The first thing Jim saw when he walked into the kitchen was her butt. She was wearing a pair of gray sweatpants that were almost threadbare and stretched tight over the generous mounds. The upper part of her petite, slender body was halfway inside the oven, but she was wriggling her butt in sync to the peppy Nicki Minaj song playing on the radio. He knew he shouldn’t stare, but for a moment, he did precisely that. There was no harm in looking, especially when the object of his ogling wasn’t even aware of his presence. Not that he could look away. He was mesmerized by the perfect roundness of the twin globes, compelled to touch and squeeze just to see if they were as firm as they appeared.
The black jeans he wore was suddenly uncomfortably tight, but he resisted the need to adjust himself. What if she suddenly turned around and caught him staring at her ass with his hand down his pants? That would be a lot of fun to explain.
By the time she had pulled herself out of the oven, he had a magazine he was pretending to read while he idly chewed on a chocolate chip cookie from a cooling rack on top of the counter. He only looked up when she cleared her throat and pushed the oven shut with a soft bang.
“Hey, I didn’t hear you come in.” She pulled off the yellow rubber gloves she was wearing and tossed them into the sink. Her eyes narrowed as she looked him over. “How long have you been standing there?”
“Just got here,” he replied, flipping a page on the magazine. He took another bite of the cookie. “Good stuff. You have a gift.”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, please, you mean Betty Crocker has a gift. All I did was add the water and stick it in the oven.” She nodded at the magazine he had laid out on the counter. “Didn’t know you were a Cosmo fan.”
He glanced down at the article he had been pretending to read. “Oh, sure. Lots of lady secrets in here that could come in handy someday. ‘Twenty-Five Dirty s*x Tricks He Doesn’t Want You to Know.’” He scoffed. “Why wouldn’t I want to read that?”
“Could definitely help you if you decide to switch teams or something,” she quipped. “Men are easy to please.”
He was easy to please. A little too easy. Hell, he could be entertained for hours just watching Rory clean the oven and putt around the kitchen. “That doesn’t sound like a bad idea, actually. Men are such simple creatures. Cheap, too. Twelve-pack of beer, a giant bag of Cheetos, a little bit of porn, and he’s yours.”
Her hazel eyes crinkled in the corners as she laughed. “Oh, listen to you, Mr. I-read-Russian-Literature for fun."
He had a cookie halfway to his mouth when she reached up to pull off the scrunchie that held her mane of tight black curls in a ponytail and could only gape as she closed her eyes, raised an arm to massage her own scalp, and sighed in relief. The action lifted the old, holey UC San Diego t-shirt an inch or so above the waistline of her sweatpants, revealing a strip of smooth brown skin. It was a warm day, the central air was out, and there were half-rings of sweat under her breasts. He swallowed the lump of unchewed cookie bits in his mouth and promptly choked.
“Jesus, Jim, hold on. Don’t you die on me.” She grabbed a carton of milk from the fridge and plunked a tall glass in front of him, shaking her head as he promptly picked it up and guzzled it. “Your brother would never forgive me if he learned I killed you with a cookie.” She smacked him on the shoulder. “You should learn how to chew, you animal.”
The burning in his throat eased all too quickly, so he faked a couple of coughs and threw in some sputtering while Rory rubbed and patted his back. Jim inhaled deeply, savoring her nearness and enjoying her sweet floral scent. Rory’s touch was warm and light, soothing the aches and pains brought on by a full day of laying sheet-rock. But it was not the touch of a lover. Rory saw him as her husband’s little brother, nothing more. It was a humbling thought, really. He was still staring at her when she left his side to put the carton of milk back in the refrigerator.
“What?” she asked when she turned around and found him gawking at her.
The humidity had caused her hair to become curlier, framing her heart-shaped face. Jim knew she hated her curly hair and fought an epic battle with her straightener almost every morning. When her hair was straight, it hung halfway down her back; in its natural state, it barely brushed her shoulders. Jim liked it either way, but there was just something sexy about her curls. They gave her a sleepy, tousled look that made him want to topple her into bed. Which was definitely not good. Not good at all. “You have a...” He pointed vaguely at her cheek. “It’s a grease stain, I think.”
“Oh.” She picked up a dishtowel and rubbed at both cheeks. “Did I get it?”
Since the grease stain was never there in the first place, Jim nodded with certainty. “For sure.”
