Page 8 of Locke

“All those Erikson brothers are good-looking men. There’s not one skeleton in their closet, either. I checked. Other than them leaving home when they were well old enough to and leaving behind their abusive father, they’re saints.” Alexandra looked at Dusty as he was telling the man across from him how the futures looked. She hadn’t any idea what that was about but looked at Gloria again. “But you’re in love with one of the others.”

“What did you say?” Gloria speared a small piece of lettuce along with a cherry tomato at what looked to her like a skimpy salad they were serving all of them from the same plate. She did the same, getting a couple of the black olives that were on the tray as well. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m sorry.”

“Which one of them do you love, Alex? I may call you that, can’t I?” She nodded, and before she could tell the elderly woman anything she started with Dusty in naming the brothers that she had come to love too. Then, she mentioned Locke. “Ah, so that’s the young man that has taken your heart. He’s the best of the lot if you ask me. When I had a cold last year, Martha insisted that I have him have a look at me. He listened to my heart a couple of times before he had my nurse call an ambulance. I had double pneumonia and wasn’t getting treated for it. My nurse was fired by me so I could have my staff call for someone for me to be taken in. She and that quack doctor of mine was trying to heal my ‘common cold,’ he called it, by using green teas and some other god-awful concoctions that tasted like field grass and honey. Needless to say, I got better almost immediately.”

“I’m so glad that he was there to help you out.” She looked around the table and noticed that no one was paying them any mind. “I do love Locke, but I’ve only just met him, so that might be all it is.” Gloria shook her head, knocking her larger-than-life head dressing off and to the floor. “Careful there, ma’am. You don’t want any of those pins to come loose and stab you. They look very sharp.”

“I only wore that thing so that I could grab the attention of the host. I was hoping if she thought me addled, she’d stop inviting me to these boring dinners. She has them monthly, and each time, I wear a more extravagant hat and dress. Just look at my dress. Who wears pink and green paisley nowadays? Just me, I think. Oh well. Better try harder next time.” They gossiped the two of them about the people around the table with them before the final course. Some kind of bright pink gelatin thing bounced on her plate and then to the tablecloth. She was, of course, mortified, and Gloria got the giggles.

The two of them were walking around after the dinner and talking about Martha’s passing when it was time to talk and mingle. Then, they spoke about her stupid son, and that was when she told the elderly woman that he was her father, too.

“I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t be blabbing my mouth about…Do forgive me, child. I never meant to insult your genealogy.” Alex told her that it was just fine as she didn’t care for him either. He was a mean person and drank too much. His wife wasn’t all that different from her spouse. “Yes, well, I have known him a good deal longer than you have. William would never pass a bottle that he didn’t have his lips around and food? Oh my, he could put that away too. I swear to you, the man had a hollow leg, and that’s where he stored food for later.”

“He and his family were at the reception that Locke had had at the house after the funeral. I saw him going through the line several times. I know that it’s there to be eaten, but people weren’t getting their first plate full, and he was in line again.” Gloria nodded and told her that it sounded just like him. “I don’t know him all that well. I know that my mom didn’t care for him all that much, but she never talked about him unless I would bring him up. She was smart, my mom, keeping records of all my medical bills when I was growing up, as well as every time she had to take him to court for unpaid support for me. He’d pay a couple of times, then blow it off. The money would have come in handy when I was a child, but we could get by. I know that he’s fathered several children that are about my age and skipped out on them as well.”

The two of them had a wonderful evening. Dusty would talk to them as well, but he was wonderful at introducing her to everyone who came by. Mrs. Roseville, too. And when the elderly lady wanted to leave, Dusty escorted her out to her awaiting car and kissed her on the cheek. She thought that he was the most romantic man she’d ever met and told him that when he came back to her.

“Thank you, my dear, but it’s not me. It’s Locke who is romantic. He could…never mind. That was a dirty limerick, I nearly said.” They were both laughing. “If you’re ready to leave as well, we can get out of here. I think that I’ve shaken enough hands for one night. And I’m bushed. Do you regret coming with me?”

“No. I’ve had a wonderful time. Thank you for asking me.” He kissed her on the cheek, too. “What was that for? It was nice, but you didn’t need to do that.”

“Alex, my dear, when I take you home, I believe that my brother Locke is going to not allow any of us within a mile of you if he sees you in this dress. I’m to understand that you had to get dressed here, like a lot of the other women that just got off work.” She nodded but didn’t understand. “I think you understand more than you think. He’s in love with you too. And I eavesdropped when you and Gloria were talking, so I know you feel the same about him.”

She didn’t know what to say until they were in his car. It was then that it seemed to her that the cotton got out of her mouth, and she was asking questions a mile a minute. When he laughed, she sat back in her seat and decided that she wasn’t going to speak again. There was something wrong with her, she thought.

