Chapter 12

Sienna dug up another stubborn weed and gritted her teeth as it came out of the ground. She imagined it was Brian, Mr. “I’ll be back in three days” Littrell. It had been a week, and she’d heard no word from him. And then, to add insult to injury, she couldn’t believe she was sitting here in his neglected flowerbeds, fixing them. The bastard. He was probably off playing with next-to-naked women in the Keys. She imagined the next weed was him and nearly ripped it to shreds. Wiping the sweat off her forehead, she began to laugh at her reaction to everything.

A car door shut and she heard the jerk’s voice call, “Lucy, I’m home!”

She lay back in the grass and stared up at the blue, blue sky and the hot, hot sun and wondered if hearing voices was a side effect of sunstroke. Then again, who heard of getting sunstroke in late April?

Brian freaked out when he watched Sienna fall back onto the grass next to the large pile of weeds. He ran over to where she lay and leaned over to look at her.

“Sienna? Baby, are you okay?” he asked.

Sienna waved her hand at his face and realized he was really there.

“Huh, I guess I don’t have sunstroke,” she murmured. When she tried to stand up she swayed. “Whoops! I think I got up too fast,” she said, mostly to herself.

Brian hooked an arm around her waist and helped her up the stairs as he scolded her.

“What were you thinking weeding when it’s ninety degrees out today? Have you no sense?! Did you drink any water while you were out there? How long were you out there? What were you thinking?”

Sienna shook her head as she sat down in a kitchen chair. “Too many questions, Brian. One at a time.” She sighed hugely when he set a large glass of water in front of her. “Thank God. One second,” she murmured as she drank down the glass in less than twenty seconds. “Okay, so, your questions,” she began when she had downed the glass. “I told you I would help you weed today, so here I am. So you weren’t here. That doesn’t mean I would break my promise. And, I forgot my water bottle at home and didn’t want to waste time going all the way home to get it.”

Brian held up a hand to stop her, then disappeared out of the kitchen. When he came back, he put a key in her hand.

“There. Now, anytime you need anything, you can come in and get it here,” Brian explained simply.

“Brian, I can’t take this key,” Sienna said while trying to hand it back to him.

Brian shook his head. “Nope, I gave it to you. It’s yours. And, I’m sorry it took me a few days more to get back home. Nick and I had a lot to catch up on. And, you were right again,” he added.

“Well, of course, I was right. But, I still can’t have your house key,” Sienna replied.

“Fine. Give me a key to your place, too,” Brian said. “We’ll be even.”

“Fine. And, yeah, I was a little mad that you weren’t here, but I don’t have any other time to weed your beds because there is a rush at the store this time of year,” Sienna explained.

“I’m sorry,” Brian apologized.

She waved it off. “Don’t worry about it. It’s done. You’re here, now. Let me show you how to do it really quickly.” She glanced at her watch. “I have to go home, wash up, and get ready for a date tonight. So, I have to teach you how to weed on your own in twenty minutes.”

Brian nodded and followed her out even as he thought, A date? She’s going on a date?! Who the hell is the guy? It doesn’t matter because he doesn’t deserve her. Although, lying to yourself is a bad idea. Just admit it. You’re jealous because it’s not you.

He shook of the bad mood and concentrated on the right way to pull out a weed.

Over the next month and a half, Brian flew to Los Angeles to see Howie and came back thrilled that everything was looking fantastic. Except that he now knew what had been going on with AJ in the last few months. Sarah had broken their engagement because AJ had gone to an AA meeting, then ended up getting drunk with a fellow alcoholic and slept with her. AJ’s world had crashed, and he’d lost his sobriety and his fiancée in a few short days.

Currently, according to Howie, he was working on the sobriety issue by spending time with his mom in West Palm Beach. Brian hadn’t felt up to seeing AJ, yet. But, he had managed to call AJ and invite him to spend some time with him in Lexington. AJ had been excited to come, and they’d decided that he would come during the second week of June.

Sienna had heard this tale nearly a thousand times, and today was no different.

“He’s coming tomorrow! Can you believe it? What am I supposed to say to him? ‘Gosh, AJ, I am so sorry I was such a jackass that I couldn’t be bothered to check up on you? I’m sorry I wasn’t there when everything terrible happened to you?’ I can’t say that,” Brian lamented.

“Brian?”

“Yeah, Sienna?”

“Shut up. I think you’re scaring away my customers,” she told him. Then she began to laugh at the look on his face.

“Seriously, Brian, I think you’ll know the right thing to say. Besides, if he’s anything like Nick, he probably won’t know what to say to you, either,” Sienna reassured him.

