“Um…I have a little bit of a surprise tonight.”
“Yeah?” I grinned. “Good surprise?”
“Sure. Let’s go with that.”
She hung up before I could question her less-than-reasonable answer. Stalking over to my truck, I got in and slammed the door, ready to find my brother and beat the shit out of him until he gave me some fucking answers.
Driving back the way I came, I turned down the side road toward his house. Ever since the accident that nearly killed Clay, he’d hidden himself away, though he liked to pretend everything was fine. But I knew the truth. He liked to be there alone so he could wallow in self-pity.
The drive to his neck of the woods was smoother than most of the other roads, but then Jeff spent a lot of time out here improving his part of the land. It didn’t surprise me that the potholes had been filled in or that when I pulled up to his house, the yard was in pristine condition.
What did surprise me was that my house was sitting opposite his, as if he had planned for us to be neighbors. He even had a fucking fire pit going and was roasting what looked like a pig on the spit.
“What the fuck is this?” I shouted as I got out and stalked toward him.
“Hey, neighbor! Nice night for a barbecue, huh?”
“I’m not your fucking neighbor!”
He glanced at the house, cocking his head. “Well, that sure looks like a house, and it appears to be close enough for me to call you a neighbor. Should we think of a different term?”
“I think we should move the house back to my property where I can wake up every morning and look at the falls like I intended.”
He pretended to think about that. “Well, that’s an idea, but how about not.”
Gritting my teeth, I stomped closer to him. “This isn’t a game. It’s my house.”
“Ah, yes, it is. Keen observation, if I do say so myself.”
“So?”
He poked at the pig, glancing up at me again. “So, what?”
“So, move the damn house back!”
Sighing, he rested the poker against a log, taking his seat on a chair he’d fashioned out of a tree. “See, I would do just that. I really would, but that would require more energy than I have right now. Plus, there’s food. And after a long day at work, do you really want to hitch that thing up and haul it back across the pot holes and open land, just to have a specific view when you could be eating my delicious meal in just a few minutes?”
No, I didn’t want to do all that. I just wanted to eat and relax for the night with my wife.
And my stomach was grumbling.
“I made potato salad, too,” he teased. “Just the way you like it.”
“With peas?”
He scoffed at that. “Would I really make it any other way? Of course, I made it with peas. You’re a hardworking man. You deserve the best of the best.”
I really did. And it had been a long day, with eating all that pie, and then walking around town to work off the extra calories. I even chased a dog a whole block. I almost worked up a sweat.
“Well, I guess it would be ridiculous to move it tonight.”
“It would.”
“I mean, it’s already dark.”
“Exactly. Who wants to fumble around with a flashlight?”
“And then there’s the chance I might lose some of the connections.”
