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Now Luke embraced her, Sandy moving out of the way, Josie’s face pressed into his chest as she continued to sniff, trying to get her composure back, his flannel shirt soft against her cheek, his heartbeat steady in her ear.
“I’m not mad at you,” he said, sounding upset himself. “You give everyone you meet a chance and that’s what makes you great. It’s not your fault that I’m a bitter old man before I’ve even turned thirty.”
Josie pulled herself away reluctantly, wiping her tears once more so that she could see his face and gauge his reaction properly. None of this was going how she thought it would.
“Really?” she asked.
“Yeah, really. I don’t even know if I’m mad at Sawyer, honestly. Can’t believe those words are coming out of my mouth, but there you go.”
“So what happened? He just left out of nowhere?”
Sandy and Luke shared a look, and Josie knew that her suspicions were confirmed; something had happened between the brothers the night before. Something bad. Sandy was the first to speak.
“They had a fight. A pretty spectacular one.”
Even as she said it, Luke looked like he’d turned several shades paler, his eyes gravitating to the floor.
“We both said things that maybe should have been said a long time ago,” Luke said, his voice as soft as Josie’s had been. “Turns out a really good offer was withdrawn because Sawyer had said the repairs weren’t actually finished. But me and Sandy were talking about it just now, and if the buyer had really been serious, then he would have actually checked with us if that was right, or asked when they’d be finished or something, you know? The offer probably would have gotten withdrawn either way, but I blamed Sawyer for everything.”
Josie was starting to feel calmer, notbetter, but calmer as she listened to everything, piecing it all together in her head. Luke continued, clearly needing to get it all out in the open.
“I told him exactly what I thought of him. What I thought of him leaving in the first place, what I thought of him staying away, all the things I was so angry about that really I should’ve just let go a long time ago. He said some things too, and he was right. He was right about all of it actually. I was thinking about it all night, and I was going to get up and try to talk to him about it. But he was gone. Left us a note too.”
He waved a finger at a similar note to Josie’s on the kitchen table, but this one only had two words.I’m sorry.
It made her clutch her own note tighter, with all of the extra words on it, just for her. That fact somehow made her feel even worse, like she’d lost so much more than she realized.
“It sucks,” Sandy said, forever the voice of reason. “The whole thing sucks.”
“Yep,” Josie agreed, still not able to speak without a wobble in her voice. “Have you called him, or texted? I don’t know if I should.”
Luke and Sandy shared another look.
“He’s not answering,” Luke said. “Which is fair enough. I said some… I said some stuff I shouldn’t have. I don’t blame him for leaving.”
Josie sighed, feeling wrung out and dried up. When did it all get so complicated? Where did it all go wrong?
It took until nightfall, but eventually Josie started to feel like a human being again instead of a sponge that had been squeezed dry one too many times. She’d had a diner shift lined up, but Sandy had point blank refused to let her go, so instead, Josie was sitting on the porch looking out at the fields and the stars, listening to the crickets’ constant singing. She felt so tired, the sort of tired you only feel after crying for hours on end. At least the cool night air felt good against her face. It was the only thing that felt good right now.
The door opened behind her and Josie looked around to see Luke walking out with two mugs of steaming coffee in his hands.He handed one to her without saying a word and sat down beside her on the stairs.
They didn’t talk at first, just drinking from their mugs and watching the night sky and all its various shades of dark.
“So?” Josie said. “How much of a jerk were you actually?”
Luke winced. Whether it was at her words or himself, Josie didn’t particularly care. It told her everything she needed to know.
“It really was that bad, huh?”
“Yeah. Yeah, it was.”
She waited for him to explain further, but nothing came.
“You’re not going to make a million excuses?”
He shook his head, picking at a piece of peeling paint on the step at his feet.
“I don’t think I deserve excuses. I told Sawyer that he was a bad brother. A bad son.”
