Chapter Two

CHAPTER TWO

Dusty

Easton is thirty minutes late.

This is the first time in two months, so I try not to get too frustrated, but it’s hard.

Because Morgan spent so much time taking care of his family, I spent a lot of time with them too. In many ways, Easton feels like a little brother to me. While people on the outside know what the Swifts have been through, I saw it from the inside. I felt it through Morgan, as much as someone other than a Swift could feel it.

So yeah, I have a bond with Easton. I care about him a whole hell of a lot, but this is also my place of business, and being professional is important to me.

“Sorry I’m late,” the tattooed blond in question says as he comes in through the shop’s heavy metal door. Dusty’s Collision Repair is my baby. I’ve always loved putting cars back together—not the fixing of mechanical parts as much as the body work. It’s really all I’ve ever wanted, which is why Easton not taking it as seriously is like sandpaper against my skin.

Leaning against the wall, I stare at him a moment. Sometimes it’s hard to believe he’s the same little kid who was the first diaper I ever changed, hard to believe he’s Morgan’s little brother. As far as I know, my ex-best friend doesn’t have any tattoos, and Easton is covered in them. He’s the only Swift who didn’t go to college or who has a record. I guess it’s possible those things have changed with Morgan in the last ten years, but I doubt it.

“East, we talked about this. You know your shit—you’re probably the best apprentice I’ve ever had—and it’s clear to me how much you love it.” I’m not sure East has ever loved anything the way he does auto body work, much to Mayor Swift’s dismay. “But I can’t keep letting you get away with—”

“Morgan’s back,” he interrupts, making my heart drop to my gut.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, not with Gregory’s stroke, but then I know how Morgan feels about his dad, and about Rhett—and clearly about me since he left town and never spoke to me again.

I wasn’t sure my goddamned heart would ever recover. Sometimes I’m still not sure it has. Case in point, my words are still lost to me after the two simple ones East spoke. Morgan’s back.

I clear my throat. “And you were with him?”

Easton shakes his head. “Haven’t seen him yet. Just thought you might want to know. I won’t be late again.”

Cleary done with the conversation, East heads over to the SUV we’re fixing after it was rear-ended, and he gets right to work.

I shouldn’t let him get away with that. I should say something, any-fucking-thing, but I don’t.

Morgan is back.

I’ve often wondered how much Easton or their dad know about our loss of friendship. Rhett is at the center of it, so he knows. Plus, he and I struck up a friendship after Morgan left. Rhett and Morgan went years without talking at all, but now they call each other when it has to do with the family. Rhett wanted to tell him to call me, but I nipped that in the bud. No good would come of it. All it would do is make Morgan pull away even more. The idea of Rhett going to him about anything would get him all up in his head, automatically on the defensive. The Swifts are all tangled in so much family drama, so much pain, that none of them can see any of it clearly.

Not my problem. None of it is my problem.

But I’ve sure as shit done a good job keeping myself entangled with them my whole damn life. First through my friendship with Morgan, and then in the way it was blown to hell.

“Fuck,” I groan to myself before heading to the paint stall, where I have a Honda waiting for me, hoping it will keep my mind off the Swifts, but knowing it won’t.

*

Morgan is leaving.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise to me. Itdoesn’t come as a surprise, but knowing doesn’t make the big, gaping hole inside me any smaller. I always knew that when East was old enough, Morgan would be outta here, and now Easton is seventeen, and Rhett is back from law school, ready to become the next Birchbark Swift royalty. Morgan waited his turn, and now that time is over, and he’s leaving in three weeks.

Three weeks.

He asked me to go with him to California…

“Come on, Dust. How fun would it be to have my best friend with me. We can do anything…meet guys, have fun, have a life.”

I said no.

I don’t want to meet guys.

I want him.

That’s why I’m sitting at the bottom of the old Birchbark lighthouse, with a bottle of whiskey, a burning throat, and so much pain and fear and love that my insides feel like a tornado, picking up new debris to throw around me with every second that passes.

I smell the fresh water in the distance, know the rocky shore isn’t far away.

I don’t know how to leave Birchbark, don’t know how to leave the UP. That’s never been what I wanted. I’m not like Morgan. I don’t have all these big dreams. I don’t want to see all these new places. I love it here. I’ll always love it here.

