Chapter 14

Chapter Fourteen

J J Walker trudged up the stairs, the backpack on his back feeling heavier than it had when he left that morning, though he had turned in a couple of the library books he’d borrowed for his midterm. He really wished this building had an elevator, but it didn’t. Sometimes, JJ really wished he hadn’t decided to come to Amarillo State College at all. At the same time, his life had been completely stagnant at Seven Sons Ranch, which his father co-owned and still worked eighty hours a week.

JJ was named after his dad. The two J’s stood for Jeremiah Jonah, and he felt like he had a lot to live up to. He did. The Walker name really meant something, and the seven brothers that comprised the family, along with their wives and all their kids, had taught JJ that. One of his uncles, Uncle Tripp, had adopted his wife’s son, Oliver, and JJ grew up hearing, “Walkers are winners. The Walker name means something, son,” from everyone in his family—all the men, Grandma and Grandpa too.

Walkers are winners , he thought. The family motto his momma had put into place had started as a joke, but later on, whenever JJ didn’t do that well on a math test, or he didn’t make the football team as a junior, or he wasn’t ever sure what his life was going to be, his momma would take his face in her hands and say, “Remember, JJ, Walkers are winners.”

JJ didn’t feel like a winner right now. It was the beginning of March, and the last of his midterms were done for now. He still had two more months of school before finals, and then he wasn’t sure what he was going to do. He’d come to Amarillo with Rich Marshall, who’d already said he was going back to Three Rivers to work his family’s ranch for the summer.

JJ didn’t want to go back to work the ranch until he knew it was what he was going to do with his life. And right now, he had no idea what he was going to do with his life. He liked to work with his hands, he knew that. So he’d taken some computer classes, and he was really good at pulling apart machines and putting them back together. Maybe he could be a mechanic. He’d started looking into some of those classes, but he hadn’t taken any yet. He wasn’t great at math, and he didn’t like to sit down and read like his daddy.

He’d cook if he had to, so he’d managed to keep himself alive these past several months since he’d left his parents’ house. But a lot of that had to do with the other two men JJ and Rich had moved in with.

Noel Tyler and Tate Reynolds. JJ had connected to Tate the most, as Tate felt a little lost and adrift as well. He didn’t know what to do with his life any more than JJ did. They’d taken a few classes together this semester, just to be there for each other through the homework and projects.

Everyone these days was real big into group work, and JJ hated it. But with Tate in his classes, he had someone to talk to, bounce ideas off of, and who’d do his part of the work.

He reached the third floor and pushed out of the stairwell, feeling hot and sweaty, though the true heat hadn’t reached the Texas Panhandle yet. Still, his breathing came quick, though JJ wasn’t one to just sit around and do nothing. He also didn’t get up and run or lift weights in the morning. Merely walking around campus seemed to be enough to keep him in shape just fine.

His stomach growled, as it was near dinnertime, and he started to pray that perhaps Noel had brought home something from the pizza parlor where he worked, or Tate had been struck with a brilliant idea for something to make for dinner that night.

He turned the corner to go around his apartment, where only two doors sat right across from each other. He instantly came face to face with a beautiful woman standing there. The closer he looked, the more he realized that she was not very old, maybe not even a woman yet.

She turned toward him, and JJ came to a complete stop. He’d been out with girls before in high school. He’d been to prom. He’d had a girl he went with for a little while, sneaking kisses at school around the corner by the band room, and maybe even out on the ranch that his daddy and momma didn’t know about.

But this girl—and she was definitely a girl—and if she wasn’t, she was a freshman for sure, was different. She had long, auburn hair that bordered on brown and blonde at the same time, with that hint of red in it. She painted her lips with something soft and glossy and pink, and JJ licked his just to make sure he still had a pair of lips. She seemed just as frozen as he was, but something inside him told him to get moving.

So he did. He took a couple of steps forward and asked, “Are you lost?”

There were two apartments in this hallway, and they both housed four men each. He’d never seen a woman over here, in fact, and he wondered what to do next. He couldn’t just fit his key into the lock and walk away. Not if she needed help.

The cowboy gentleman inside of him wouldn’t allow him to do that, so he paused just out of arm’s reach of her.

She swiped angrily at her eyes. “I don’t think I’m lost,” she said, her voice quivering the littlest bit. “I think my brother lives here.”

Oh, boy , JJ thought. “Who’s your brother?” he asked, his heartbeat pounding along in time with the way her eyelashes fluttered. She was definitely trying to hold back tears, and JJ wasn’t sure what to do with crying women on the best of days, and today wasn’t the best of days.

“I just got separated from my family,” she said. “We agreed to meet at his apartment.”

“Okay…who’s your brother?”

She sniffled, her chin wavering, and JJ decided to move this conversation somewhere less awkward. “I’m in there,” he said. “You want to come in and get a drink?” He moved closer to her, catching the scent of something smooth and clean and floral—and he sure did like it.

She didn’t answer, and JJ did fit his key in the lock and opened the door. “You can come in, if you want,” he said. “We’ll figure out who your brother is and where he is.” The interior of the apartment didn’t smell too bad, though sometimes it could smell like dirty laundry or sweaty shoes. Four men lived there, after all.

JJ appeared to be the only one home right now, though sometimes his roommates hid out in their rooms.

“I’m fairly sure we have orange juice,” he said. “And water, of course. Probably some chocolate milk. Rich likes that.” He wasn’t sure if the woman had come inside with him, and if she had any brain cells at all, she wouldn’t.