He glanced at the digital clock on the microwave. In a couple of hours, Sam would be home. It was a rare occasion when he reached the house before his older brother did. Jim made it a point never to get home before Sam. Usually, he headed straight for the rec center after work to shoot some pool with his friend Hector or to the park to play some b-ball. But the harsh, unrelenting sun pushed the foreman to call it a half-day, and his b-ball buddies decided it was too hot to play. Even Hector elected to head for the beach with his girlfriend, instead.
When he got home, Rory was out, and he had the house to himself. He had watched a couple of reruns of CSI, then went to his room to take a nap. He had staggered out of bed only to get himself a glass of water and realized too late that he was alone in the house with his sister-in-law. It was a situation he tried his best to avoid at all times. He would never disrespect his brother by hitting on his wife, but a man could only take so much temptation before he went a little crazy.
“What’s for dinner?” He picked up another cookie and nibbled on it. Maybe he could get himself full on the damned things, so he could lock himself in his room for the rest of the evening. Yeah, right. At six-two and one hundred and ninety pounds, he was an eating machine. Because of his quick metabolism, he was almost always hungry. His mother called him a human garbage disposal.
Rory smacked his hand as he reached for another cookie. “Stop that. You’ll ruin your appetite.” She took the cookie he had been aiming for and ate it herself. “Oh, who am I even talking to. You could eat the entire tray and still have room for a bucket of fried chicken and three large sides.”
“Which is why I should have another cookie. I’m a growing boy.” He glanced at the rows of perfectly formed cookies and frowned. Not one of them was broken or burned. Whenever his mother made cookies, there were always a few that were malformed or charred. Guilt swept over him. “Unless these are meant for a bake sale to help raise money for some starving kids in New Orleans or something.”
Rory was deeply involved with her church and the community and was always helping out with bake sales and fund-raisers. It was one of the things that Jim admired about her. She was so generous and kind. A month ago, she even talked to the owner of the construction company where Jim worked to contribute raw materials and manpower to her church’s home-building for the unhoused program. Jim had to spend a couple of weekends putting up fences and painting walls, but he didn’t mind so much. He had decided long ago that he would do anything for his brother’s wife.
“No, they’re just for us. I added my own secret ingredient to Betty Crocker’s recipe and wanted to test it out on you and your brother first.” She frowned. “Not that you two would be very good test subjects. You’d eat anything I cook.” When he reached for another cookie, she glared and smacked him again. “That does not mean you should stuff yourself with it, Jim Kelly. I’m making your favorite for dinner.” She wiggled her eyebrows. “Chicken enchiladas.”
Jim groaned. Rory’s cooking was legendary. It was just like his lucky brother to land the jackpot of all jackpots: a beautiful, intelligent wife who could cook like a dream. “Oh man, Rory, you are truly a blessing from the heavens above!” He grabbed her hand and gave it a kiss. It smelled a little bit like bleach and rubber from the gloves, but it was soft and warm. He froze when she saw the look of surprise in her eyes and instantly released her hand.
“Uh-huh, I bet you say that to all the girls,” she said sternly. “And don’t just go kissing my hand like that. I’ve been working with cleaning solvents all day. Now quit bothering me and do something productive. Maybe you can rearrange the pebbles in my garden.”
She turned away from him and returned to the sink, where she picked up a sponge and began to clean the counter. Jim couldn’t help but notice when she wiped her hand on the hem of her shirt as though to erase his kiss. He straightened and ran a hand through his hair. He could still feel her warm, satiny skin against his lips. God, he was a moron. What did he think he was doing, flirting with her like that? Rory would never leave Sam for him. What kind of i***t would she have to be if she dumped a doctor for a junkie has-been musician fresh out of rehab?
“Right.” He stuck his hands in his pockets and walked out of the kitchen.
The living room reflected Rory’s cheery and lively personality. Butter-yellow drapes that framed the large windows brought plenty of sunlight into the room. On the coffee table was a large vase overflowing with daisies, carnations, and other colorful flowers he didn’t recognize. The two overstuffed couches were filled with giant yellow, orange, and purple throw pillows. It was just the perfect place to unwind and enjoy the 75-inch plasma screen television that no one else but him seemed to use. Rory preferred to read her romance novels in the den, and Sam spent a lot of his free time in his workshop doing God knew what.