But I also love him and don’t know how to be without him.

I pick up the bottle and take a swig, then drop my head back against the wall of the lighthouse.

“Ah, fuck. Please don’t tell me Morgan is here with you,” comes a deep voice from behind me. Rhett.

“Nope,” I say, popping thep in a way I wouldn’t if I hadn’t already drunk too much. “What do you want?”

“Well, I sure as shit didn’t want to hang out with you tonight.”

“This is our spot, mine and Morgan’s.” One of them, at least.

“Before I left for college, it used to be mine.”

I’m not surprised. It’s quiet here. The lighthouses aren’t manned anymore, so it’s the perfect place to come to be alone.

“But you left.”

“And now Morgan’s leaving. He doesn’t own everything, ya know?”

I roll my eyes. All this drama in their family can get to be too much. Rhett is twenty-six and a lawyer and he’s still always in competition with Morgan.

He sits down beside me.

“Maybe I have shit on my mind too,” he says softly, surprising me.

I bet it’s not the fact that he’s in love with his best friend who is leaving Birchbark to follow his dreams. I bet he doesn’t want to ask him to stay the way I do but know I can’t. It wouldn’t be fair.

If I did ask, if I told Morgan how I feel, I know he’ll stay because he doesn’t want to hurt me, and he’ll end up resenting me for it—and living with a broken heart because that’s what being in Birchbark is for him.

I take another swig of the whiskey, fire licking down my throat, before handing it to Rhett. He looks at it for a moment, like I’m handing him a burning-hot poker. A second later he takes the bottle, swallowing gulp after gulp.

I don’t know what we’re doing out here together. Rhett and I aren’t friends, but when he starts talking about what it was like going to Harvard like his dad, and how weird it is to be back, I listen.

“You’re not going with Morgan? When he leaves?” he asks, which I hadn’t expected. I know Morgan wouldn’t have told him he asked me to go.

“Nah. Why do you ask?”

“I always assumed the two of you are together.”

I look away, watching the stars twinkle in the sky. I wish it were the time of year to see the northern lights. They’re my favorite. It’s like living in a fantasy. “Just friends.”

“My brother is a dick.”

“No, he’s not,” I snap.

“Yes, he is.” Rhett takes another gulp.

“You don’t know him like I do.” I pick at a blade of grass, twisting it around my finger. The thing is, when it comes to Rhett, Morganis an asshole, but Rhett is one to him as well.

Rhett is quiet for a moment, before we start talking again. He asks about the auto body program I’m in and about cars. I still don’t know why we’re out here, what we’re doing, but he actually isn’t so bad. He makes me laugh, and however fleetingly, I forget I’m heartbroken.

The pain doesn’t go away. I don’t think it ever will, but the whiskey mixed with the conversation helps me to push it to the back of my head for a little while because…what am I going to do without Morgan? What if the Morgan-shaped hole he leaves inside me never heals?

Shit. I’m thinking about him again.

My chest feels like it’s being ripped apart, head spinning, world collapsing.

“Dusty?” Rhett slurs my name a little. I realize he said something to me I missed.

“Hmm?” I turn to him. We’re both leaning against the lighthouse, our faces…close.

“Hi,” Rhett says softly.

“Hi.” We stare at each other, neither of us moving. Why aren’t we moving away, leaning back, doing something?

I’m so fucking lonely, so sad, that it feels like the pain is eating away at my brain, at any and all good sense I have. I just want to feel something good, something that doesn’t hurt or make me feel empty inside. I need to feel wanted, connected.

I can’t say how we go from being a few inches apart to our lips touching. Was it me or Rhett? Both of us? I don’t know and maybe never will.

The second my tongue sneaks into his mouth, I know it’s wrong. This isn’t who I want. He’s not Morgan, but he’s here, and kissing me back, and Morgan is leaving.

Morgan, who is my best friend.

Morgan, whom I love.

Morgan, whom I’ll never have like this, never know what he tastes like.

“What the fuck!” Morgan cries out, and for a moment, I think I imagined it because Morgan’s not here and this isn’t happening. I don’t want to kiss Rhett. Why the fuck would I do that?

