“I have no brothers,” I repeated flatly.
“Exactly. We have brothers. We are brothers. And therefore, we have a built-in support system of men we trust to tell the truth, but who also break it kindly. You have no similar support system that I can deduce. As such, seeing as how I am generosity personified and Jethro didn’t have plans tonight, we are offering to fill the void.”
“What happened?” Jethro asked, bringing my attention back to him. To my surprise, the ever-present smirky smile had been replaced with a sober stare. “She’s been crying all day. What happened?”
Ugh. His words were a sucker punch, and I momentarily lost my breath. “Is she okay?”
Jethro shrugged, and he seemed to be gritting his teeth. “You tell me.”
I closed my eyes, leaning back in the booth. “It was stupid. I should apologize.” The words felt and sounded hollow, likely due to the fact that I didn’t believe them.
It wasn’t stupid. I didn’t wish to apologize. She’d made it clear I had no say or vote when it came to her safety, or her life, or any of her decisions, and that too, had felt like a sucker punch.
“Please elaborate on ‘stupid,’” Cletus said.
I opened my eyes and stared at my beer. My eyes were too tired to focus, so I rubbed them with my fists. “It was never going to work out, and I was stupid to think it would.”
“Why was it ‘never going to work out’? Do you have access to a prophesy on the subject? Did a soothsayer approach you on the ides of July?” Cletus asked.
I chuckled, but the sound lacked humor. “No, Cletus. It’s like . . .”
“What?” Jethro tapped the table, bringing my attention back to him and his sober stare. “What is it like?”
“It’s like, she’s too easy.”
The Winston brothers frowned in unison, then looked at each other, then looked at me. But it was Cletus who spoke. “Did you just call Raquel Ezra ‘easy’?”
“Not like that. I mean, being around her feels easy, effortless.”
Cletus stroked his long, bushy beard. “I fail to comprehend the problem. Are you saying that Ms. Ezra is too accommodating of your personality failings and therefore you feel she isn’t worth knowing? That seems like what the kids these days would call ‘problematic.’”
“That’s not what I said.”
“You called her ‘easy.’” Cletus gave me a meaningful look.
“What I’m saying is, being with her feels natural. She never asks for too much from me.” I went to drink from my beer but found the bottle empty. “Like I don’t have to watch my words, I don’t have to change anything about myself, I don’t need to make room for her or think about what I say before I say it. There’s no compromise, no give and take. She’s easy to be with. We click. We have fun.”
“And you don’t trust easy?” Jethro guessed, no judgment in his tone. He twisted in his seat to gesture toward Patty at the bar for another round.
“No. I guess I don’t. Everything I have worth having, everything that’s lasted, I’ve worked hard for. I’m not—” I had to clear my throat before continuing with the admission “—I’m not naturally good at anything.”
“Elaborate on that,” Cletus said, looking truly interested.
“Just, everything. In high school I was a C-plus/B-minus student, and I studied all the time. All the time. I practiced the oboe every day from freshman year to senior year and still sucked at it. I’m just getting passable now.”
“You still play?” Cletus perked up.
“Course I do.”
“Huh. How come I didn’t know this?” Cletus seemed to be inspecting me closer. “You should play at the jam session some time.”
“Uh, no. I’m not that good, and I don’t think an oboe would fit in.”
“Never know unless you try,” Jethro said under his breath.
“But I’m careful about what I try, Jethro. There’s no use trying unless I’m committed to seeing it all the way through. I don’t—can’t—try unless I know I have the time to dedicate, to invest. Whatever it is, it’s going to take years before it pays off, and even then, I still only get to about a B minus in skill.”
Jethro stared at me for a long moment, his smirky smile returning in full force. “Jackson James, do you feel sorry for yourself?”
“No. Not at all. I just know what I am and what I lack.”
“Then what the hell is wrong with you? You have an amazing woman who is in love with you. She’s in love with you, and you’re sitting here with us, whining about being a B-minus student. What is wrong with this picture?”
I also leaned forward, a sudden spike of anger making me speak before pondering my words. “I’ll tell you what’s wrong with me, Jethro. I walk in last night and find the door open and unlocked and the alarm off. And then I find Rae on the floor of the bathroom, crying because she thought Sienna was one of her stalkers—like the guy who broke into her old house in LA with rope and zip ties, an ex-con she barely escaped from who had an arrest record three miles long, most of which stemmed from domestic abuse and sexual assault.”
Jethro leaned back, and it appeared I now had his full attention.
“And these last months have been nothing but death at work. So many overdoses, a kidnap victim found dead in the park, and today a three-car pileup with a teenager gone before her time. Do you know how many crime scenes I’ve been to where I find a victim crying on a bathroom floor? Hiding from their attacker? Do you know all the paths innocents take to get there? Do you have any idea what went through my mind when I saw Rae last night?”
“I reckon I have some idea,” he said quietly.
“Then do you know what she told me when I asked her to consider going back to LA, for her own safety?”
He shook his head.
“She told me I had no say. She told me I was overreacting. She told me her life was hers, and my life was mine. She makes her own decisions, she does not need me or anyone else making them with or for her.” I lowered my gaze to the table and found someone had placed a new beer in front of me. I grabbed it and drank it, thirstier than I’d been ten minutes ago.
“And that made you mad?” Jethro guessed. “Rae doesn’t want you ordering her around and so you left?”
I got the sense he didn’t quite believe his words—that I’d ordered her around—but rather was trying to play devil’s advocate, help me see her side.
As such, my temper cooled, and I worked to pull in a deep breath. “No. I left because it was time to go to work. But I meant what I said, it’s not going to work out between us. Rae doesn’t want a say in my life either.” I let Jethro see the starkness I felt about this subject. “She wants easy and fun, not hard work and not compromise, not connection. I was raised to believe a relationship is a partnership. Love means taking a person’s wishes into account when you make decisions. I want to take her wishes into account, I want to change my life to make room for her. But I’m not going to push her to make room for me. I can’t make her want to have a say in my life.”