He threw his weight on the couch directly facing the TV, stuck a throw pillow under his neck, and pointed the remote control at the TV. Picking up another throw pillow to cuddle, he flipped through a few channels until he found one that looked interesting. After a few minutes, he got bored and switched again. He settled on a cooking show that featured an attractive African-American couple teaching their audience how to marinate pork ribs for barbecue. It was not until his eyes began to flutter shut that he realized he had no interest in learning how to marinate pork.
He sat up, turned off the TV, and set aside the throw pillow. He couldn’t sit and watch TV. Not with Rory putting around in the kitchen and humming that “Bad Guy” song by Billie Eilish. And he only knew the song because Hector always had it playing whenever he picked Jim up in the morning. Much to Jim’s chagrin, his good friend was a huge fan of Billie Eilish, and Jim couldn’t complain since the man chauffeured him around for five to ten bucks for gas. He rubbed a hand over his face. He felt restless, like his body was pushing him to do something. No, he definitely could not stay in. He was too aware of Rory’s presence, too aware that she was walking around in a threadbare shirt and pants that could be easily ripped off. Maybe he could go running. If he didn’t, he would likely run back to the kitchen and tackle Rory to the ground.
He went to his room and changed out of his clothes, pulling on a pair of running shorts and an old Berklee College of Music t-shirt. He put on a pair of socks long enough to cover his ankle monitor and laced up his well-worn kicks. A few months ago, he would have taken a handful of diazepam to take the edge off and followed it down with a healthy swallow of vodka. In rehab, he learned he could get rid of the skin-too-tight feeling by putting on some running shoes and hitting the blacktop. It was a hell of a lot cheaper than drugs and alcohol, plus he managed to get rid of the blubber around his middle, which he gained from drinking too damned much and eating shitty fast food while on tour. He threw on a baseball cap, grabbed the plastic pouch that held his ID and a couple of bucks, and headed out.
Hanging out in Calabasas was definitely bizarre. He had lived in a crappy studio above a Chinese restaurant in West Hollywood, a rickety tenement in Brooklyn, and a two-bedroom apartment with a leaky roof that he shared with four other guys in Seattle. Walking out to a neighborhood where the smallest house was three-thousand square feet, each one boasting a well-manicured lawn, took a lot of getting used to. It was also probably the whitest place he had ever lived in. Everywhere he looked, a white person was mowing the lawn, a white person jogging, or a white person waving hello at him. He mustered a smile and waved hello back at the blond-haired, immaculately preserved cougar who looked at him like he was a slab of beef every time she saw him.
He would love to go back to Seattle or New York, but he had to stay put. After all, there was that damned court document ordering him to stay in a “healthy, stable home environment” for six months after ninety days of rehab. The clunky, annoying brick strapped to his ankle made sure he stayed put. He could only go to work, the rec center (where he went for AA), or his brother’s house. Recently, Sam’s lawyer friend got the court to extend his perimeter to Calabasas Peak State Park because Jim needed to exercise.
Jim understood that his case was an exception. Typically, an ankle monitor required the wearer to stay at home, but his allowed him to go anywhere within a fifteen-mile radius of his brother’s house. Why was he given so much freedom? Years ago, he was the semi-famous lead singer of a band that released three albums that went multi-platinum. He was a Grammy award winner six times over. But so was R. Kelly. It had nothing to do with his celebrity. It was probably because his brother saved the life of the governor’s daughter a year ago with heart surgery.
He wondered now if he wouldn’t be better off cooling his heels in a medium-security prison for a year. If it hadn’t been for Sam’s slick lawyer buddy, that was what Jim would be doing now. Then again, he wouldn’t be in this mess if he hadn’t smashed some punk’s face in with his fist. How the hell was he supposed to know he was the son of a state senator?
Balancing himself on one leg, he pulled one ankle to his butt to give it a nice stretch. The one good thing about living in Calabasas was that he could run anywhere without worrying about idiots on skateboards or assholes running him over. He could run all the way up to Calabasas Peak State Park from his brother’s house using Old Topanga Canyon Road. The trip back and forth was about ten miles and usually took him an hour and a half to complete, but damn if it didn’t feel cleansing. Spiritual, even. He never stopped to check out the views of Malibu or the valley as the casual hikers tended to do. He reached the peak, gulped a couple of mouthfuls of air, and turned right back around.
When he got back to his brother’s house, the sky was no longer blue but a hazy purple-stained with rusty orange clouds. He collapsed on a stretch of green grass next to the mailbox, using his folded hands as a pillow. He closed his eyes and took deep breaths as he waited for his pounding heart to slow down. A sharp honk blasted him out of his well-deserved rest as Sam’s dark blue Lexus pulled into the driveway.
