The truth is that life outside my hometown was filled with shiny objects and dazzling promises. But what it lacked was something even better: the simple things.
S’mores on paper plates in the evenings with neighbors. Dottie’s chicken noodle soup when you’re sick. Your sister coming over in the middle of the night because she watched a crime documentary and is too scared to sleep alone. The ability to pick your brother up from the bar when he’s had too much to drink.
“Shake this crap off,” I mumble.
The crunch of gravel grabs my attention, and I look out the window. My brother’s car pulls next to the flagpole.
The front door of the Honey House squeaks open. By the time the door shuts, Jobe is standing in my office with a grin as wide as Tennessee.
“What?” I ask, raising a brow.
“What do you mean, ‘What’?”
“I mean, what are you looking at me like that for?”
“What am I looking at you like?”
“Like you want me to throw my stapler at you.”
He chuckles.
I jiggle the mouse on my computer. The screen comes to life with a beach scene, prompting me for my password. I type it in as my brother makes himself at home. He sits across from me and props a boot on the edge of my desk.
“Get your foot down,” I tell him.
“Sorry.” He sits up with both feet on the ground. “Better?”
“Yes.”
“Great.”
He holds my gaze. The corner of his lip slides up as if it’s trying to slide something out of me.
“Wanna tell me what this is all about?” I ask.
He relaxes back in his chair. “How’s married life treating you?”
“Good.”
“Just ‘good’? I didn’t come over last night in case you were getting some—”
“Jobe!” I sit back in my chair so hard that it rolls a little from the force. “What are you doing?”
My face heats as I look into my brother’s brown eyes. There’s a twinkle of roguery, of the troublemaker I know him to be. But despite his antics, he’s the one man I’ve been able to count on my whole life. He might come to my aid with a hangover or with a girl I don’t know—or even two, sometimes—on his arm, but he comes. Every time. It makes it hard to be irritated with him for too long.
“What?” he asks. “Is it that crazy to assume you might be screwing your husband?”
“I’m not talking about my sex life with you. That’s just . . . no. Ew.”
“Sounds to me like you might not have a sex life to talk about. Because if you aren’t fucking like rabbits on day . . . whatever it is of your marriage, then something might be wrong.”
My face is in flames. I can tell by the heat radiating from it and from Jobe’s triumphant grin.
Jerk.
“Oh my gosh,” I groan. “Can you just please go to the kitchen and get breakfast and get out of here? Don’t you have someone in this county to sell a house to?”
Instead of getting up, he settles in. I consider how much damage my stapler would actually cause. Emergency-room kind of damage I can’t handle, but he could probably superglue a wound shut himself without too much of a problem.
It might be worth it.
“I actually don’t have an appointment until noon. And I was supposed to go fishing with Aaron this morning, but he canceled on me. Lucky for you,” he says with a grin.
My head falls to the desk, and my forehead rests gently on the edge. “Please tell me you just remembered that’s not true and have to leave.”
“I—” Jobe begins but is cut off by another voice coming from the kitchen.
“Hey,” Liv shouts down the hallway.
“In here,” I call.
Jobe looks over his shoulder as our sister comes barreling into the room. She plops down in the chair next to Jobe with a hefty sigh.
She looks from me to Jobe and back to me. “Did I miss something?”
“No. Just Jobe interrogating me on my sex life, of all things,” I say, firing him a dirty look.
He grins. “Of note—there isn’t much of one to discuss.”
Liv snorts, throwing a hand through the air. “I’m going to have to call bullshit on that. There’s no way, when a woman is alone in a house with that man, of all men—no offense, Jobe. Especially when he looks at Sophie the way he does.” She leans against the armrest and looks at our brother. “She just doesn’t want to tell you the dirty details.”
“Good, because I actually don’t want them.”
“Then why are you asking?” I ask.
“I’m just trying to rile you up a little bit. It’s so easy these days.” He leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees. “He’s good for you, I think. I might have to actually like the bastard.”
“You don’t?” Liv asks. “There’s not much not to like . . .”