Page 39 of A Real Goode Time

I coughed. “Well…right out with it, huh? All right, I can respect that.” I stood up, paced down the steps a ways. “If I had or hadn’t, I wouldn’t feel comfortable telling you. I haven’t met you face to face, number one, number two, that would be between Torie and me, and number three, if Torie wants you to know the answer to that, she’ll tell you. I’ve got no issue with her telling you the answer to that question, but it’s not my place to do so.”

“Huh,” she mused. “Damn good answer. Not the one I was hoping for, but a good one.”

“Anything else you want to know?”

“I mean, yeah. A ton of stuff I doubt you’ll answer. What are your intentions? What do you want from her? Why are you going so far out of your way to help her? What’s going to happen between you two when she’s out here in Alaska and you’re not?”

I barked a laugh. “Honestly, I can’t answer any of that, because I don’t really know.” I moved further down the steps, out of earshot of Torie. “Mainly because it’s not like that. It may not ever be like that. I can’t say part of me doesn’twantit to be like that because she’s cool as hell and gorgeous. But…Alaska?”

“But Alaska, right.” She sighed. “All right, well…I can’t argue with that answer. Just…be careful with her, okay? Don’t hurt her.”

I laughed. “She’s not delicate, Lexie. She’s strong, and she’s smart. She can take care of herself. I have no intentions of hurting her, of course, but telling me to be careful with her seems like you’re a little…unaware of her strength as a person.”

“Damn, okay, tell me how it is.”

“Just saying.”

“Game respects game, Rhys. All right, give me my sister back.”

“Yeah. Bye. Good talking to you, Lexie.”

“You too, Rhys.”

I went up and gave the phone back to a wary and bemused Torie. I just shrugged, grinned, and headed back inside.

Torie was out there a few more minutes and then came in, phone in hand. “What did she ask you?”

I debated what to say and what to not say. And in the end figured I had nothing to lose by telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth. “She asked if we’d had sex, if I planned to have sex with you, what my intentions for you are, why I’m helping you, and what’s going to happen between us when you’re in Alaska and I’m here.”

Her eyes widened, and a flush crept up into her cheeks. “And? What’d you say? About the first two questions specifically.”

“I said it wasn’t my place to answer that, and if you wanted her to know you’d tell her. And that I had no problem with you and her talking about what you and I have and have not done together.”

“I’m sorry she asked you that—” Torie started.

I interrupted. “Don’t be. You’re lucky as hell to have the kind of family and friends that check in on you like this, that are willing to ask those kinds of questions. I don’t mind. I’m not going to answer questions I don’t think are my place to answer, but I respect the fact that they love you enough to ask.”

“Your family doesn’t do that? What about friends?”

I shrugged. I was acting more nonchalant than I perhaps felt. “Well, my family isn’t…we’re not like that. I wasn’t beat up and they weren’t alcoholics—which put me way better off than most of the kids I knew. I mean, they drank plenty and probably more than they should, but Shania’s parents were…god, they were downright evil, and drunk from wake up to pass out.” I sighed. “Anyway, no, we’re not like that. They don’t really call and check on me except maybe once a month or every other, and honestly they only call then to see if I can send ’em money. And my sister…? Well, like I said, we try to check in with one another a couple times a month. As for friends? I got some guys I’d call friends. From the jobsite, mainly. Some old clients will sometimes swing by to shoot the shit and talk cars. There’s Marty. But, honestly, no I don’t really have anyone who would check on me. I’m on my own, more or less.” I laughed bitterly. “Kinda pathetic, now that I put it in so many words.”

“Are you a loner by nature?”

I rolled a shoulder. “I guess so? I’ve never been the guy who has a whole, like, herd of friends. I had a buddy in middle school and high school, Dougy. We were pretty close. He’d help me salvage, and I’d give him some cash, which he’d use on booze and firecrackers.”

“Firecrackers?”

I laughed. “Yeah, he had a thing for blowin’ shit up. Firecrackers in middle school. But by high school he was tossing sticks of dynamite down rabbit holes.”

She stared at me. “He’d…what?”

I laughed. “Not with anything in ’em—he’d shove a stick down the hole first, make sure nothin’ came out. He just liked the big explosions. Never lost any fingers or anything, so he sort of knew what he was doing.”

“Where is he now?”

“Joined the Army, went to Iraq, and stepped on an IED.” I picked at my shorts. “Went out the way he’d have wanted, though—in an explosion.” I glanced upward. “That joke was for you, Dougy.”

She was quiet. “Wow. I’m sorry.”