Page 19 of Tell Me You Love Me

“Loading tree stumps into the bed of a truck is basically the same as training.” I lift a log and toss it onto the pile with the others, swiping a hand over my brow and grinning for my sour brother. Because he’d rather be in theactualgym, drillingactualtakedowns, and having anactualsession to pen into his little diary.

Instead, I insist on finishing the job we started at Bitsy’s more than a week ago. “It’s a whole-body workout. No one else heading to Vegas is gonna train like this, so stop bitching.” I bend and grab another log, mywhole bodyflexing and straining as I lift the hundred pounds to my chest, then toss it higher to get it atop the quickly mounting pile. “We can still roll later. Then your life will be back on track, and everything will feel better again.”

“You think you’re a good guy.” He knows he has to help, so he drags his shirt up to clean his sweaty brow, then dropping it again, he selects a log and bends in front of it. “All this ‘I understand you’re overwhelmed’ and ‘I know you’re not happy right now’ like you think you’re a sensitive motherfucker who can read my moods and cater to my needs. But all you really are is a sarcastic prick who uses my discomforts against me.”

“Not true.” I move to one end of a particularly large log and wait for him to toss his and come back to help me. “I read your moods because you have a tell for when you’re frustrated. And I make decisions I know will make your life more comfortable.Most of the time.” I grunt and lift whenhe takes his side, and shuffling back, I grit my teeth and prepare for when we have to get under it and toss it into the back of the truck. “Iamsensitive to your needs, but I’m also aware that life really fuckin’ sucks, and if I die tomorrow, I need to know you’re equipped to deal with things on your own.”

“You’re not dying tomorrow.” His chest grows with the extra blood circulation, muscles firing up, and adrenaline following right behind. Together, we toss the log, and when it rolls back this way, he places his palm on the rough bark and steadies it before it falls. “We came into this world together. I figure when shit starts going sideways, we can find a way to go out together.”

“A suicide pact?” Chuckling, I stretch my arms high into the sky, the morning sun beating down on my back and the filthy heat penetrating already despite it barely being seven a.m. “Not a giant, concerning red flag at all.”

“Not a suicide pact.” He rolls his eyes. “Just a well-timed car accident and the end of a bloodline, the way it should be. Did you see Bitsy in town yesterday? She’s looking frail as hell.”

“Yeah.” I drag my hat down to shield my eyes from the sun. “She’s wasting away, and it’s like no one even wants to talk about it. It’s pissing me off, ‘cos she’s too fucking stubborn to admit it’s happening, and Alana is just?—”

“Alana?” He stops on a dime and looks me up and down with shrewd eyes. “Alana? Really? She couldn’t stand her mother,andshe busted out of this shithole forever ago. She doesn’t care what happens back here.”

“She deserves the truth, doesn’t she? That her mom is dying. Even if there’s bad blood and a lot of miles between them, it’s her right to know. Same as we should have been told if Dad?—”

“Fun fact.”

A weak-ass yelp bounces from the depths of my chest as I spin and crash into the corner of the tail of my truck, thick steel bruising my back. Though, that biting pain isn’t nearly as shocking to my nervous system as seeing that kid from class. His smudged glasses and messy hair.

“Um… Hello?”

“Lifting heavy things is dumb.” He wears dinosaur pjs and clutches a book to his chest, his eyes swinging from me to Chris. Back and forth, then back and forth again.

The kid has a brain in his head, and he saw us together at the gym, butI’m not sure he’s ever seen identical twins up close before, and more importantly, I’m not sure he can tell us apart right now.

He doesn’t like the handicap.

“If you create a pulley system, you’d make your work much easier. Better yet, use the stumps’ weight to your advantage. Which one of you is Tommy?”

Like an idiot, I raise my hand. “Me…?”

Satisfied, he turns a fraction of an inch and smiles. “I thought so. But it was kinda hard to tell.”

“Most people tell because one of us is always talking,” Chris grumbles. “It’s always him.”

“W-why are you at Bitsy’s at this hour?” I cast a panicked look back to the house, though all seems quiet over there. The curtains are closed. The doors, too. “Do you know her?”

He nods. Short, sharp, wordless. But fuck if his eyes don’t swing back to Chris’ in curiosity.

“Are you staying here? I don’t presume to know you.” I attempt a smile, but it falls flat when his eyes come back to mine. “But I guess it would surprise me to find out you regularly wander town in your pyjamas, that’s all. You don’t seem the type. So?—”

“I live here now.” He nibbles on his bottom lip and pushes his glasses up his nose. “With my grandma and my mom.”

“And your… and…”No. Fuck no.“Your mom?”

“Ohhhh…” Chris sets his hands on his hips and drops his head. “Oh dear.”

“Is Bitsy your grandma?”

He nods. He’s not as animated as other kids his age, and it seems he’s incapable of friendly chatter the way Molly so carelessly tosses words around. But he brings hazel eyes back to me, his stare like a fucking freight train to my stomach.

“A-and your mom? What’s her name?”

“Don’t make him say it,” Chris rumbles. “You look stupid now.”

---