Page 5 of The Usual Family Mayhem

“I heard you were here.” He had the nerve to smile. “Did you get fired?”

It took less than two seconds for him to pick a fight. Surprisingly, that was longer than usual. “I’m starting to feel attacked.”

“I think that’s what you said after you lost the bank job and we dared to question you about it.”

The brain-numbing bank teller job I took after the law school misfire. My dalliance with finance lasted less than two months. A short-term career stop, at least that’s how I preferred to think of it. Hours of inactivity punctuated with screaming fits of rage by irate customers. One minute bored. The next paralyzed with fear that I’d accidentally honor a fraudulent check or complete a transaction and not notice a counterfeit twenty. Worst job ever.

“I quit. No one fired me.” I took a long sip of ice water and didn’t offer him any. He knew where the kitchen was.

He’d been coming to the house since before I moved in. At six, I’d been traumatized and scared when I walked in the big front door with my little suitcase. He’d just become a teenager and had taken an instant dislike to me for infringing on his precious territory.

He believed Gram and Celia liked him more than me both back then and now. They didn’t. Couldn’t. Not possible.

He stretched his arm across the back of the couch with his fingers almost touching my shoulder. “What are you doing here?”

Squirming. Being this close to him always turned me into a fidgety mess. I spent most of my energy trying to remain composed and keep my voice steady. “Sitting.”

“I meant in the state.”

“Same answer.”

A small smile came and went on his lips before he settled back into his usual grumpy state. “So, you haven’t changed.”

Neither had he. Under the starched shirt and perfectly knotted tie lurked a hottie. Not that I would ever admit that out loud. Brown, almost black, hair. Brown eyes. That perfect face. The firm chin. Those wide shoulders.

Damn...He was far too attractive. Noticing had been a lifelong problem. No matter how much I tried, I couldn’t shake the thing where my mind wandered in his direction. The weakness swamped me and drowned my common sense. I’d tried everything to crush the weird dance my stomach did whenever I saw him, including pretending we were blood related and he was off-limits. Neither of those things was true.

In addition to smelling good, and he did, he’d starred in most of my teenage daydreaming, but I was an adult now. I could control my bad decisions, including my unwanted lingering crush on him. I needed to stomp that out or at least ignore it. And I tried. Honestly.

We were complete opposites. My light to his dark. My charm to his moodiness. My flailing to his overachieving. My inability to hold a job to him making law partner before any of his classmates.

My taste in men changed as I got older. Now I picked losers who ghosted me after two dates instead of one... but Jackson’s pull still kicked my ass.

I decided to speed up the conversation. The sooner he delivered whatever lecture he had planned, the sooner he’d leave. “I’m visiting my beloved grandmother and my aunt.”

“Myaunt and I’m surprised they didn’t put you to work cracking eggs or sifting flour.”

Same, but give them time. “Sounds like you’re talking from experience.”

He groaned. “So many eggs.”

Okay, that was kind of cute. “They think I can’t bake.”

He laughed. “Can you all of a sudden?”

“Not even a little. No patience for the measuring.” But enough about my long list of shortcomings. “What’s going on with you? Don’t you have a job you should be doing?”

“It’s been months since we’ve seen each other.”

Three months. Two days. “Not really an answer to my question, but okay.”

He threw out one of those beleaguered sighs men did when women didn’t immediately cede the floor. “You swung into town the last time you lost a job. I’m assuming it happened again and we’re in for another touch down of Hurricane Kasey.”

“When did everyone around here get so rude? Y’all are obsessed with my career status.”

“We’re trying to be prepared for the worst.”

The words sounded testy, but his posture remained relaxed. He didn’t appear to be in his usual hurry to race back to the office. That meant he planned to say something annoying.

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