Only One (Reed Brothers)

Nick

The house that Mrs. Michaels owns is huge. And there’s an even bigger one on the left, and the one that the douche is staying in is on the right. As I walk around the corner of the house, I stumble to a stop when I see a group of men unloading a truck. They’re all blonds and they have tattoos everywhere. One of them looks up at me and lifts his hand.

“Hi,” I say, and I jog over to them. “Do you need some help?”

They have the back of a truck completely loaded with coolers, suitcases, and baby stuff. Baby stuff? “I don’t think so,” the biggest one says. He looks familiar to me, but I can’t place where I’ve seen him.

I stick out my hand. “I’m Nick.”

He reaches out and takes my hand as the others keep hauling things into the house. “Paul,” he says.

Then it hits me. I know who they are. Holy shit. I look toward the door the other ones went through. They’re the Reeds from that new reality TV show. “Seriously?” I say. A grin that is probably the cheesiest thing ever tugs at my lips.

He scratches his head. “We’re kind of on vacation,” he says.

“Oh.” They probably get recognized everywhere they go. “You don’t want anyone to know.”

He shakes his head. “No, not at all. We’re here for the month. We’ll be filming at the beach festival.”

“Doing tattoos?” I ask.

He nods. “The girls will be here soon with the kids.” He points to Carrie’s house. “Do you live there?”

“No, my girlfriend does. Well, she’s not my girlfriend yet. But she’s going to be. She just doesn’t know it yet.” I can’t believe I just said all that. Crap.

He chuckles and swipes a hand down his face like he wants to wipe his grin away. It doesn’t work though. He probably thinks I’m an idiot.

“So you guys are bringing all the kids?” I ask. There are a lot of them.

His eyes narrow a little. “You watch the show?”

“Every week.” I brush a hand through my hair, trying to look like I’m not star-struck. “It’s not like I’m a stalker or anything, though.”

“I didn’t assume you were.” He pulls a few boxes to the edge of the tailgate. The brothers come out the back door, their arms empty. Shit. That’s Logan, Pete, Matt, and Sam. In real life!

“Okay, I might be a little bit of a stalker,” I admit. They introduce themselves and I stand there like a little kid waiting for a snow cone on a hot summer day. “But just, like, the I-really-admire-you kind. Not the I-want-to-steal-your-personal-effects kind.”

Paul nods. “O-kay,” he says slowly. He lifts a hand to me and goes inside, grinning the whole way.

“I guess I’ll see you guys around,” I shout.

“Hey wait,” one of them calls. I turn around and see that it’s Matt. “Do you know where we can get some firewood?”

“It’s summer,” I remind him.

“We want to have a little fire on the beach. Roast some marshmallows.”

Duh. Of course they do. “I can get you some.”

His brow arches. “Before tonight?”

I nod. “I’ll take care of it.”

“Thanks, man,” he says, and he goes inside. He sticks his head back out. “See you later?”

I nod.

I just freaking met the Reeds.

A series of cars arrives in the drive. Women start to pour out of the vehicles, along with kids. I grin, because I know who they all are. Every last one. I wave to them and walk away. But wait…Friday’s not pregnant anymore. She was still pregnant last week on the show. She removes a car seat with a baby in it. I guess I know where the kid is now.

I have to get to work, or I’m going to be late.

###

After work, I go and pick up firewood for the Reeds, and I stack it neatly by their garage door. They’re down on the beach with their whole family, and it looks like there’s a camera crew with them. A small crowd has gathered around them, but some big guys are holding the perimeter. I have no idea what it’s like to be famous, but I imagine it’s hard.

I don’t need to bother them, because they’ll find the firewood when they come up from the beach.

I go home to take a quick shower. Malone is there when I arrive and I can hear him griping at Jackie from outside. I step into the trailer and close the door behind me. They immediately go silent. “What’s up?” I ask. I look from one to the other and back. They both avoid my gaze, though.

“Nothing,” Malone bites out. He flops onto the couch and flips the TV on.

Jackie follows me into my room and sits down on the edge of my bed.

“What did you do now?” I ask, as I pull my shirt over my head and walk toward the bathroom.

“He has his panties in a twist because he caught me talking to Dale.” She lies back and scoots up to put her head on my pillow.

I freeze. She went to see the douche? “Why were you talking to him?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know.” Her voice is small.

“After what he did to you last summer, you had better be smart enough to stay away from him.” I stand there and stare at her until she nods. She bites her lower lip and wipes tears from her eyes.

He really left her in a bad place. She was pregnant, and he didn’t care. I thought she’d learned her lesson, but I guess not. I was the one who held her hand through all that. I was the one who stayed up with her all night while she miscarried. I was the one who watched her blame herself for the way that it ended.

I start the shower, knowing she’s going to follow me in there in just a minute. As soon as I put my head under the spray, she starts to talk. “Dale went and talked to my dad.”

