He Stood Me Up, so I Married His Brother novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Right Brother

Neely hands Crosby back his grandmother's ring on the steps, Lorene cancels most of her crew's work by text, and that night Thatcher tells her what his family says he did.

Nobody on the steps moved.

Ivey's phone was pointed at Thatcher's face.

"Crosby," I said.

"No." He came up one more step. "You don't know what he is. You don't know what he did."

"I know what you did. Twenty-seven times."

"She was sick!"

I looked at Ivey's stomach. Then at the to-go box on the steps. Pancake syrup was leaking out of the corner.

"She looks better," I said.

Somebody behind me laughed and turned it into a cough.

Crosby's face went red from the collar up.

He pointed past me at his brother.

"Tell her. Go on, tell her what you did to Dad."

Thatcher didn't say anything.

His hand was still on my back. It didn't move and it didn't shake.

"Tell her you signed off on that deck!"

"Not here," Thatcher said.

"Not here. Not ever. That's what you always say."

Ivey whispered, "Crosby, people are filming."

People weren't filming. Ivey was filming.

I opened my purse.

The ring was in the side pocket where I'd dropped it twenty minutes ago.

It was his grandmother's. A little old diamond in a high gold setting that snagged on every pair of work gloves I owned.

I held it out.

"Take it," I said. "It was your grandmother's. It should stay in your family."

"Neel. Don't do this on the steps."

"You did it on the steps. I'm just finishing it."

He didn't take it.

So I took his hand, turned it over, and put the ring in his palm.

I closed his fingers on it.

"You'll be back after lunch," I said. "I know."

Then I walked down past him, and Thatcher came with me.

At the bottom, Thatcher stopped.

"I have to go back in," he said. "I'm on until five."

"There's a line." He nodded at the doors. "That soldier still needs his license."

"You married a stranger on your lunch break, and you're going back to work."

"It wasn't my lunch break."

I laughed. It came out wrong, half a sob.

"If you want it undone," he said, "I'll sign whatever you need. No hard feelings."

"Do you want it undone?"

He looked at me for a second too long.

"Go to work, Neely," he said, and went back up the steps.

Crosby was gone. The to-go box was still there.

I drove my truck to Abercorn in the white sundress.

Tammy was on the ridge with a nail gun when I pulled up.

She took one look at me and yelled, "He didn't show!"

"He showed," I yelled back. "He left."

I climbed the ladder in my sandals, which you should never do.

Tammy grabbed my wrist and hauled me onto the roof. She saw the plastic ring.

"What is that?"

"My wedding ring."

"That's from a gumball machine."

"It's from the county."

"Neely Faircloth," she said. "Who did you marry?"

"Thatcher Ashwood."

Our oldest guy dropped his hammer. It slid all the way down the roof and into the gutter.

"The brother?" Tammy said. "The brother brother? The one who..."

"Yes."

"In a sundress? At the counter? In front of God and the clerk?"

"He was the clerk."

Tammy sat down on the shingles.

The new kid said, "Is that legal?"

"It's Georgia," Tammy said. "Everything's legal if you've got a number."

Then she started laughing. Big, ugly, hiccuping laughs that you could hear on Abercorn.

The crew started laughing too.

So did I, finally, sitting on a hot roof in my wedding dress with tar on my hem.

"Okay," Tammy said, wiping her eyes. "Okay. Is he nice to you?"

"He asked before he kissed me."

"Crosby ever do that?"

I didn't answer.

"Thought so," Tammy said. "Hand me that bundle."

At four, my phone buzzed.

Lorene Ashwood. She'd never texted me herself before.

"Effective immediately, Ashwood Homes will no longer require Faircloth Roofing on any active or scheduled project. Do not return to our sites. Invoices will be reviewed by counsel."

Then I opened the schedule on my phone and counted.

Eleven jobs. Seven were Ashwood.

Sixty percent of my work, gone, between a ceremony and a cup of coffee.

Tammy read it over my shoulder.

"That witch," she said.

"She's not wrong to do it."

"She's wrong to be born."

Five people. Five paychecks. Two of them had kids.

"Nobody's getting cut," I said. "Not this month."

"How?" the new kid asked.

"I don't know yet."

Tammy put her arm around my shoulders. She smelled like sunscreen and roofing tar.

"Then we'll find out together," she said.

It was past nine when I locked up the shop.

There was a gray pickup parked by my truck.

Thatcher was sitting on its tailgate, no lanyard, his sleeves rolled up. He had two paper cups of coffee.

"You found the shop," I said.

"It says Faircloth Roofing in letters four feet high."

He held out a cup. I took it.

"Lorene cancelled you," he said.

"How do you know?"

"Because it's what she does."

I sat on the tailgate next to him. The metal was still warm from the day.

"Crosby will tell you a story," he said. "So will she. So will the whole town. You should hear it from me first."

"So tell me."

He turned the cup slowly in his scarred hands.

"Three years ago I red-tagged the roof deck on a house at Riverside Bend. It wasn't safe."

He took a breath.

"A week later our father went up on that deck anyway, and it gave out under him."

He looked at the dark shop, not at me.

"And I've never told anybody who sent him up there."

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