Page 74 of Brutal for It
Crunch shows up with plywood and paint. “I’m making a sign,” he explains, unapologetic. By sundown he’s propped a board by the gate that reads in big, brushed letters:
From Brutal to Beauty — J + T
He doesn’t look at me when I see it, he just cups the back of my head the way big brothers do when the thing they’re giving you is too soft to look at openly.
Jenni and Jami vanish for an afternoon and come back smelling like a florist shop and a bag from dress boutique. I don’t see the dress because I like having reasons to forget how to speak, but I see the way Jami floats around the kitchen afterward, fingertips grazing the counter like life somehow finally fits her skin. That’s all I need to know.
Tripp handles permits we don’t strictly need and asks favors in the polite, threatening way presidents do when they want no trouble from neighbors who forget we pay their bills with our construction jobs. The man puts his name on anything that might cost us stress and tells me my only job is to breathe and not run.
I think about running exactly zero times.
At night, when the planning quiets, Jami and I lie on the porch couch under a blanket that smells like every ride we ever took. We talk about vows. What to say, what not to promise. She wants to keep it real. No fairy tale, no lies. I want the same, but in my head “real” is a four-letter word that’s plain and simple. We land on something in the middle: promises you make with your boots on.
“You’re going to cry,” she warns me at least twice.
I tell her she’s projecting. She says we’ll see. We both laugh.
Every morning she marks another X on the calendar with a little heart in the corner. Every mark looks less like counting down and more like gearing up.
Somewhere in the middle of all of it, I take the old lawn mower out back and pretend the stripes matter. They don’t. What matters is the way the air smells at five p.m. when the sun turns our fence into a line of gold. What matters is the sound she makes when she tries on those little white sandals and decides bare feet are braver.
The day arrives like it’s been coming our whole lives.
I wake before the alarm. The sky is a brilliant mix of color. The house is still. For a minute I just listen to the quiet and memorize it. If peace had a sound, it would be this: soft breath through a doorway you’re not afraid to open.
Jami’s in the kitchen already when I get there, hair braided, a robe tied loose around her. She’s holding the sonogram in one hand and my coffee mug in the other like both are sacred.
“Nervous?” I ask.
“Yes,” she says. “You?”
“Like I’m about to jump off a cliff with my eyes open.”
She smiles. “That’s your kink.”
“Only when the cliff’s you.”
She rolls her eyes and kisses my cheek, then shoves me toward the hall. “Go shower. You missed a spot shaving.”
By noon the backyard is a small, temporary village. Chairs face the oak tree, ribbons flicker, lights nap lazy between branches waiting to glow. There’s a table along the fence line with iced tea, lemonade, and a bottle of sparkling water for the post-ceremony toasts. Doll’s at the center of it all like a queen bee directing traffic. She looks at me when I step outside and claps her hands once.
“Well look at you,” she takes note. “Thomas Oleander in a suit. Somebody call Tonka to read me my last rights because certainly I’m getting ready to go to Heaven. You wouldn’t even wear a suit for your Mom and I when we offered to pay you to do it for the damn prom.”
“It’s dress pants and a white shirt, Doll,” I say. “Don’t get dramatic.”
She grins. “Honey, it’s me. I’m gonna be dramatic.”
Sass hugs me and smooths a nonexistent wrinkle with the air of a mother who has helped all her boys survive big days without fainting. “You’re ready,” she whispers. “This feels like a good ending and a better beginning.”
“It is,” I say, and the words lodge in my throat.
The brothers filter in—Red, Crunch, Pretty Boy, Dad and Mom, and all the Haywood’s Landing Hellions. Even some of the clubs ride in from other parts of the state. The women settle, the music finds a volume that makes hearts swing but neighbors forget to complain.
Then the gate opens and Jenni walks through in a black dress, cheeks flushed, eyes bright. She points two fingers at her own eyes and then at mine. She will always be watching me. Behind her, Crunch offers an arm like she’s royalty. She will always be his queen.
And then?—
Jami.
