteen and watching with me meant she had to start over.

Then a couple of days ago she took me to Rush Creek for retail therapy and broke her foot, because apparently Mercury is in an actual shame spiral.

Since then, our positions have reversed, and I’ve been doing anything I can to make her comfortable.

“Don’t say no until you hear the whole thing.”

Uh, oh. That sounds ominous. I take a deep breath, cross my arms, and prepare myself.

“I need you to help with my business.”

“Your business?” I ask. To say I’m surprised is an understatement. My mom is efficient, busy, and organized, so, yeah, she could run a business, but I have never heard a hint about her starting one.

“You know your abuelita has been struggling a bit lately.”

I do know. My grandmother is getting older, and both her knees are bothering her. She can’t manage as well for herself as she used to, and my mother has been talking for almost a year now about moving her out to Rush Creek from New York City.

“I got an apartment for her,” my mom says.

“Oh!” I say. “That’s great!” I’ve almost forgotten that we’re in the middle of a story that started with Don’t say no until you hear the whole thing. I’m just incredibly happy for my mom and my grandmother, who have always been super close, even after my parents moved to Oregon for my dad’s forest service job. Ever since I was a little girl, my abuelita has visited for a long stretch every year, and one of the reasons I’ve loved being on the East Coast is because I’ve gotten to see her more frequently. I’ll be sad to be far away from her again—but it’ll be worth it to know she’s safe, well-looked-after, and near my mom.

My mom sighs. “But the budget’s too tight, so I got a job. I’m doing sales. Like Josie does—with the essential oils, but this is more like body lotions and self-care items.”

“You mean a pyramid scheme,” I say, laughing.

She shakes her head. “No. This one’s legit. No money up front, no recruiting bonuses, just healthy commissions. And I’m making good money. I just need to add more parties. I scheduled a bunch, but then, this.” She points to her foot. “So I’m wondering. Do you think you could stay, just till it heals, and help?”

“What would I need to do?”

“It’s not hard,” she says. “You just need to be my legs, basically. You deal with food and drinks and carrying the bins of merchandise. You bring me things, and I’ll do the talking. I know you want to get back to Boston as soon as possible—”

I shake my head. Yes, I want to go back to Boston—but there is no way I’m leaving my mom in the lurch. “Of course, Mami. Of course I’ll help.”

The doctor said five weeks to heal the foot, and almost a week has already passed. I can start the job-hunting process just as well here as in Boston. I won’t have to look for an apartment, because Louisa is letting me sublet a room in hers.

I bet in another four weeks, I’ll have stopped crying at unpredictable intervals, which will make me a much stronger candidate in job interviews.

My mom points a finger at me.

“And if you hear anyone at the Wilder party say ‘self-care,’ ‘spa,’ ‘self-indulgence,’ ‘girls’ night’ or anything remotely in that category, point me in their direction. I need to double the number of parties I’m doing now to reach the goal I set for myself.”

“Will do,” I tell her.

The housewarming party at Gabe Wilder’s is my mom’s latest, and most blatant, attempt at cheering me up.

“Mamita,” she said this morning, when she informed me that we were going, broken foot and all. My mom was born and raised in the U.S., and doesn’t use Spanish much except when she’s talking to her older relatives, but it shows up occasionally, especially in her favorite term of endearment. “Five Wilder brothers. You can’t be in a bad mood when you’re surrounded by those boys.”

“Mami,” I said sternly. “This isn’t some get-back-on-the-horse thing, is it?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said innocently. “I wouldn’t try to fix you up with a Wilder. Your brother would have my head on a platter. Besides. I know you. You wouldn’t move back to Rush Creek if we paid you a million dollars. You couldn’t wait to get out of here.”

There’s a note of sadness in her voice, but she’s been amazing overall about the fact that I live on the other side of the country and can visit only a couple of times a year. Cuban families tend to stick close together, but since she and my dad moved far from family, she wasn’t surprised that I did the same. And she’s right about the fact that I’ve never thought about coming back.

It wasn’t that I hated Rush Creek so much. It was fine. But I wanted to live in a city. And I have. Four years in Seattle, at the University of Washington, and then grad school in Boston, where I’ve stayed. At this point, I can’t imagine coming back here for good. No: My plan is to regroup, dry my eyes, and go back to Boston with a job on the hook.

And that’s still my plan—I’m just adding an item to it:

Get Abuelita to Rush Creek for Mami.

My mother was right:The Wilder brothers are good for the soul.

I help my mom walk around the house and into the backyard, where the party is in full swing, and am blinded by the glare of all that Wilder beauty.

I grew up with them, but time has actually improved them. Picture the five best-looking white guys you can imagine, dressed for the summer weather in sporty shorts and t-shirts that look like they were custom made to cling to and drape over sculpted pecs, broad shoulders, and ridged abs. Five pairs of thickly muscled legs divinely graced with just the right amount of curly hair, and five pairs of strong, tanned forearms with more perfect brawn.

