I spent the weekend watching sports with you, take me shopping now?
“It must be good pussy to keep going back,” Mason notes.
I shrug. “It’s okay.”
“Just okay?” Mason’s brows rise incredulously. It’s the first time I’ve so much as hinted that things between Stacey and me aren’t hot and heavy. I’ve had a reputation to uphold, but honestly, I’m just tired right now. “Time to move on.”
“I plan on it,” I say, not going into detail that we were together just two months ago. I had a particularly rough shift at the trauma center and burn victims are some of the hardest to treat and to see.
It’s worse when said victims are children…burned by the result of evil, vile parents who inflicted the burns as a form of punishment.
A brother and sister were airlifted to us, and we lost the three-year-old girl. I put the five-year-old boy in a medically induced coma, and we didn’t know the extent of the brain damage until he was stable enough to wake up.
I was exhausted but couldn’t sleep, and Stacey was still up when I called her at one AM. She came over, and sex has always been my go-to solution of all of my problems, no matter how temporary it is.
“Shit,” Jacob mutters, looking at his phone.
“What?” Mason and I ask in unison.
“Mrs. Nelson’s horse has colic again. I’m sure it has nothing to do with the low-hay, high-grain diet she’s feeding him,” he grumbles. “Mind if we head in early?”
It’s not quite four in the afternoon again, and while we had planned on being out here until we had to go home for dinner, I’ll gladly check in early and get a nap in before Mom calls the whole family down for Friday night dinner. “I’m good with it.”
“Me too.” Mason wipes sweat off his forehead. “It’s hot as balls out here today.”
“I’d say jump in the lake to cool off,” Jacob starts, looking at the water. “But it feels like fucking bathwater this late in the summer.”
We put our fishing supplies away and Jacob starts up the boat. The lake is small, and we’re close to our childhood home, where everyone but Jacob is staying for the weekend. He’s the only one out of the four of us who still lives in Silver Ridge. Mason moves all over as an FBI agent and is currently residing in Detroit, working at the Michigan FBI headquarters, and I did my residency in Indianapolis and ended up at a hospital with a trauma center in Chicago. Rory is four or so hours way in a small town in Indiana, not too far from me, actually. We’re all within driving distance, at least for the time being.
About half an hour later, we’re pulling off the road onto the gravel driveway that takes us to the farmhouse we grew up in. It’s been updated over the years but has retained the overall look and feel that brings me an instant sense of comfort. I hated living in a small town in my youth, but now that I’ve been out and living in big cities for years, I’ve developed a certain appreciation for the slower pace of Silver Ridge.
“Rory’s here already,” Mason states the obvious when we see her car parked in front of the garage. I smile, looking forward to seeing my sister, but more so my nephew. We park the boat down near the barn and get out, grabbing our shit and heading inside. There’s a note taped on the door leading into the mudroom from the garage, saying Adam is napping so be quiet.
“Hey!” Rory says quietly when we get inside. She’s sitting in the kitchen with her husband, Dean, and gets up, coming over for a hug. “You smell like lake water and worms.”
“Nice to see you too, sis.” I pat her on the back and turn to Dean. “How was the drive up?”
“We didn’t hit a second of traffic, but Adam cried for the first half of it,” Dean says, slowly shaking his head.
“He wore himself out.” Rory goes back into the kitchen and takes something out of the oven. “I just laid him down in the pack-and-play upstairs. We’ve been having a hard time getting him down for naps. He just wants to be held, and we’ve kind of caved to it.” She looks at Dean, smiling guiltily.
“If he wants to be held, then I’m going to hold him,” Dean says back. “I can’t say no to that face.”
“It’s good to see you both,” Jacob tells them. “I’ve got to run and take care of a horse. I’ll be back by dinner…hopefully.”
“You’re always rushing out as soon as I get here,” Rory heckles. “I’m starting to take it personally.”
“And I’m starting to wonder if there’s a little” —Mason jerks his hand up and down in a crude gesture— “going on with the horse.”