I push the curtain back. “And?”

“Dad likes him.” She sits down on the toilet lid.

“So?” Her dad isn’t a shining example of humanity’s finest.

“So, he suggested I go and get an ice cream with Dale. So I did. That’s what Malone saw. That’s all he saw. Nothing more.”

I heave a sigh. “If you let him back in, I’m not going to try to stop you this time.” I will, though. I always will. But I don’t want to.

“He was a douche. He’s still a douche. He even tried to grab my boob.”

“And what did you do?” I blow water from my lips and wait.

She doesn’t say anything, so I look out and find her wincing.

“What did you do?” I ask again.

“I kind of shoved my ice cream in his pants. I just grabbed his waistband and shoved it right down there. I think he thought I was going for his dick, but whatever.” She shrugs.

I turn the water off and reach my arm out, because I know she’ll be there with a towel. I feel it hit my hand and pull it into the shower with me. “I’m proud of you,” I say.

She grins when I step out of the shower. I love it when Jack’s happy. It doesn’t happen that often, but when it does, it’s so worth taking the time to enjoy it.

I shoo Jack out of my room and get dressed in some khaki shorts and a polo shirt, and I shake my head instead of brushing my hair. It works for me. I put on some flip-flops and press a kiss to Jack’s forehead. “You going to hang out here?”

She nods. “For a while.”

She looks at Malone, who is busy ignoring her on the couch. She shrugs at me. She’ll wait him out, and then they’ll talk. It’s how they work it out.

“Have fun tonight,” she calls. I wave at her and let myself out.

It’s a short walk to Carrie’s beach house.

I knock on the door, but no one comes to greet me. The back door is locked, and I know I could use my key, but I don’t want to walk in on her in her underwear again—

Scratch that. I want to see her in her underwear. I just don’t want to surprise her. I run around to the beach side and stop short when I see her sitting on the deck with the douchebag.

She jumps to her feet. “Nick,” she says, like she’s surprised to see me.

“Carrie,” I say. I nod to the douche. “Dale. Heard you got your nuts frozen off today,” I toss out. I step up beside Carrie onto the deck and take her hand in mine. She startles for a second, but she lets me tangle my fingers up in hers.

“Jackie has a big mouth,” Dale says. Then he grins. “But we already know how big everything she’s got is, don’t we?” he asks, his eyes narrowing as he challenges me.

I’m not going to answer that, so I tug on Carrie’s fingers and say, “Are you ready to go?”

She nods. But she’s looking curiously at me. And then at Dale. “It was nice to meet you,” she says.

“I’ll see you around,” he says, but he looks at me instead of her. He gets up and skips down the steps toward his own house.

“Is your mom here?” I ask.

She nods. “She came home a little while ago, but she wasn’t feeling well so she went to lie down.”

“I wanted to say hi.”

“Maybe tomorrow?” she prompts.

I wait a beat, and then I ask. “Is she going to be okay?”

She shakes her head. “No.” She finally meets my gaze. “She’s dying.” She looks away. “Can we talk about something else?”

I look out toward the ocean, because it has always been a peaceful place for me. I take a breath and try to move past the feeling I have. “I was thinking we could walk down to the pier and eat at the restaurant there.”

“Sounds great.”

“Do you need to tell your mom you’re leaving?”

She shakes her head. “No. I don’t need to check in with Patty about anything.”

We walk down the steps until we reach the sand, and she stops to slip her shoes off and hooks them in the fingertips of her free hand.

“Why do you call her Patty?”

Her jaw ticks. “I don’t want to talk about my mom.”

“Okay,” I say slowly.

“Are you going to college?” she asks.

“No, college isn’t for me. I have too much to do here.”

She bends over and picks up a pretty shell, turning it over in her hand. She holds it up. “Look, it’s the color of the sky,” she says and then she slips it into her pocket. She smiles at me, and I swear it nearly knocks me off my feet.

She’s wearing a pretty, flirty little dress that blows around her knees in the wind. It’s soft and wispy, and so is her hair. I reach up and tug a piece free that’s stuck to her lips.

“Are you going to college?” I ask.

She nods and skips ahead of me to pick up a piece of sea glass. “UNC Charlotte.”

“Staying close to home, huh?” I ask.

She nods. “I don’t want to leave my dad all alone.”

“He didn’t come this year, did he?”

“No, they’re divorced.”

“Carrie,” I say softly, “why don’t you talk about your mom?”

She shrugs. “She’s not my mom anymore. She’s just that woman who left.”

“I don’t understand.”

“She left. And she never came back. She never came to see me, or had me visit her. She just left. She took off with her boyfriend and she vanished. She completely forgot me. So, now that she’s dying, she wants to rebuild what she tore down. I’m just not interested. Not at all.”

“But she’s dying,” I say quietly.

“That doesn’t change anything,” she says stubbornly.

But it does. It changes everything. Absolutely everything.