“Hey, fuck you. Oh wait. Here’s Caroline. Later, goat breath.”
“Possum fucker,” I returned in farewell, only to shake my head as a two-second pause ensued until my sister took control of the phone.
People told me I acted a lot like my brother-in-law, Ten, but I didn’t see it. He was lame; I was awesome. Enough said.
“Bubba!” Caroline greeted. “What’s going on? Everything okay?”
I had no idea how she could sound both happy to hear from me and worried for me all in the same breath, but she managed it nicely.
“Yep, it’s all good. Sarah came over to help with things only to kick me out of the house for a couple hours, so…wanna make a couple Vines?”
“Oh, man, I wish I could, but Oren picked up a new client today, so he and Teagan and I were going to go out for dinner to celebrate. But you can come with us.”
She was the only person I knew who called her husband by his real first name. It made me wonder if his clients called him Oren or Ten.
Yeah, he was probably Mr. Tenning to them, which made me smirk. Mr. Tenning? How professional. He probably wore a suit and tie when he met with them too, like some kind of skilled architect or something, which I guess he was, but still…weird.
“Colton?” Caroline asked.
“Hmm? Oh, right. Sorry. No. You guys go ahead.” I wasn’t going to crash their family night out. “I’m not hungry.” I was fucking starving, especially since she had mentioned food. But with the mood I was in, I already knew I’d feel like a fifth wheel if I tagged along. “Maybe some other night.”
“Yeah, sure. Anytime. I had this idea about a Vine where someone tells you to log online to some website, and in the next scene you’re cutting a literal log off a tree with a chainsaw, asking, ‘is this big enough,’ or something like that.”
“Sweet. I like it.” I nodded, already thinking through the details to accomplish it. “Do you have a chainsaw?”
“Why would we have a chainsaw?” Caroline sounded perplexed. “There are no trees in our yard.”
“So we have to get our hands on a chainsaw and a tree someone is willing to let us maim?”
Caroline sniffed as if irritated. “Well, I didn’t say it was going to be easy.”
“I suppose you want me to come up with both the tree and chainsaw too, huh?”
“Yeah, would you? You’re such a doll, thank you!” In the background, I heard a male shout and then a toddler’s shrieking back talk. “Oh, geesh. I gotta go. Love you. Bye.”
She hung up on me before I could say anything back, and I mumbled a delayed farewell as I stared at the dead phone. Typical of her to race off in the middle of a conversation. I always felt a little abandoned when she did that to me. But glad I had a mission now, I called Asher, hoping he had a chainsaw and a bushy tree he wanted trimmed.
He had no chainsaw and wasn’t willing to let me touch one of his trees either. “You’re not cutting up my trees, kid. My squirrels need those.”
And that was that. End of discussion.
I knew Pick had trees in his backyard, but I’d already begged enough from him lately. Caroline and I had about a dozen awesome bar skit ideas we wanted to post on Vine, so we were probably lucky enough Pick had given us some time in Forbidden after hours. We shouldn’t push our luck by begging for more shit from him.
I knew Felicity and Knox didn’t have a tree in their backyard.
I was about to call Sarah’s brother, Mason, because they had trees—not sure about a chainsaw—but an incoming call from one of my buddies I’d known since high school waylaid me.
“Dude, are you coming to the Kappa Sigma tonight? You are so missing out right now. There are chicks everywhere. Hot chicks. Hot half-dressed chicks.” And alcohol too, apparently, since he sounded about as toasted as I’d ever heard him.
“I, uh…” When I realized I was trying to think up an excuse why I couldn’t make it, I paused.
What the hell was I doing? I had no reason in the world not to go, except I hadn’t been in the mood to do much of anything outside family shit since…well, Julianna.
I didn’t like realizing that. I didn’t like how I’d given her that much power over me. She’d been on my mind every day since that night. I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her, I hadn’t been able to throw her underwear away, and I hadn’t been able to look at her after she’d tried to hide from me the day after Brandt’s wedding when I’d gone to the bar to see her.