Page 22 of For The Weekend
She sweeps her gaze around my shop with a shrug. “Came to see what you’re doing since you didn’t meet with us yesterday. Are you the only one here?”
I nod, setting my tools down. I currently only have two other people working with me, Luis, a guy not much younger than me, and Shawn, a young kid training on the job, who also does some of the administrative tasks, like answering phones and booking appointments. “They’re on lunch.”
Taryn slides her hands into her back pockets and closes the distance between us, assessing me with a curious-maternal kind of gaze. “Why didn’t you show up yesterday?”
Apparently, my siblings have been meeting for coffee every two weeks, and Ian made sure to invite me in our now-ongoing group text thread, but I didn’t respond. After they came to my house and I told them about everything, including how Mazie came to be and why I moved here, it felt good to get it all off my chest. But I didn’t think it made it any easier for them to see me as anything more than their fuckup baby brother.
I’m forty years old and hopefully far from that anymore, but having to sit down with them again and hear about how great they’re doing, while not having much to say myself, doesn’t sound like a real fun time.
I answer with my back to her, moving to the sink in the corner to wash my hands. “Had a lot of work to do.”
She follows right behind me, not falling for my excuse. “Or you didn’t want it to be awkward?”
I dry my hands off on the towel, still unable to meet her eyes. “Maybe a little of both.”
She snorts a half-annoyed, half-amused sound. “You know this is what has always pissed me off about you. Since you’re the baby, you get to wait until someone else breaks. Like me here right now. I shouldn’t be. I don’t have to be, and yet I am, because you got whatever dumbass idea in your head about—” she makes her voice all nasal “—oh, it’ll be so weird. No one likes me. Me, me, me, that’s all I care about.”
I fold my arms across my chest, her attempt at imitation pulling me out of my self-flagellation and straight into irritation. “Is that supposed to be me?”
She widens her eyes.Obviously. “It’s always been about you. What’s best for you. What you need. And you got spoiled. You got used to everyone coming to you and never having to do anything you didn’t want. You thought it would be weird or awkward or whatever-the-hell yesterday, so you didn’t show up, but did you think about how Griffin or Ian or I would feel if you didn’t come?”
She doesn’t give me time to answer, going on. “No, you didn’t. Because while you’re here feeling bad for yourself about all your poor fucking choices for the last twenty years, we’re waiting for you to pull your head out of your ass and just be with us. Be our brother. It’s not like we ever stopped loving you or waiting for you to come home.”
“I—”
“I get that it might be hard for you, but I can guarantee you that it’s been just as hard for us too, watching you go through what you did when you were younger, knowing we couldn’t do anything about it, and then not knowing anything about youthe last few years. It was horrible, so sorry to fucking break it to you, but you owe us this. You owe us goddamn coffee dates.”
“I didn’t think?—”
“And how do you expect Mazie to get to know everyone when you’re so afraid to be around us? I know Ian’s your safety blanket or whatever, but Griffin and I are here too. We want to be in your life as much as you said you supposedly want us to be. Or was that all a lie? What you said at your house? That you missed all of us? Because there are four of us total, you know?”
“I’m—”
“This isn’t a one-way street. You can’t keep expecting everyone to come to you when you hide in your corner, because I’m not going to anymore. You are my brother, and I expect you to start acting like it.”
“I will?—”
“And you better remember to?—”
“Jesus fucking Christ, Taryn!”
She silences at my booming shout, and I put my hands on my hips, shaking my head. “Are you done so I can talk, or are you going to keep interrupting me?”
She scoffs. “No, I am not, in fact, done because it is hot as shit in here. I’m in perimenopause, asshole. Turn the air on before I melt.”
“Perimenopause,” I repeat, forcing myself not to give in to my amusement.
“Yes!” She plucks at her shirt, her skin flushing. “And I’m dying.”
“I need someone to look at the HVAC, but I don’t have the money to fix it.”
She waves her hand with a roll of her eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me? I’ll ask Dante to see what he can do.”
Dante, her construction project manager boyfriend. “He can fix the air?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know, but if he can’t, he’ll know someone who can.”
“Just like that?”