Actually, only four of them are here.

Clark—imagine a brooding Viking warrior, beard and all—and Easton—pretty boy to the stars, with a smile so high-wattage he probably doesn’t need charcoal starter—are manning the grill, drawing a small circle of chatty women. Easton is managing them like a trained pro, because Clark doesn’t talk much these days, and he definitely doesn’t flirt—not since his wife passed away last year. Gabe—tall, dark, handsome, and commanding like an outdoorsy Mr. Darcy—is circulating with a pretty blond I recognize as his new girlfriend. And Kane—boy-next-door handsome and kind to everyone—is helping a few kids roast marshmallows over a small fire pit.

Brody Wilder, who also doubles as my brother Connor’s best friend, is not here.

And believe me, I noticed.

Anyone would. It’s like the Wilder set is missing its “bad boy” paper doll.

I can’t decide how I feel about Brody’s absence. On one hand, I’ve had a crush on him since I was, I don’t know, six years old, and fantasizing about him has given me hours of personal entertainment.

On the other hand, if Brody’s not here, he can’t make me feel like a speck of dust clinging to the side of a mountain merely by not noticing that I exist.

Tough call.

I greet all the present Wilders—four brothers, their mom, Barb, and—

“Rachel!!!”

Amanda Wilder flings herself into my arms.

We give each other one of those rocking, shaking hugs, and then she checks me out all over like she’s making sure I’m still intact.

I feel like the answer is barely. But a little better each day.

“How are things?” she demands, and then, before I can answer, “How long are you in town?” and then, “When can we get together?” and then, “Crap, follow me, I have to chase Kieran.”

I do, and three-year-old Kieran, who like both his siblings is obviously in training to become beautiful like his mom and uncles, takes us on a jog to the front of the house, where he climbs into the rocking chair on the front porch and announces that he’s riding a horse.

“Thank God—that will keep him still for a few minutes,” Amanda says, out of breath, laughing. “So, now. Tell me everything.”

“I don’t know where to start,” I say, laughing, too, because her joy is that infectious.

“What brings you back to town so soon? You were just here, weren’t you?”

I nod. “Life implosion.”

I give her the quick-and-dirty version, leaving out the disturbing visuals. And that one awful second where I was actually excited that my fiancé was talking about marriage to me with his dangly parts still damp from another woman.

“Oh, my God,” she says. “Did you knee him in the naked ’nads?”

“No,” I admit. “But I probably should have.”

“So are you moving back to Rush Creek?”

“No! No,” I repeat, less vigorously, “I’m just visiting. And helping my mom with her new business.”

“Ahhh,” says Amanda. “I have heard her girls’ night out parties are hot. Ask her if she’ll do one for me and Lucy and Hanna—”

“What are you signing me up for?” Hanna demands, stepping out onto the porch. She’s Kane’s business partner and an honorary Wilder. Also, I wish I could pull off a pixie-cut the way she can—or that I was half as in shape. “Did I hear those accursed words, girls’ night out?”

“You’ll like this one,” Amanda says. “Promise.”

Hanna scowls, and Amanda starts to elaborate, but Kieran gets bored with the rocking chair, dismounts chair and porch, and hurries back toward the backyard.

“I got him,” Hanna says, and gives chase.

Amanda turns back to me and says something, but the growl of an engine drowns her out as a motorcycle takes the turn into the Wilder driveway a little too fast, kicking up wood chips and dust. It comes to a stop and Brody dismounts, removing his helmet and setting it down. The sun catches a glint in his hair, of course. He pushes his fingers through it, a habit he’s had since childhood. His hair is always disheveled, which takes nothing away from it.

Ohhh, Brody Wilder, you are a work of art. A scowl-y, troubled, troubling work of art.

He’s wearing bad-ass motorcycle boots, a form-fitting black t-shirt that shows off spectacular pecs and ripped abs, leather cuff bracelets on both wrists—one braided, one looped with chain—and a pair of ripped jeans.

As he gets closer, I try not to track each and every rip, but it’s tough, and my eyes find the one at the top of his thigh, where the golden hair on his thick quads peeks through. My fingers itch to touch it. It’s tough to look away.

I discover Amanda is watching me drool over Brody, amused. She raises her eyebrows at me, and I mouth, Sorry.

“No worries,” she says. “I’m really fucking used to it.”

It’s possible I look alarmed, because she hastily adds, “I mean, not just him. All of them.”

“Hey.”

Brody utters the monosyllable in a honey-rich voice that I feel somewhere right below my belly button. Or, say, six inches lower.

I’m somewhat shocked to discover that he seems to be addressing me, or at least my general vicinity.

Brody Wilder doesn’t talk much, and he never talks to me.

I got used to it during my long teen years when I pined for him and he seemed not to know I existed, except for the occasional, “Oh, hey, Rach,” when he was at our house and I was impossible to ignore. Like, standing right in front of him.

