Page 10 of Protecting Tiffani

“Yes, sir. Always on Saturday.”

“The same time?”

“Around the same time. Is she someone you know?” she asks shyly.

“Someone I used to know,” I reply. I check my watch. Seven fifteen, I make a mental note that from now on, I’ll be here at the same time just in case she needs a little extra. I can’t be with her, but that doesn’t mean I can’t keep my promise to protect her. After all, protecting her is all I have been doing for the past four years. Returning the cart to the store, I stop by the register. “I will be here from now on, and she will never be told what her total is. Just give her the food, and I’ll pay for the difference. I don’t care who is working that day. Tell everyone working here that the difference is covered, and she will never know who is paying it, or I will talk to your boss. He happens to be a close family friend.”

Once I’m in the car and headed home, the sky opens up, and rain plummets to the ground. Up ahead, I see Tiffani walking in the rain. I pass her but circle back, until she looks over her shoulder and I worry she might see me. My phone alerts me to a tornado warning for our area. Seems like my whole life has been a tornado since that night.

Chapter seven

Levi

Sweatisrollingdownmy back and falling into my eyes, stinging the shit out of them. Once I’m at the top of the ladder, I drop the shingles from my shoulders onto the roof and wipe my face. Reaching behind me, I pull the green shirt off and use it to help rid my face of sweat. It’s July, the hottest month of the year, and being on this black fucking roof doesn’t help. I put one end of the shirt in my back pocket, deciding to work shirtless for the remainder of the day. Picking the shingles back up, I head toward Adam and the two-man crew that is helping us fix the school’s leaky roof.

Working with Adam and Dad as a kid was a great way to keep busy not just my hands, but also my mind. You had to constantly pay attention to things around you, instructions being called out, and what materials were needed. Except when it comes to laying shingles on a roof. It’s repetitive work: take the package, slice it open, pull one out, line it up, pull the nail gun trigger, rinse, and repeat. My mind has had plenty of time to run over the past, the one fucking place that I don’t want to be in. Before I know it, I’ve laid the three bundles I brought up. I knew I should have brought more, but nope. “God damn it,” I say, knowing that another trip down the ladder is here. I hate this part of being on a crew so fucking small.

“What’s your problem?” Adam shouts from across the roof.

“Nothing. Don’t worry about it.” I shout back, not wanting to get into why I’m in a pissed-off mood.

“Bullshit, little brother. Something is eating at your ass and has been for far too fucking long,” he says, straightening up.

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“You know damn well what I’m talking about. Emilee told me she tried to get you to talk when you stayed with her, but you shut her down like usual. Like you do everyone who tries to bring up the past.”

Groaning, I roll my eyes and start heading for the ladder because I’m not getting into this conversation with him. He’s here to do the same job I am, and that’s not being a fucking therapist. Unlike Emilee, Adam doesn’t let anything go. He’s like a dog with a bone. My clear path to the ladder is soon blocked by his stocky ass. “Get out of my way, Adam,” I warn him.

“No, it’s about time we hash out why your ass ran four years ago. I don’t buy that you had always been thinking about the military because if that was the case, Dad would have known about it. And the shocked look on his face when that recruitment officer came to get you meant he didn’t.”

“Back off,” I say, crossing my arms like he is.

“I know it’s about that little bitch you were seeing. What was her name? Oh yeah, Summers. She did something, and it made you run away from us all,” he sneers at me.

As my brain processes what he called Tiffani, my hands ball into fists, and my vision takes on a red haze. “Don’t fucking call her a bitch, Adam.” I fix him with a stare that has made many men back down from me.

“Why? That’s what she is, isn’t it?” He counters my stare, and I remember where I learned it from.

“No, she isn’t, and it’s not going to end well for you if you don’t shut your fucking mouth and let it go.” I push him hard enough he stumbles back, but he quickly rights himself.

“I’m not scared of you, Levi. And I’m not going to let this go. We all watched you leave us, and where was she? So that means, in my eyes, she was the reason behind it. You have fed us bullshit lies, over and over again. Dad and Mom may have believed the lies spilling from your mouth, but I didn’t, nor will I right now. You never once said anything about wanting to be in the military, yet you couldn’t enlist fast enough.” He pushes me, but my footing is firm, and I don’t move.

“Leave. It. Alone,” I warn him again. Grinding my back teeth so hard my jaw aches, I try to walk around him and head down the ladder. I can’t do this with him or anyone else. No one can know what happened that night or why I ran away. The lies I told them were for their own sake. I wanted to keep their idea of me safe. I didn’t want them to know how much of a fucking coward I was. Call me selfish, but it’s true.

“I’m not going to do that, Levi. Do you know how heartbreaking it was watching everyone cry over you leaving? And every time you came home? Oh, wait, you never did that. You never came home to see us in the last four years. We always had to come to you, and because we couldn’t always afford it, Mom and Dad went years without being able to see you. How can you expect us to not ask for a reason behind it all.” His face is getting redder, not from the sun, but because Adam can’t control his anger, just like me.

“For fuck’s sake, baby brother, you missed the birth of my first child. Junior grew up for three years without knowing his amazing uncle, all because some bitch decided to take a trip on the wild side, hurting you in the process and breaking apart this family.” Before I realize what I’m doing, my arm draws back, and my fist connects with my older brother’s face. He stumbles back as blood pours from what I’m sure is his broken nose. A sharp pain shoots through my hand and up my arm.

“Fuck you,” I spit at him, cradling my right hand close to my chest. With him preoccupied with his nose, I head toward the ladder, but it falls away from the school when he kicks the top of it. Spinning around, my chest smacks right into his. I ask, “What the fuck was that for?”

“You are not leaving this roof until you tell me. And let me make one thing clear, little brother, that was your only shot at punching me.”

“I told you not to call her a bitch.” I don’t want to continue fighting with him. I’m exhausted from the heat and this argument. He has to back the fuck up,now.I’m at the end of my rope here. Lowering my voice and losing the attitude, I beg him, “Please, Adam, just drop it.”

He can sense the fight draining from me. He places his hand on my shoulder, pulling me to sit down. “Levi, I can’t. I was there. I took you to buy her ring and talked you through proposing. The night you asked her, you came home on cloud fucking nine, so in love and, well, happy. Then I watched you crawl inside yourself, and you have been there for way too long. I’m tired of watching you walk around like your heart lives outside your body. I’m your older brother. You used to come to me for everything. For fuck’s sake, you came to me the first time you had a boner and wanted to know what to do about it. The first time you had sex, I taught you the ins and outs of it. Why can’t you talk to me about this?”

A small laugh falls from my lips at Adam’s face when I asked him about jacking off flashes through my mind. But that flashback is quickly replaced with another one, one that makes my stomach churn and I feel like I’m that scared little boy all over again.

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