Nick had dropped by for a week in mid-May and met Sienna. She still remembered the way he had whistled at her appreciatively. So, she’d hammed it up a bit, and he’d tripped over his own two feet, while Brian roared with laughter. She’d liked him, and, later, he’d confessed that he had been terrified to see Brian again and hadn’t known what to say. But, somehow, everything just seemed to work out naturally.

“Everything will be fine. Everything will be fine,” Brian began to mutter to himself as a mantra.

“Brian, you’ll be fine! I promise!”

“Okay, okay. I was just kidding. You know, to see how you’d react.”

She threw a rose stem at him.

AJ McLean had not been to Lexington, Kentucky in nearly four years. The last time they’d been here, it had been on the Black and Blue tour. And we all know how badly that ended, AJ thought.

He was driving a rental sedan through South Lexington and laughed when he thought what all of his old coke buddies would think if they could see him now. But, he realized he didn’t care what they thought because they hadn’t been true friends. What he was driving towards was the real deal. He needed his friends, his brothers back. They were his family, his roots, and he’d been withering without them. He’d lost Sarah through his own stupidity, but he knew if the Boys didn’t work out their problems, he would lose everything.

When he found Thatcher Road, he turned on to it and had driven about a quarter mile when he saw a cottage. Brian had told him that he lived in a cottage, and AJ figured this must be it.

He pulled in and got out of the car. Brian had surely come a long way if he was living in what was a shack compared to the estate he had outside of Atlanta. AJ climbed the steps and rang the doorbell. When the door opened, he felt like the biggest idiot in the world.

“So, you’re not Brian,” he said. “I’m sorry, I got the wrong house. Sorry for bothering you. Have a great day.”

“Wait,” Sienna stopped him. “You must be AJ. Brian’s been freaking out over your arrival for the last couple days. It’s been impossibly annoying.”

“How do you know Brian?” AJ wondered.

Sienna shrugged. “We’re friends.”

“Oh,” AJ said lamely. Damn, Brian hit the jackpot with friends, AJ thought. Then remembered what Nick had told him. “You must be Sienna! Nick told me about meeting you! It all makes so much more sense now. And, damn, you’re amazing.”

“Why thank you,” Sienna grinned. “I think Brian was expecting you to get here around six tonight. He’s not home, right now. Would you like to come in?”

AJ shook his head. “Nah, I wouldn’t want to put you out. I’ll just drive around for a bit, call Brian, and see when he’ll be by his house.” AJ paused. “Where is his house, by the way? I think maybe I took a wrong turn.”

“Nope. You just have to keep going another half a mile. Are you sure you don’t want to come in? I’m not doing much but repotting spider plants,” Sienna told him.

AJ thought a moment then shrugged. “Oh, what the hell. Sounds good. Thanks.”

Sienna held the door open as he entered the house.

Brian checked his watch again and tried not to curse at the traffic he was stuck in trying to get back home. He had taken a trip north of Lexington to see Anne Richardson. He had meant to stay only for a couple hours but somehow two hours had turned into six. AJ was going to be stuck outside his house at the rate traffic was going. He tried to call AJ’s cell for the fiftieth time, got his voicemail again, and gave up.

When he saw the exit for Lanside, he remembered that Sienna’s friend Liv lived there and took the exit. If he could get out of his car for a bit maybe he’d be able to think better. He turned onto Marsh Street and pulled up to the tidy brownstone he knew was Liv’s.

Liv opened the door moments after Brian rang the doorbell, surprised.

“Brian? What are you doing here? Don’t you have a guest arriving tonight?” she asked him.

Brian shuffled his feet and gave an embarrassed smile. “Okay, yeah, I do. But traffic is horrendous out there, and I’ve been sitting in a car for three hours. I needed to get out.”

Liv held the door open for him, and, once inside, he asked to use her phone.

“Hi, you’ve reached Sienna! I’m sorry but I can’t answer the phone right now. If you leave me a message, I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. Have a fantastic day and may all your flowers bloom well! Beep!”

Brian hung up and let out a frustrated breath. “I’ve called AJ a thousand times, and he doesn’t pick up! And Sienna won’t pick up her cell or her house phone, either! Where on earth could either of them be?!”

Liv set down the bowl of soup she had been sipping from and patted his shoulder.

“Brian, Si’s probably in her greenhouse, and AJ might have run out battery or isn’t in a place with good signal. Relax. Watch the news and wait for the traffic to die down, okay? Besides, if I knew a faster route to get you home, I’d have told you by now. Unfortunately, the only way is by highway,” Liv sighed.

Brian shook his head. “It’s okay. It’s not your fault anyway. And, hey, if traffic is that bad, maybe AJ didn’t get home either!” He brightened up. “And maybe, the reason he isn’t answering is because the sound of traffic or music in the car is too loud! Everything might turn out okay, after all.”

