Side Squeeze (Jasper Falls 6)

“I’m not good at this.”

“Neither am I.”

His gaze shot to hers, and he had to laugh at the snarky smirk on her face. They really were awkward when it came to sticky emotions. But within that awkwardness they found common ground.

He wasn’t sure if the moment called for a hug or some other sort of sentiment, but nothing about her posture welcomed human contact and he rather not go there.

He laughed. “You’re tougher to navigate than Normandy Beach.”

“There have been a few times when Giovanni almost lost a hand.”

“I bet.”

She chuckled, but quickly sobered. “We need to do better, Harrison. Both of us.”

They couldn’t possibly get any worse at this. “Tell me what you expect from me as your brother. I can do better, but I need to know your priorities.”

She rolled her eyes. “My priority is to become a less dysfunctional family.”

“Okay. So what does that look like?” When she gaped at him, he held out his hands. “I’m not trying to be obtuse or offend you, Erin. I honestly don’t know. If you tell me what you want, I’ll work on it. I’m trying to be real with you. This is how my brain works.”

“Okay.” She nodded. “Well, I want a brother who loves my husband like a best friend. I’m talking full-on bromance. I want casual traditions, like loud football on Sundays with dip and chips. I want family vacations in the summer and busy holidays with shared recipes in the fall and winter. I want egg hunts for our children and pool parties with water guns and hose fights. I want cutthroat chili cookoffs and wholesome chaos and pop-ins. I want to see you more often—at least a couple times a month. And maybe one day we can get dogs from the same litter or put our kids in the same sports league. I just want to be normal and boring, but I want you to be a part of my world.”

“Is that all?” His ears rung in the resounding silence that followed her long list of impossible expectations.

“And I’d like you to find someone who wipes that grimace off your face, because I swear to God, Harrison, I will not stand by and watch you turn into Dad.”

She breezed past him and poured the water into the coffee machine. Once again, her words left him staggered.

He followed her to the front of the store. “And what about you?”

“What about me?”

“Don’t you think you have a role in all this?”

“Duh. I plan to make the dip.”

“Let’s forget for a second that you think I can just mail order the perfect woman, but have you considered the fact that I live in a different state?”

“Yes, and I’m done letting you use that as an excuse. It’s a short drive from New York, and there are plenty of places for you to stay when you visit. You could stay with us. We could fix up your old room.”

Acid burned his stomach. “I can’t stay in that room.”

“It’s just four walls, a ceiling, and a floor. We can renovate.”

He swallowed back the bile rising in his throat. “I’m a hotel guy.”

A beat of silence passed where she studied him, both of them acknowledging that his love for hotel amenities wasn’t the reason he wouldn’t stay in his old room, but neither of them uttering the truth.

“Fine.” She sighed and nodded, respecting his limitations. “I think coming here more often will help with your…other issues.”

He frowned. “What other issues?”

She flicked on the coffee machine setting it to percolate. “Well, you’re sort of a dick.”

Breathing in a calming breath, he silently counted to ten and exhaled slowly. If she’d been pulling her punches before, she was done holding back now.

However, he couldn’t argue with her, because she was right. He was a miserable bastard on most days. He didn’t want to be that way, it just sort of came out of him.

Erin crossed her arms and leaned a hip against the front counter. “Thank you for spackling the wall.”

He did a double take. “I thought you were mad about that.”

“At first I was. I mean, you never visit and then, all of a sudden, you show up and ruin my beautiful new paint job. But this morning, I looked at the marks you covered and I realized… it felt really good not to see them anymore.” She moved behind the counter and pulled a red apron off the hook on the wall, tying it around her waist.

“What are you doing?”

“Helping you.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s what normal families do.” She crossed the store and flipped the sign on the front door to OPEN. “And you’re repainting my hallway tonight.”

Ignoring the instinct to refuse any commitment that obligated him to stay there, he kept his mouth shut and slipped into the back so that he could catch his breath, unsure if he felt relief or panic. It was all sort of jumbled at the moment.