She made grabby hands at me, her eyes wide with expectation, insisting I pick her up. I slipped her arms from their straps and tenderly lifted her from the car seat, cradling her against my chest, soaking in the snuggles I knew wouldn’t last forever.
“Did you have a good nap?”
Her response was a nonsensical string of baby babble that sounded far too animated for the current time and situation. Shifting her weight onto my hip, I pressed a tender kiss to her head as I grabbed our go bag of essentials.
A heavy sigh puffed past my lips as I tucked my phone in my pocket and hoisted the diaper bag over my shoulder. An hour into our drive, I had turned off my cell signal and didn’t plan to turn it back on anytime soon.
I was terrified that if I switched it back on, that signal from my phone would leadthemstraight to us, so I kept it off. I wasn’t sure if that’s how they worked, but I wasn’t chancing anything. The absence of waiting messages about my whereabouts hit home. A profound sense of isolation settled over me; we were truly alone. No one was wondering where we were.
I brushed the hair off of Charlie’s forehead and gave her another quick peck right above her eyebrow.
The heavy thud of the car door couldn’t muffle the ache in my chest, a dull reminder of the painful truth I couldn’t face. It was just the two of us. We could do this; it may feel like everything was going to shit, but I’d figure it out. I had to figure our new life out…and fast.
TWO
max
“FUCK!”I shouted, slamming my hand down on the steering wheel of the hunk of scrap metal that my dad called a tractor. Hours bled into each other as I struggled with the machine, each attempt met with a sputtering groan and the irritating whir of the starter.
“Have you tried turning it off and back on again?” My brother Wade called from the barn doors behind me. The smile in his voice was evident in its cheerful, uplifting tone. His arrogant smirk, that self-satisfied expression, ignited within me an overwhelming urge to choke the life out of him.
I took a fortifying breath before responding. He knew just how to push my buttons - pretty sure he’d learned it in the womb.
Wade was my fraternal twin. Although people confused us for being identical because the differences were slight, we were one hundred percent fraternal.
“It’s not a fucking computer, dick weasel.” I grumped back in his general direction, not bothering to turn my head tosee the wry grin that was plastered across his face. He’d been telling me for hours to give up on trying to get this tractor to run, but I was determined.
I lifted the ball cap off my head and grabbed the rag I’d draped over the throttle to wipe off the ever present sweat that was clouding my vision.
June in Georgia wasn’t my idea of a good time. It was always oppressively hot and humid; the air was thick with the scent of damp earth and the incessant whine of unseen insects.
I threw the rag back onto its resting place, knowing I’d need it again in a couple minutes and placed my hat back on my mop of chestnut hair. A head of unruly, sandy-blonde hair popped up over the side of the rusty red tractor, his mocking grin still stuck smugly on his face.
Wade and my hair were only one of many ways that we couldn’t be more different - I had our father’s chestnut brown shade that I kept cropped short on the sides and a little longer on the top. I was constantly working outside and needed to keep my hair out of my face, especially in the months that felt hotter than Satan’s ball sack.
Wade’s hair was a couple shades lighter, bordering on light brown or a dark sandy blonde. He got that from our mother. He had always kept his hair longer, claiming that the ladies thought it made him look like Tarzan and that he was bound to find his Jane. I thought he just looked like a damn city boy, especially when he pulled it back in a “man-bun”, as he liked to call it.
“It’s almost quittin’ time. You coming out to Jack’s with us tonight or are you going to hole up in the house and watch reruns of Grey’s Anatomy with your face mask and wine?” he teased.
He loved to give me shit about my quiet lifestyle. His jabs portrayed me as a lonely bachelor with nothing better to do. In reality, well… he wasn’t wrong.
It’s not that I didn’t want to go out, it was that the thought of going out to Jack’s, the lone bar in our little town, a dive bar at that, and being social, sounded like a fresh form of torture.
Wade thrived on being social. He was constantly the life of the party. He possessed an undeniable charisma; the moment he entered a room, people were drawn to his magnetic personality. Meanwhile, people skirted around me, their faces a mask of indifference.
I’d always been told that I was the grumpy brother - Wade was the sunshine, and I, the storm cloud.
“Not tonight. I’ll probably hang out here and try to get this thing runnin’,” I groused, slamming a hand down on the rust bucket I’d spent countless hours tinkering with.
“Dude, you’ve avoided coming out with me for weeks. Get out of this barn immediately, or I’ll think you’ve suddenly turned into a horse.”
“I get out.” I retorted under my breath, knowing that the last time I’d gone out to the bar with Wade was months ago, and I’d left before even finishing my beer.
Wade’s laugh was boisterous as he bent forward and pretended like what I said was the funniest thing he’d ever heard in his entire twenty-eight years of life. I didn’t find it amusing and shot him a glare.
“Bro. Broski. Brother from the same mother. The grocery store, feed store, and your yearly visit to Doc Jericho for your physical don’t count.” he wheezed out “When is the last time you got your dick wet?”
I reached for the rag again and wiped my forehead, avoiding the topic.