He turned and looked over his shoulder and found her hovering in the doorway. “If your brother lives in this apartment or the one across the hall, I probably know him. I can just call him for you.”

She nodded, her eyes darting around the apartment. “His name is Tate,” she said, and that made bombs go off in JJ’s mind. His heart plummeted to the soles of his cowboy boots.

Of course this was Tate’s younger sister.

The moment she’d said his name, JJ could see all the pieces of his best friend in her face. Tate didn’t have as much red in his hair, and he kept it shaved short anyway.

He’d seen pictures of Ruby, but her hair hadn’t been down. She competed as a gymnast, and her hair was always slicked back.

“Sure,” JJ said as nonchalantly as he could with his pulse galloping through his veins like wild stallions. “You’re Ruby Reynolds.”

Her gaze came to his then. “You know me?”

JJ gave a strained laugh that surely sounded like a serial killer about to attack. “No, but Tate’s shown us some family photos.” He gestured to the tiny dining room table. “He lives here. This is his apartment.”

“It is?” Relief washed through her face, and JJ moved over to the fridge.

“You want water, juice, milk? We’ve got it all.”

“I’ll take some juice,” she said, and he wasn’t sure why that made him so happy, only that orange juice was his favorite drink of all time. If he could mix soda pop with it, that only doubled the happiness quotient.

He pulled out the carton of orange juice and a bottle of Sprite. “You want a little soda mix-in?”

“There you are, Ruby,” someone said outside his field of vision.

JJ turned back toward the door, holding the juice and the pop. A woman, clearly Ruby and Tate’s mother, entered the frame and took Ruby into her arms.

“You can’t be wandering off like that.”

“We agreed to meet back at his apartment.” Ruby sniffled against her momma’s chest. “You guys left me in the museum.” She straightened and glanced over to JJ, and his hands had turned totally slick.

Maybe because of Ruby’s presence. Maybe because the soda pop bottle had already beaded with condensation. No matter what, the bottle of Sprite slipped from his hands, and his ninja-like reflexes abandoned him in his moment of greatest need.

The soda pop hit the floor with a horrifying, loud, plastic thunk! against the linoleum. Suddenly, everything about his apartment was dirty, dingy, and downtrodden. They did have cleaning inspection next week, which meant they hadn’t tidied up in a while, and all of these thoughts ran through his mind as the bottle bounced up in slow motion.

It tipped toward Ruby and her mother, hit the floor again with a less impressive thud that still managed to pop the lid right off.

Soda sprayed toward them in all its fizzy glory, and both women shrieked and held up their hands to shield their faces.

JJ stood there with the orange juice carton in his hand, completely humiliated and staring as clear soda dripped from Ruby’s hands and her mother’s elbow.

“Hey, hey.”

JJ recognized his best friend’s voice, and Tate added, “What is going on here?” as he arrived in the apartment too. He scanned his momma and sister from feet to face, his eyes widening.

Ruby shook her hands of the offensive, sticky soda while her mom simply blinked with wet eyelashes. JJ could only stare, but thankfully, something kicked at his brain that told him to move, to act.

He set the orange juice on the counter and spun to get a towel from the handle on the stove. “I’m so sorry,” he gushed as he stepped toward Ruby and her mother. “I didn’t mean to drop it.”

JJ’s cowboy boot came down in a puddle of Sprite, and oh, it hadn’t had time to dry into a sticky mess. He slipped, his balance getting thrown completely off.

This cannot be happening , he thought. He threw his arms out to try to catch himself so he wouldn’t embarrass himself further.

Tate lunged through his momma and sister, his arm reaching for JJ’s. He grabbed onto him and said, “Whoa, whoa, cowboy, I got you.”

They righted themselves, thankfully, and JJ looked straight into Tate’s eyes. “Your sister’s looking for you,” he said needlessly.

Tate grinned and laughed. “Yeah, brother, she’s right there.”

Foolishness filled JJ, and he was so done with today.

“Did you meet her?” Tate stepped back to Ruby’s side and put his arm around her. “This is my little sister, Ruby. Rubes, this my best friend, JJ—Jeremiah Jonah—Walker.” He grinned like they’d all have birthday cake later, but if he knew what ran through JJ’s mind, Tate might feel differently.

“And my momma,” Tate said. “Louise.” He looked at her too. “Daddy’s coming up.”

As if summoned by his son’s words, another man came into the apartment—their father.

JJ had already made a complete fool of himself, and he wasn’t going to stick around and flirt with Ruby, wasn’t going to try to get her number, nothing. He’d put her straight out of his mind, because she was nowhere near old enough to date him.

He was almost twenty-two, and she hadn’t even graduated from high school yet. So he stepped forward and with his towel- less hand, he shook hands with everyone, feeling all of the stickiness on Louise’s and Ruby’s hands.

He retreated to get some cleaning wipes while Tate led his family into the living room, where they settled down to chat about Ruby’s college campus tour. JJ got himself out of the room as fast as possible, mentally grumbling to himself about how he had the worst luck when it came to almost everything.

He headed to his bedroom and closed the door, paced to the window and back, and then told himself, “Walkers are winners,” under his breath. “Things like this happen, JJ. It’s not just you.”

He sank onto his bed when some of his nervous energy had finally abated, tossing his cowboy hat behind him. With midterms done, he had the weekend ahead of him without being on the work schedule. But as laughter floated down the hall from the living room to his ears, he couldn’t help but think that God had cursed him nonetheless by bringing the gorgeous—and completely unavailable—Ruby Reynolds into his life too soon.