Mated to My Step-brother and His Best Friend novel · Chapter 11 of 32

Chapter 11: The Boathouse

Deacon didn't go through the door.

He didn't go anywhere near Arlis.

He went out the back of the house and down to the tree line, and I heard his clothes hit the porch boards.

Then a howl came up off the ridge that made the windows hum.

He didn't come back that night.

He didn't come back all the next day.

I slept until noon and woke up with silver sweat soaking the sheets.

My share had been the smallest.

It still felt like the flu.

At dusk Bowie knocked on the hall door with two flannel shirts over his arm.

"Get dressed," he said. "Warm. We're going somewhere."

"I'm under guard."

"I am the guard. Half of it." He tossed me a shirt. "The other half is running around in the woods being dramatic."

"Is he okay?"

Bowie's grin slipped for a second.

"He found out his uncle maybe killed his mom. He'll run till his paws bleed and then he'll come home." He shrugged. "He did this when he was eleven, after the funeral. Took him three days. I left sandwiches on the porch."

"Did he eat them?"

"Raccoons ate them. But it's the thought."

The boathouse sat at the end of the long dock, half over the water.

Inside it smelled like cold lake and old varnish.

A green canoe hung upside down on racks over our heads.

There was a pile of faded boat cushions in one corner and a camp lantern Bowie lit with a match.

The lake slapped softly under the planks.

"This is where we hid when we were kids," he said. "Deacon and me. From everybody."

"What were you hiding from?"

"Mostly from the consequences of my actions."

I laughed.

He sat on the cushions and pulled an old wool army blanket over both our legs.

"We were fourteen," he said. "Deacon wanted to row the canoe across the lake to prove he could. Middle of the night. No life jackets."

"Oh no."

"I said, that's stupid. He said, then don't come. I said, obviously I'm coming."

"Obviously."

"We got about halfway." He held up his hand flat. Then he tipped it slowly sideways. "Turns out a canoe is a two-person boat, and I'm a two-person problem."

"You sank it?"

"I stood up to pee."

I laughed so hard I had to put my face in the blanket.

"Deacon swam it back," Bowie said. "The whole canoe. Upside down. Pushing it with his head like a beaver. Wouldn't let it sink. Said it was his mother's."

I stopped laughing.

He looked up at the green canoe on the racks.

"That's it," he said. "That's the one."

I looked at it too.

"He doesn't talk about her," I said.

"No. He keeps her rules instead. Every one." Bowie rubbed his thumb along the blanket. "Be on time. Say ma'am. Never take what isn't yours."

"That's why he couldn't let the ring go."

"That's why."

He was quiet for a moment.

Then he pulled his face into a long scowl, dropped his voice an octave, and said, "Bowie. It is eleven-oh-two. The meeting was at eleven."

It was Deacon, perfectly.

The jaw. The eyebrows. The way he said my name like it was an order.

"Stop," I said, already going.

"Dovie." He pulled the jaw tighter. "The gravy is unacceptable. I will be filing a report."

I fell over sideways on the cushions.

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