Liv smiled. “That’s the spirit. Want some soup?”

“In June? Are you kidding me? Why are you drinking it?”

Liv coughed for effect. “I’m sick. Well, actually, it’s allergies. Late spring flowers get to me.”

“And you and Sienna are friends?” Brian was incredulous. “Amazing.”

Liv nodded. “Kinda hard to figure out, huh? But, yeah, it’s true. Every June, I would be sniffling away and Si would just keep going with her planting. We just wouldn’t see each other that often.”

Brian sat at the table with her. “Tell me about her when you guys were younger.”

Liv looked at him with amused emerald eyes. “How interested in her are you?”

“That obvious, huh?” Brian hesitated. “A lot. An unbelievable amount, and she’s never going to be interested in me that much. She’s such an amazing woman, you know? So, tell me about how she was when she was younger,” he repeated.

Liv thought a moment, then a slow, sly smile spread across her face. “Let me tell you about the time we went skinny dipping, when we were sixteen. The guy she was dating stole her clothes and wouldn’t give them back until she slept with him! The nerve of the guy! But our Sienna is no fool…”

Sienna woke to the moonlight shining through her open curtains. She sat up in bed and immediately felt an arm around her waist. Realizing that not only was she naked, she was not alone in the bed, she began to panic. She looked down into AJ’s sleeping face and tried to remember exactly how it was that they had ended up in bed together. When she couldn’t recall entirely, she gave up and lay back down. Reminding herself to turn the air-conditioning down, she curled up into the heat AJ radiated and tried to fall asleep again.

She had nearly managed to fall asleep when she heard Brian’s voice. The front door opened, and she remembered he had the key to her house.

“Sienna? Hey, I was wondering if you had seen AJ at all today? Sienna?”

She heard him pause as he moved around downstairs then began to walk up the steps calling her name. Panic, embarrassment, and fear had her frozen in one spot.

When Brian stepped into the doorway of her bedroom, he flipped on the light and froze.

“Sienna? AJ?” his voice wavered a bit, then he nearly roared. “What the hell is going on here?!”

AJ stirred and sleepily looked at Sienna, then his gaze sharpened when he saw the look on Brian’s face.

“Jesus, Brian. Listen, you have to listen. This isn’t…”

“What isn’t it, AJ?!” Brian’s voice had dropped deadly low and had Sienna terrified.

AJ hesitated and looked over at Sienna, but her eyes were rooted to Brian’s furious face and the derision and anger she saw in his eyes.

“Forget this,” Brian muttered. “Have a great night.”

He left, and Sienna flinched when she heard the front door slam. AJ slid out of bed and yanked on clothes. Then he looked over at Sienna.

“Si, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry that this happened. If I had known Brian was going to be so angry about it, I wouldn’t have…” he trailed off, looking helpless.

Sienna got out of bed and dragged on a robe and shook her head.

“Not your fault, AJ. Besides, I can’t even quite remember what happened. We were repotting spider plants one minute, then the next we were kissing. After that, I remember something about the stairs, the shower, and then…I woke up here,” she felt so confused. She’d never done anything like this before. Hadn’t even known it was in her. Tears stung her eyes, and she was helpless to stop them from flowing down her cheeks.

AJ always felt helpless around weeping women, but he put his arms around Sienna and led her to an armchair. He helped her sit down after removing a stuffed penguin that seemed out of place in her warm-toned house. After listening to her weep for a few minutes, he knelt in front of her.

“Sienna, listen to me. What happened between us was a one-time deal. If you don’t want it to happen again, it won’t. Believe me, no matter what you’ve heard about me, I’ve never done anything like this before, either.”

Sienna sniffed and shook her head again. “AJ, I like you, but I like you as a friend. Really. You’re a great guy, and maybe there’s chemistry between us, but I’d rather have you as a friend. I’m so scared,” she ended in a whisper.

AJ laid a hand on hers. “Why, sweetie? We’ll just explain it to Rok. He’ll understand, you’ll see.”

“Did you see his face, AJ? He was so angry and disgusted with me. You’ve got a decade old bond with him, and he’ll stick by it. But, we’ve only known each other a few months. I’m afraid I’ve lost him,” Sienna managed between fresh sobs.

AJ squeezed her hand. “Let’s not jump to conclusions. I’ll go see him in the morning. Give him the night to cool off a little. We’ll see then. I promise everything will be fine, okay?”

Sienna nodded but doubt bloomed in her heart, and she couldn’t help but think that she’d lost an amazing friend.

***

Next

Back to index