Page 29 of Where I Should’ve Been

Bennett’s soft chuckles follow us all the way down the hall to the guest room. “Bee’s woom,” Autumn mumbles before she slides her thumb into her mouth.

Her words are innocent, but they hit a mark.

My niece thinks the guest room at her parents’ house is my room—as in, I’m living with them permanently. I know it’s been less than a week, but I really need to start figuring some shit out. I can’t spend the rest of my life living with Norah and Bennett and facing the Red Bridge Inquisition every time I do something like slink home in yesterday’s clothes before the sun comes up.

I have a whole apartment in New York that’s now probably filled wall-to-wall with all the boxes the courier dropped off from the gallery, but that doesn’t call to me even a little bit.

Parts of this…like this moment with my sweet niece, feel right.

We curl up in the guest bed, her curls tickling my chin as she burrows into me. She cups my cheeks in her tiny hands, presses a sloppy kiss to my nose, and whispers something that sounds like “love ya” before sleep steals her away.

I let myself just…be. In this small, quiet moment I never would’ve had if life hadn’t detonated under me.

I should be panicking. Should be figuring out how to rebuild everything I lost. But instead, I hold my niece, breathe her in, and admit the other truth pounding in my chest.

Maybe I could use a little more distraction in my life…

And Tad Hanson sure did a good job of distracting me last night.

11

Tad

Monday, January 18th

“You realize we’re terrible at this, right?” Randy’s voice cuts through the cold Monday morning air, sharp as the bleating sheep.

“We’re not terrible per se,” I mutter, chasing after a woolly escapee by the name of Bob Dylan who looks way too pleased with himself.

“Tad.” His tone is flat and completely unforgiving. “This morning alone, we’re missing four sheep. We’re shit at it.”

I straighten and let out a deep exhale. My breath fogs in the cold. “We’re not missing them exactly. Betty Bagley called and said they’re in her front yard.”

Randy stares at me like I’ve grown a second head.

“What? They can’t be missing if you know where they are.”

He sighs, and I resist the urge to bury him in blame. It’s his fault we’re doing this in the first place, and he knows it. If I’d had my way, he’d be doing whatever the fuck he wanted without me to worry about.

“Just…keep the rest corralled,” I instruct instead. “I’ll grab the four at Betty’s and be back.”

“Yeah, go play shepherd,” Randy calls after me. “I’ll just stay here and wait for the other half of the flock to chew their way into traffic!”

I leave him to his bitching, hopping in my truck and heading down the road with a bucket of feed and my sanity hanging by a thread. I’ve got a lot of pent-up anger with my brother—and I know it’s not a one-way street—but you can’t meld two minds when they’re on opposite sides of the same damn coin. His greatest frustration with the sheep is that we don’t excel—but we’re never going to. The point, for me, is to exist.

Main Street is awake and active as I make it into town. Storefront lights are already on, the smell of coffee and donuts and fried food wafts in the air, and snow is pushed along the curbs in tired gray piles.

Sheriff Peeler’s cruiser pulls up beside me at the one and only stoplight in town, and I rev the engine playfully like I’m reckless enough to race the sheriff. Some days, I am. Today, though, I’m feeling pretty good, still high off the unexpected, incredible sex of two nights ago.

Frankly, I’m thinking getting Randy laid might help a tremendous amount with his disposition.

Pete rolls his window down, grinning at me like he’s been waiting all morning for this. “Morning, Tad. Lost sheep again?” I follow his eyes toward Fran’s flower shop, where all four of my missing sheep are currently munching from the flowerpots outside like it’s an all-you-can-eat buffet.

Shit. Apparently, they had their fill of Betty Bagley’s yard.

“Morning, Sheriff,” I say, tipping my ball cap toward him. “They’re not lost. They’re just…uh…sight-seeing.”

He chuckles. “Let’s hope they don’t make it down to Melba’s again.”