Total pages in book: 142
Estimated words: 136507 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 683(@200wpm)___ 546(@250wpm)___ 455(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 136507 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 683(@200wpm)___ 546(@250wpm)___ 455(@300wpm)
“I was, and now I’m here.” Her gaze drifts over the mess of opened boxes. “Looking for something?”
“A fishing rod.” I found one in the far corner. The reel needs cleaning and re-greasing but holding it in my hand again brought a wistful smile. I set it aside and kept opening boxes, curious what other memories are buried in this dusty old garage.
She nods as she folds her arms over her chest. “So, what’s this about a stash?”
She did hear that. I was hoping she hadn’t.
“No idea.” I shift to another box. More VHS movie tapes. The Goonies, A Few Good Men, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. Mom seriously kept these?
“Really, Logan?” Emery’s boots scuff against the concrete floor as she approaches, her voice laced with irritation.
I sigh. “What do you want me to tell you?”
“The truth?”
“He’s a Murphy. They lie and they steal.” I resist the urge to face her, even as that enticing floral scent I caught earlier catches my senses again. “Hank lost something and he thinks I know where it is, but I don’t.”
“What is it?”
“None of my business, is what it is. The last thing I want is to get tangled up with a Murphy.” Again.
“Sounds important if he’s still looking for it twenty years later.”
“Good luck to him.” I crack another box. Inside are old baseball gloves of various sizes that Jay and I accumulated over the years, plus at least a dozen balls. “Sarah’s boys should be using these.” The twins need something other than iPads and phones in their hands.
There’s a long pause and then Emery says, “Annie wouldn’t let anyone touch anything in here.”
I hold up the glove from my last year playing bantam level. It’s covered in my teammates’ signatures. “I told her to let it all go. Jay’s dead, and I’m not gonna have kids.”
“You don’t think so?”
My chuckle carries in the quiet space. “With who? The only woman I ever loved went and got knocked up by a douchebag who cheated on her.” Well, that was blunt, and highly unfair.
Silence answers.
Finally, I dare steal a glance over my shoulder.
Emery stands by the truck, the cowboy hat I abandoned to the floor now in her fingers, her lips parted as if she’s searching for the right response. “That make you feel better?” Her tone is dry.
“Not really,” I admit. “I won’t be having kids. I’m a criminal, remember? I have nothing to offer anyone.” I go back to my rummaging while Emery watches. In another box is my old hockey equipment. “Damn, I think I can still smell my sweat.” I hold up a skate. “Wonder if these will still fit.”
“You’ll find out soon enough. Jon builds a hockey rink every year for the kids.”
“I keep hearing about it. Not sure what that means.”
Emery snorts. “Oh, you’ll see.”
“Can’t wait.” In the box beside my gear are rolled-up posters.
“Back at the Bale House, you mentioned Dorsey,” Emery says, reorienting the conversation. “That’s the inmate who assaulted you. Why did you say his name?”
Fuck. She heard that too. “Let it go, Em.”
“You know I can’t do that.”
“Do I?” I unfurl a poster of Kurt Cobain holding his guitar, a cigarette hanging from his lips. “She really is a pack rat, huh?” I rub my thumb over the Scotch tape still pasted to the corners as raw nostalgia overwhelms me. I remember this one; it was plastered to the back of Jay’s bedroom door for years.
“Have you been to his grave yet?” Emery asks softly, changing gears.
“No.” I release the bottom and the paper curls upward. “Mom wanted to take me but …” I let the excuse drift.
“She goes pretty often. She’s the only one who does.”
“I can’t blame anyone for wanting to forget him. Jay really fucked us all, didn’t he?”
“He really did.” Emery’s voice cracks. “Do you hate him?”
I toss the poster back in the box. “Yes. No. I don’t know. I mean, I did.” There were long years when I wished he was alive just so I could choke the life out of him. “I learned to let go of that. Did me no good to hold on to it.” But now I’m back here with Emery, a spectator of the life I lost, the future I can’t have, and I fucking hate my brother all over again.
She leans against the truck, her fitted jeans hugging her thighs, that silky top grazing the last set of breasts I’ve ever touched, the afternoon before my life went to hell. I’ve played that day over and over, and that’s what I remember most—the feel of her soft, feminine skin against my fingertips.
My dick twitches.
Maybe Jameson was right and I should have found an easy fuck to get it out of my system. Though, something tells me I’ll never be able to look at Em and not feel this instant gravitational pull toward her.