“Oh, hey, Rach,” Brody says, when he reaches Amanda’s side, which I guess means he wasn’t addressing me with the first “hey.” Big surprise there.

“How are things?” I ask him, because making conversation is the polite thing to do in situations like this.

He shrugs.

Right.

I don’t know if he hates me? Or just finds me so boring as to not be worth his time? Or…?

“Well,” says Brody. “Guess I’ll head into the backyard.”

“I’m surprised you showed up,” Amanda says. “Given that rumor has it Gabe’s gunning for you.”

Brody scowls. “He already laid into me. Figure I’m safe enough here with everyone around.”

In response to my raised eyebrow, Amanda says, “The guys are trying to revamp their business to change with the times, and it’s a better fit for some than others.”

I’d heard a little bit about this plan from my mom and Connor. Just about the time the Rush Creek rodeo failed, a hot spring popped to the surface—apparently, hot springs naturally come and go on their own. The arrival of this one ushered in a whole lot of wedding-and-spa businesses. And the Wilders are trying to win over those tourists, because outdoor adventuring has taken a big hit recently.

Brody’s permanent scowl deepens. “Book-club-on-a-boat,” he says, darkly, to me. It’s the most words he’s said to me in a decade.

“Sounds fun?” I hazard, and the scowl settles into permanence. Yeah. He doesn’t like me. I catalog the black-and-gray ink on his arms instead of sulking about his attitude. His tattoos are gorgeous, complex patterns—rain on a window, a school of interlocking fish, waves.

It must have taken someone hours to ink them—and it must have been a long, painful experience for Brody.

I bet he didn’t even flinch.

Why is that so unbelievably hot to imagine? Brody, grim-faced and stoic under the needle.

Why, Rachel? Why are you having underpants feelings for a man who doesn’t speak complete sentences to you?

Long, long habit.

Brody and Connor have been friends practically since birth, and I don’t think I can actually remember the first time I realized I had an all-consuming, brain-melting crush on Brody.

What I do know is that Brody bought his first motorcycle while I was still in high school, which meant I got to watch him ride it in town, denim-clad thighs securely gripping it.

That fueled lots of fantasies, not that, in a million years, I ever would have indulged even one of them. If he’d shown up at my doorstep on that thing—assuming Connor didn’t kill him first—I would have told him no thank you. Motorcycles are dangerous. I was too busy doing my schoolwork ahead of time and offering to help my parents with absolutely everything, strategies that let me carve out my own place, different from my brother’s with his wild-child antics.

I was not too busy to lust after Brody though.

“You know what you should bring on the boat, Brody?” Amanda says. “Rachel’s mom’s girls’ nights out. That would be a kick.”

Brody’s head snaps up and, wait, this cannot be, but yes, he is looking at me. Full-on blazing green eye contact for a fraction of a second. Then he looks away again, and thank God, because I was in danger of going up in flames like an ant caught in a magnified sunbeam.

“Yeah. Connor said something about that.” He fidgets with an object in his hand. It looks like a miniature rabbit’s foot, small, black, and fuzzy.

I feel a sudden blaze of sympathy for Brody, who has always struck me as desperately wanting to do right without knowing quite how to. I present as evidence the time it started to pour and he stopped his truck and gave me and my bike a ride home. And the time he bought me a new lunch after I dropped my tray in the cafeteria. And the time he drove me home from the one—literally only—party I have ever gotten drunk at, and didn’t tell Connor or my parents.

He didn’t say a word to me in any of those cases, except “You’re welcome,” when I said, “Thank you.”

That’s how I know that under that gruff, bad boy exterior, a kind heart beats.

I say, “Brody?”

He looks surprised that I’ve addressed him by name, but then, if our situations were reversed, I would be, too, right?

“Yeah?”

“If you’ll forgive my assumption here,” I say, “you don’t seem like party-hosting is your jam.”

He shakes his head.

“If you let us, my mom and I can take care of all of that. You just provide the venue.”

I deeply hope this is true, and that my mother doesn’t kill me later, but I remind myself that I’m mainly doing this for her, so she has no grounds for complaining. “If you’re interested, let me or my mom know. I’m sure we can make it happen.”

“I, uh, might be,” he says.

Amanda makes a soft, choking sound.

“You okay?” I ask her.

“Swallowed wrong,” she says, gesturing to her plastic cup of beer.

“Okay,” I say. “I’ll talk to my mom about it.”

“I’ll give you my phone number,” Brody says, holding out his hand.

1) That was definitely a full sentence, and 2) He’s asking for my phone. So he can enter his number in it.

My fourteen-year-old self squees so loudly and for so long that Brody says, impatiently, “Your phone.”

I dig it out and hand it over, and he taps his digits in, then hands it back.

I’m doing this for Mom, I tell myself.

And Abuelita.

I am so full of it.