Page 3 of I Could Never

As Scottie continued to chomp away at the chicken, the doorbell rang.

Hope bloomed in me at the prospect of Lorraine returning. But why would she ring the bell? When I opened, though, my heart skipped a beat as my body filled with dread. Suddenly, this difficult day had gotten a whole lot worse.

What is he doing here?

CHAPTER 2

CARLY

JOSH MATHERS TOWEREDover me, smelling like leather, spice, and a hint of cigarettes mixed with the cold, fall air outside.

“What’s going on?” I blinked. “Why are you here?”

He walked past me into the living room, rolling a black suitcase behind him. “I came to relieve you.”

“Excuse me?”

“I’ll be staying with Scottie,” he said, without making eye contact. “I was already planning on it. But then I heard you were here and put a rush on things.” The jerk finally looked at me with his piercing hazel eyes. “You can go back to La La Land.”

I’d only met Brad’s best friend a few times. And I sort of despised him, even though I didn’t know him very well. But I had a good reason for my disdain. Josh was a player and had been a bad influence on Brad growing up. He was the “wild one” and was always getting the two of them into trouble. I never liked it when Brad went without me to visit Josh in Chicago, either. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Brad. I just never knew what his friend might pull while the two of them were inebriated. Josh Mathers was bad news. The idea of entrusting him to take care of Scottie, therefore, seemed ludicrous.

“Relieve me? I just got here today,” I said. “But either way, I think it’s best for him if I stay.”

“I’m sure they taught you a lot in beauty school about how to take care of grown men?”

Placing my hands on my hips, I huffed. “I’m surprised you even remembered what I do for a living. You certainly never made an effort to get to know me when Brad was alive.”

“Seriously, Carly?” he snapped back. “You think you’re gonna be able to handle him?”

“It’s been fine so far.” I shrugged.

“You’ve been here all of what, a couple of hours? It’s fine until he has a tantrum and you can’t control him.” He gave me a onceover. “He’s three times your size.”

Crossing my arms, I lifted my head high. “Lorraine didn’t say she had any issues handling him, and she’s no bigger than me.”

“She wouldn’t have admitted shit to you if it might have discouraged you from coming. She’s his guardian on paper, but she’s been looking for her ticket out of this responsibility from the moment Wayne died. Did she tell you she had to solicit the neighbor’s help last week to get Scottie off the floor?”

I shook my head.

He nodded. “Abe is a friend of my dad’s and told him he helped out. Lorraine must’ve neglected to mention that to you.”

“Did she askyouto come here?”

“No. Like I said, I’ve been planning to come back out here to take care of things ever since Wayne’s funeral. I just had to tie up some loose ends first.”

“Well, you don’t need to stay. You obviously have a job and a life back in Chicago.”

His eyes narrowed. “And you don’t have a life?”

“I decided to put it on hold. My career is a bit more flexible. I work freelance and only take jobs when I want to.”

As a contract makeup artist, I often worked on television and movie sets back in California. It was on one such set that I’d met Brad, who’d been a writer on a popular sitcom at the time.

“Well, I primarily work remotely anyway,” Josh said. “So it’s not a problem for me to be here.” He glared at me. “It’s what Brad would’ve wanted.”

Moving my shoulders back, I challenged him. “How do you know what Brad would’ve wanted? Did you discuss this scenario with him? Because last I checked, no one expected Wayne to drop dead at sixty years old.”

“We never specifically discussed it, but I mean, come on. You’d only known Brad like what…two years? And maybe met Scottie a few times? Scottie grew up with me around. I’m practically his brother.”

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