His face is more prideful than sheepish at the admission, and it’s so fucking cute I reach up to kiss his cheek. Something I can’t remember doing with a single partner since freshman year.
“Can’t have you passing out on me before I get to see what the big deal is with that package of yours,” I kid.
I doubt he’ll be able to pick up a baseball bat with it, but I’m pretty sure he has some tricks up his sleeve. Or pant leg, more like. There’s a lot more to this man than the stories that go around the grapevine in this town, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t curious to see for myself how much of those whisperings are true.
Pushing myself back up onto all fours, I back off of the bed to find something to whip up for us. Van life means a condensed life, minimalistic to the extreme, per most people’s standards. It’s something I’ve gotten used to after all these years. Sure, there might be moments I wish my pantry could hold more than one grocery bag worth of stuff, or that I could have a full-size fridge and freezer instead of mini ones so a grocery trip could last me a whole week instead of just a couple days. And don’t get me started on my dreams for an actual closet. But I’ve made it work for this long, now I can show off some of my skills.
“Pop those doors open,” I tell Weston, gesturing to the back of the van with a nod of my chin. “Don’t wanna cook with them closed.”
“You’re cooking for me?” His smile turns into a grin, and he scampers over the mattress to open the back doors.
“For us,” I correct. My stomach decided it was time for a concert, harmonizing with his, apparently.
A gentle breeze filters in through the open doors, and though it’s dark out, between the light from the moon and the muted glow of the infinite stars, I can just make out the outline of the ridge of the Smokies that I’m backed up to.
Ducking down to my knees, I raid the fridge, then the pull-out pantry, as the pan and air fryer both preheat, until I have everything I need. It wasn’t like I was much of a cook when I hit the road at nineteen—I’d been subsisting on cafeteria food, living the bare-bones dorm life on a scholarship—but I’ve learned to fend for myself out here.
Pinterest has been invaluable, but over the years my mom has also helped me with some recipe ideas that can be whipped together with one pan, one burner, and an air fryer. This is one of my favorites, my take on something she used to make for our family when I was young.
I heat up some frozen vegetables in the pan, then add the meat and sauté it all together. Weston watches, fascinated, as I pour the mixture into a glass dish, top it off with all the good stuff, then finish it with a layer of frozen tater tots, and pop it in the front of the air fryer.
It takes just a few minutes to clean up the mess from cooking and put everything back where it goes, and while I work Weston chatters. He asks questions about van life, about what I’m making (a Minnesota classic, the tater tot hotdish), what I normally eat as a nomad (it’s not usually glamorous, but I try tosneak some fresh food in wherever possible because Alani and veggie straws can only keep me going for so long), and more.
Hands on my naked hips, I turn to face him, and his eyes rove every inch of me as I do. “What about you?” I ask.
“What about me?” It’s casual, offhand. Designed to look like there’s nothing to see here, so that the other person won’t press further. I recognize the tone well.
“What are you going to tell me aboutyourlife, Weston Grady?”
“What’s there even to tell?”
He manages to shrug a shoulder while laying back on the mattress, stretched out long ways this time, where he just barely fits with his knees bent, but at least his calves aren’t hanging off the edge like this. “You know all the important stuff by now,” he says. “Name’s Weston, I paint houses when I need work. Screw around when I don’t. I’m pretty much an open book, darlin’. Life’s simple, it’s good.”
Some sort of grunt comes out of me, disbelief, maybe even accusation.
“Give me something you’ve never told me,” I demand. “Never told anyone,” I say quickly, correcting my request.
That tongue of his goes into his bottom lip as he stares at me, weighing whether or not to give me something worthwhile. Eventually, he nods. “The reason I left the Heights in the first place is because my brother makes me feel like shit for being who I am. I’m not responsible enough for him because I didn’t fall in love as a teenager and have my life laid out ahead of me by the time I graduated like he did, so I guess I’m useless to him.”
Not much of that is news to me, based on things Weston’s already shared with me and the interactions between the brothers I’ve caught over the past month, but I’d be willing to bet half my storage space in the van that he’s never voiced this to anyone else before, so I nod and encourage him to go on.
Weston’s arms animate his point as he speaks. “He’s held it against me for probably fifteen years now, but what really sucks about it all is he doesn’t realize that IwishI could be him. That my life would be so much easier if I were just a copy of him. I wasn’t programmed the same way he was. And it’s what’s driven a wedge between us our whole lives.”
That part catches me off guard. I stop scrubbing and look over at him, meeting his gaze, deeper than it usually is.
“What do you mean?”
Wyatt should be so lucky to have a bit of Weston in him, not the other way around.
“I’m the funny one in the family, he’s the useful one,” Weston says with a shrug. The words could be heavy, they could tank the vibe, but somehow, they don’t. Just feels like he’s laying part of himself bare for me, not looking for pity. “He didn’t appreciate that about me, thought I should be a harder worker, fuck around a lot less, shit like that.”
“You’re a really hard worker,” I say, shaking my head at that assessment. “I saw you; I worked with you for weeks. Painting, and also while you fixed my engine. You’re not lazy, or useless, or whatever other insinuations were in there.” I flourish my hand in the air, circling and waving at all the bullshit in the ether of his brother’s words. “And fuck him for making you feel less about yourself. You deserve just as much good as he does. More, I’d say, if he’s been this big of an asshole your whole lives.”
“Thanks,” he says, dropping his head down and giving me a sad chuckle.
He turns to laughter even when he’s feeling low, and it’s so familiar, something I find myself doing on the regular—my own darkness, my only constant companion—it makes me like him that much more.
“I think he has this concept of me as some goofy fuckup of a kid who can’t keep his dick in his pants, when he’s always known what he’s wanted. Gone after it.”