We rip apart and shove to our feet. Before I can get a handle on what’s happening, Morgan is charging Rhett, tackling him, knocking his brother to the ground. He pulls his arm back and swings, fist connecting with Rhett’s face. “What are you doing? You don’t get to touch him! He’s mine.” Morgan punches him again.

Whiskey tries to climb up my throat. I want to move, make every attempt to, but it’s like my limbs don’t work, like my feet grew roots and I can’t pull them out of the ground.

“Morgan, get off him. It’s not what it looked like.” But it is what it looked like. Rhett and I were kissing, and Morgan saw.

He turns to me, and it’s the distraction Rhett needs. He flips them, and this time it’s him holding Morgan down, punching him. My heart is hitting my chest just as hard as they’re hitting each other, but I finally get myself to move, lunging at Rhett and knocking him off Morgan. “What the hell is wrong with the two of you?” I shout.

Morgan pushes to his feet, both Rhett and I still on the ground. He spits the blood from his mouth. “Fuck you, Rhett. You did that on purpose. You kissed him because you knew it would hurt me.”

“Or maybe I just want him and he wants me. It was a hot fucking kiss,” Rhett sneers.

The thin restraint Morgan had comes undone, and he charges Rhett again. I manage to throw myself between them, and Morgan stops, not putting his hands on me. Not fighting me.

“Get out of the way, Dust.”

“No.” I put my hand on his chest, but he rips away from me.

“Don’t touch me. I can’t believe you…” He runs a hand through his hair, tugs the strands, shakes.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. I don’t know what happened.” I want to tell him I would be his if he wanted me, that I wished he cared because the thought of someone else having me was like physical pain, the way it felt when I thought of others having him, but the only reason he cares that I kissed someone tonight is because that person was Rhett. Any other man wouldn’t have mattered because Morgan only loves me as a friend.

“Fuck you, Dusty. And fuck you too, Rhett. The two of you can have each other.”

He starts walking away. I reach out and grab his arm, but Morgan pulls free. “I can’t do this with you. Don’t talk to me. Don’t follow me. You chose him.”

Morgan leaves us standing there alone.

The hole inside me grows. “Fuck!” I shout until my throat is on fire again. “Why the hell did you kiss me?”

“You kissed me.” Rhett wipes the blood from his mouth and stands. “I’m not… I haven’t… I’m not into guys.”

Did I kiss him first? Hell, I don’t even know. Does it even matter?

“I’m not him,” Rhett adds, looking away.

My world spins, feels like the ground is disappearing from beneath me. “I know,” I snap. “We’re not like that. He’s my best friend.”

“So that’s me you wanted to kiss just now?”

I look away because it wasn’t. We both know I was kissing Morgan.

“Why did you kiss me back? You said you’re not even queer.”

“We both know why.”

Rhett hadn’t been lying. For a moment, just a moment, he wanted to want me because he knew it would hurt Morgan. And I’d kissed Rhett because I couldn’t have Morgan. The Swifts weren’t the only ones who were a mess.

“What’s wrong with me? I can’t… I gotta go.”

“Rhett!” I call out as he walks away. I say his name again, but he doesn’t answer, and I don’t follow.

I try to tell myself it doesn’t matter. That it was one stupid moment and didn’t mean anything.

Tears spring to my eyes as I fall against the lighthouse again, crying and drinking until my world goes black. I wake up with the sun high in the sky the next morning, the night before pummeling me.

The first thing I do is lose everything in my gut, bend over and just vomit it all out right there.

Then I run…I’m sweaty, chest tight, breaths fighting to get out of my lungs when I stumble onto the Swifts’ porch. Rhett is sitting on the swing at the end, recently showered and dressed, with a fat lip and a black eye.

“He’s gone,” Rhett says.

“Where did he go?”

“He left for California early.”

My legs give out, my body collapsing to the porch. Rhett sighs, walks over, and sits beside me. “We fucked up.”

“You can say that again.”

“You’re in love with him?” Rhett asks, but he knows the answer. “He’ll get over it. He’ll stop being a big fucking baby and get everything he wants because that’s how life works for him.”

But I know Morgan better than that, know he won’t forget what he saw, and it will become something else that haunts him for the rest of his life.