“There is nothing wrong with you, honey. You’re just sheltered. Or we are. I don’t know anymore. But I do know that Locke loves you. Or he’s beginning to love you. He told me himself just before I left the other day, the same day that I asked you to go with me.” She asked him what he’d said. “Only that he wasn’t sure that it could be love so quickly, much the same thing that you said to Gloria. I love that woman, too. She can tell you right to your face if she thinks that you’re a screw-off or not. She can also burn your ass if you need it too. I did a couple of times with her, and she put me on the right track.”

“She does seem like a formidable woman. My grandda would have said she has the look of someone that could beat a bear back with a switch. Or something along those lines.” They both laughed as they were pulling into the drive of the mansion. “It’s so lovely, isn’t it? Gloria was telling me that you and your brothers worked very hard to bring it back to what it looks like now. That must have been hard.”

“It was, but we were used to hard work. She even had all the rooms redone to come up to this century. Including the kitchen, which I love, by the way.” Locke met them at the door. He was dressed in his usual attire, a pair of worn jeans and a tee shirt as well as his feet were bare. She thought he was the most sexy man that she’d ever known.

Alex, just because she could kiss Dusty on the mouth, wasn’t the least bit surprised by Locke telling his brother to go home. Now. Dusty was still laughing as he got into his car and drove off.

~*~

Dusty pulled into his driveway, thinking about his brother, and was jealous of his brother’s love affair with Alex. Or whatever they ended up doing around being together. He was jealous himself. Being in love—even jealousy looked good on his brother. Dusty couldn’t wait until the rest of them had a romance worthy of the one that Locke and Alex would have. He’d bet within a week, the two of them would be a couple, then marriage not long after that. And he was about as happy as he could be for his older brother.

Going into his home, he looked around. If a stranger would have come into his home, they would have thought that he’d only just moved in rather than living here for the last nine years. He walked into his dining room and looked at still unopened boxes of dishes that Martha had given him as a housewarming gift when he first moved out. The cabinets that the dishware was supposed to go in still have the boxes wrapped around them and sitting in the middle of the room. The dining table wasn’t put together as yet, and he decided that he needed to get his ass in gear, thinking that if his future wife came here, she’d be convinced that he was a lazy fuck and run back out before he could tell her he’d been too busy to mess with it.

It was nearly six in the morning when he finished up with the room. He’d had to move the dish cabinet out the French doors to have the room to put the table together. It was, he thought, the most beautiful set he’d ever seen. And large enough that his brothers could come and have dinner with them if he ever got around to hiring a cook.

He’d even gotten all the dishes and other things with it that he had no idea what it was for put into the cabinet. Dusty had even run them through the dishwasher twice so that they’d be clean when he was ready to use them. The set looked so beautiful behind the glass doors that he took a picture of it to send to his family. The emojis that he got back weren’t nice, but he was used to being teased about something from the lot of them. This was just one more thing that he could be teased about.

He’d had to move the table twice. Once when he got it set up, then a second time when he forgot to put the beautiful rug down. Not being sure if he liked having a rug under a table, he left it there with a mental note to ask Alex what she thought about it.

Bringing in the cabinet, the last thing that he had to move, he nearly killed himself, tripping over the edge of the rug. Landing on his back and shoulder, he was in a great deal of pain but didn’t think that much about it as he wanted to finish up in there before he was done for the night. That really brought home the fact that he did not want the rug under the table. It was pretty and all but not all that practical. He would remove it as soon as he woke up tomorrow.

Stretching his back and arms, it hurt more than he thought it should have, but again wrote it off as him being out of shape. By the time he was finished up with the house, he’d be great.

Going up to bed, he was surprised to find out that he’d been so busy that he’d not heard his phone ringing. Plugging it in to charge up, he listened to the message that was from Locke. Dusty decided that he was going to save it forever and tease him with it when he and Alex were married for ten years.

“Don’t take this the wrong way—actually, I don’t care if you do. I don’t want you dating Alex. I don’t want any of you pawing at her, either. I’ve decided, after a long talk with myself, that I am indeed in love with her and I’m going to tell her tomorrow. With one of the rings that Martha left me.”

Dusty laughed and saved the message. He didn’t call his brother to congratulate him but rolled into his bed, clothing and all. He’d not felt exhausted like this in a long time. At least since they’d finished revamping the Grable Mansion. Wondering if they’d change the name to the Erikson Mansion. He fell asleep almost as soon as his head touched his pillow.

When he got up at ten, never one to sleep in all that late, he showered and tried to work the soreness out of his arms and shoulders. Almost as soon as he reached for a towel, he thought that someone had ripped his arm off and left it there to taunt him. Trying his best not to sob like a baby while trying to get dressed, Dusty almost needed another shower as he was covered in sweat, just trying to go down the stairs. He had a feeling that when he’d brought the cabinets back into the house, the trip that he’d fallen to the floor had done more than just bloody his elbow.

Calling his brother to see if he could take him to the hospital, he moved to sit at the new table to rest. He heard Alex answer just as he was screaming in pain. He didn’t pass out this time, but he knew that he was going to need something more than the aspirin that he’d taken in the bathroom. He was hurting so badly that he couldn’t form words. He was in that much pain. Thinking about how she’d see him at his worst, he thought, he begged her to help him get out to his car.

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