Page 3 of Average Joe

Alice was my neighbor. My dearest friend. I wasn’t about to let some stranger into her private space. She wasn’t home to fight, so I would fight for her.

I followed that tight, beautiful ass right into the kitchen.

“You have a death wish or something?” he asked, voice raspy.

“You need to leave,” I ordered, pointing at the door.

“Why would that be, little one?”

Little one? Oh no, he did not. I shoved a pointed finger between those marble-hard pecs. “I don’t know who the heck you are, but this is Alice’s home, and I’ll be damned if I let you come in here and—”

Scary guy stumbled, slamming his back against the wall before sliding down, down, down and landing with a thud.

Elbows to knees, he hid behind his hands, and the hulking man sobbed.

Despite my irritation, my heart broke for the guy.

Men didn’t cry. Men were emotionless globs of lies and selfish motivations. What was I supposed to do? Walk away? Leave him on the floor to drown in his ocean of misery?

I scanned the room. A fresh bouquet sat on the kitchen table—daisies, Alice’s favorite. A worn leather jacket hung on the back of a kitchen chair, and two suitcases waited at the bottom of the stairs.

I hurried to the hall closet where the tissue supply resided, snagged a box, jammed a finger through the perforated hole, then crouched at the man’s side.

When I tapped him on the shoulder with my offering, he raised his head, red eyes finding mine. So weary. So damn broken. Through jagged breaths, he managed to say, “She passed today. I didn’t make it home in time.”

“Who passed?” I croaked, fearing the answer.

“Alice,” he muttered, barely keeping his shit together.

No, not my Alice. Deep anguish pulsed through me, the pain bone deep. Like a drunk snake, I crumpled, coiling to the ground in a messy heap. “Today?”

“This morning,” he mumbled, ripping tissues from the box.

“But the doctors said…” The doctors had warned me she might not survive her stroke. I’d visited her only two days ago. “I mean, I thought she was doing better.”I had tried to convince myself that she’d be home in no time, that maybe the little twitch in her fingers the last time I’d held her hand meant she was going to wake up.

“Goddamn!” He slammed a fist into the linoleum. “I was one day too late.”

With increasing pressure, I sunk my teeth into my bottom lip. I would not cry in front of this stranger.I would break down later, where I could fall apart, cuss, scream, and mourn yet another loss in the privacy of my home.

“Who will make arrangements? I have to…” I pushed to my feet, heading for the drawer where she kept her address book. Then I remembered, Alice had no family. Well, except for her brothers-in-law, whom she had said were never worth mentioning, and a nephew she’d helped raise, who had done time upstate for God knows what before going off the grid. Alice suspected he’d joined his father’s “satanic biker gang.” Her eyes would tear whenever she’d brought him up, and a bottle of gin would appear out of thin air.

“I have to call the funeral home. The church. Yeah.” I nodded like a bobblehead. “The church. Maybe they’ll help. I’ve never had to do this before. I don’t know what to do.”

“I got it,” came a gruff reply.

“What?” I asked, thumbing through her list of contacts as if I would find answers in her embellished handwriting. I needed a task, a distraction from the paralyzing grief.

“I got it covered.” He cleared his throat. “She’s my responsibility.”

“Who are you again?” I asked, the room going blurry.

“Joe.” His voice was wet and garbled, his pain palpable.

“Joe who?” I slammed the address book on the counter. “That tells me nothing.”

“I’m her nephew,” he said, head hung low while he fisted his hair.

I’d spent hours upon hours with Alice, drinking tea or gin, talking, gardening. One thing I knew sure as shit was that she claimed no family except for—ohcrap,her no-good nephew.

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