“Hey, punk,” said his older brother. “You better not be poisoning my grass with your nasty sweat.”
Jim sat up and smirked. “At least I know what the sweat of a good run feels like.”
“And catch skin cancer by running around without the protection of a good sunblock? No thanks, I have a membership to a very nice gym that I pay good money for.”
Jim took the hand his brother extended to him and allowed himself to be pulled up. Sam, who was four years older than him, was an inch shorter than he was, but the two of them possessed the same lean, muscular build. They both had dark brown hair and vivid blue eyes courtesy of their Irish mother. While growing up, the two of them were often told that they look alike enough to be mistaken for twins, but Jim always thought that Sam was the better-looking one. His older brother had the solemn Clark Kent gravitas that women just went nuts for and not just because he wore glasses. Sam carried an air of dependability and affability; he was just a guy you liked on sight. On the other hand, Jim was a punk who cut his own hair and sported a Chinese dragon tattoo wrapped around his left bicep. Thankfully, some women preferred the bad boy over Clark Kent, or he would be in a more pathetic state than he already was.
“Dude, you stink. And you’re sweating all over the place.” Sam reached into his car and threw Jim a towel. “You better clean yourself up before you go inside, or Rory will kill you.”
“Don’t I know it.” He rubbed the towel over his hair, back, and under his arms with punishing efficiency. He had spent the last three hours attempting to exorcise Rory’s sweet scent and soft skin from his memories, and the mere mention of her name just brought it all back. How could he possibly survive for the next few months? Maybe he should take up Hector on his offer to join the gym where he worked out and learn boxing. Along with the trail-running, perhaps he would be too tired to have any kind of libido at all.
“How’s work going?”
“Good, I guess.” It never failed to amaze him how awkward things had gotten between him and his brother. They were close growing up. Sam helped their mother raise him and their little sister, Sunny, after the old man took off. Sam was his role model, his hero. But after his epic crash and burn, Jim noticed that Sam seemed ill at ease with him. They talked like strangers fumbling around for something to say to each other.
Jim couldn’t remember the last time he and Sam had really hung out. They didn’t get together much while Jim was touring the country with his band, and it became worse when Jim was spending more time getting high than actually making new music. When Sam and Rory met Jim at the door of the rehab facility where he stayed in Santa Barbara, Sam did not say anything, just patted him on the shoulder. The two-hour drive back to Los Angeles was unbearably long, with Rory attempting to ease the tension with her lively chatter. She was such a little trooper.
“Don’t know if Rory told you, but Sunny’s coming over tonight with her new boyfriend,” Sam said with a chuckle. “Must be getting serious, or she wouldn’t even think of introducing him to her two big brothers.”
Not that he’d been such a great big brother to Sunny. Their twenty-one-year-old sister a prelaw student at UCSB. The last time he had spoken to her was when she came down the weekend he had left rehab. She spent the whole time trying to avoid him or ignore him, babbling instead to Rory about her love life. The snubbing had hurt because even though he was ten years older than Sunny, the two of them had been close. Sunny had been his joy in life, his little ball of sunshine. He didn’t even know she had gotten into law school until Rory told him. Hell, at least there was another person who would be able to get him out of a scrape. If she didn’t hate his guts so much.
“That’s good,” was all he could think to say.
“Right.” Sam patted him on the shoulder. “Well, I’m gonna go in and say hi to the missus. Go hose off or something, then come join me for a beer on the back porch.” He froze. “I mean, uhh...”
“Don’t worry about it, bro.” He was used to people offering him an alcoholic beverage, then looking like they had just accidentally stepped on his puppy a moment later. It was like they believed he would turn into a slavering monster the second he even sniffed the stuff. He had been drink and drug-free for four months and was damn proud of it. That didn’t mean he never thought about just grabbing the damn thing and guzzling it down, however. He thought about it, all right. Thought about it all the time.
“All right. See you inside.” Sam smacked him right between the shoulder blades and disappeared into the house.
Jim stayed where Sam had left him, allowing the breeze to blow through his shirt, cooling the beads of sweat on his back. He studied the house he will be staying at for an indefinite amount of time and felt the same trepidation he always felt when he looked at it. It was the kind of house a husband and wife bought together, hoping they could raise a happy family in it.
For a moment, he considered walking away, never to return. He stared at the door. With a sigh, he draped the soggy towel around his neck and went in.
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