Crazy Stupid Bromance (Bromance Book Club #3) - Lyssa Kay Adams Page 0,23
through the kitchen. His mother had lived there more than ten years, but it still felt like a strange house at times. Probably because he’d never actually lived there.
No, that wasn’t it. His father had never lived there. His presence was there in photos, but it wasn’t the same. Maybe that’s why his mom wanted to move. Her memories were harder than his. At least in this house, she didn’t have to think about the sight of a military car in the driveway. Didn’t have to remember looking out the window and seeing a uniformed marine and a chaplain walking up the sidewalk. Didn’t have to recall how her legs refused to work when the doorbell rang.
“Don’t answer it,” she whispered, her back pressed to the wall, arms crossed over her chest.
Noah went cold at the look on her face. “Who is it?”
“No one. It’s no one.” His mom said it quietly, frantically, as if wishing it to be true. And then her hand flew to her mouth.
Zoe clutched a throw pillow and drew her feet up onto the couch as if waiting to spring into action, climb the walls, fly straight out the window, anything to escape the fate that was now on the porch.
Noah trudged on wooden legs to the door and pulled it open.
Even then, Noah knew that some details would eventually fade. But he also knew that he would never, ever forget the sound of his mother’s scream as she collapsed to the floor.
The sliding glass door scraped across the aluminum track as Noah walked out back. Marsh stood at a rusty propane grill that was held together with duct tape and nostalgia. He wore faded jeans and a Nashville Legends T-shirt. He looked over his shoulder and bypassed any form of greeting. “Come help me with this thing.”
“Hi to you too.”
Marsh fiddled with the burner and hit the ignite button. It made a clicking noise but nothing else. Marsh swore and swiped his hands over his graying high-and-tight haircut. “Damn thing belongs in a scrapyard. Why the hell won’t she buy a new one?”
Noah bristled. “You know why.”
Because that was the grill they’d bought as a Father’s Day gift for his dad. The one his dad never got to use. Noah set the steaks down on the patio table and took over on the grill. He got it started on the first try. “You have to let the gas run for a minute before trying to ignite it.”
“Dinner is saved,” Marsh said dryly.
“Alexis brought enough food to feed the Airborne, so we could’ve eaten that and been fine.”
The sky-high arch of Marsh’s eyebrow meant he’d said too much. Marsh was always giving him shit about his relationship with Alexis.
Noah stabbed a raw slab of meat and threw it on the grill. Marsh swatted his hand away. “Not yet, dumbass. You have to let it get hot first. Haven’t you ever grilled a damn steak before?”
Noah rolled his eyes and stepped back.
“Grab us a couple of beers,” Marsh said, nodding with his chin to a cooler by the back door.
Noah grabbed two, twisted off the caps, and handed one to Marsh.
Marsh took a long drink and then belched. “You sleeping with her yet?”
Noah coughed and wiped the spittle of beer from his lips. “What the fuck, Marsh?”
Marsh chuckled and took another drink. “That’s a no.”
“My relationship with Alexis is none of your fucking business.”
“Hey,” Marsh snapped, pointing his beer like a weapon. “Watch your mouth.”
“Alexis and I are friends.”
Marsh threw a steak on the grill. “No such thing as friends between men and women.”
“If you’re trying out for Misogynist of the Year, you just won.”
Marsh tossed another steak onto the grill. “It’s biology. Men want to sleep with women, not hang out and talk with them.”
“Really? Does my mother know you feel that way?”
Marsh’s face hardened. “Watch it.”
“You get to give me shit but I can’t reciprocate?”
“My friendship with your mother is a helluva lot more complicated, and you know it.”
Yeah. Complicated as in neither one of them would date other people but had never dated each other because it was the ultimate betrayal of his father, and so no one was happy.
Marsh took another long drink.
“I signed a new client a couple of days ago,” Noah said.
“Anyone famous?”
Marsh was always hung up on the fact that Noah worked with celebrities. “Probably no one you know. He’s a young country singer.”