The Next Door Boys (25 page)

“You are jealous.” The thought was comical. I started to laugh.

“It's not funny, Leigh.” Noah tried to look annoyed, keeping his lips in a thin line, but I knew my laughter had helped put him at ease.

“Maybe not, but I'm actually enjoying it a little bit.” I leaned over the center console and kissed him just behind his ear.

“You know, Leigh, I
am
driving.” His face had already softened.

“I know.” I smiled and kissed him lower on his neck.

He pulled into the edge of a parking lot, stopped the car, and leaned over to kiss me. It was the one he should have given me in the driveway when he'd first picked me up.

“So, what are we doing?” I asked when I found a moment to pull away.

“Well, now all I want to do is this.” He leaned over, kissing me again.

“We can't sit here all night and do this.” I sat back in my seat.

“Why not?” His smile was mischievous.

“Noah.” I put as much teasing disapproval in my voice as I could.

“You're right.” He sat back on his side. “Why don't we get something quick to eat, go for another drive, and then we can pick up where you just made us leave off.”

“Sounds great,” I answered. Time alone with Noah before he took off again was just what I needed.

twenty-six

I walked home from the church to see Brian and Jaron sitting on their porch.

“No Noah tonight?” My brother teased.

“Nope.” I smiled widely from the driveway. “He's shooting a commercial until Wednesday. He also has a callback for a part in a movie.”

“I see.” Jaron turned to Brian. “What are you up to this weekend?”

“I'm headed to Vegas to pick up Nathan for the week.” Brian looked up from his laptop.

“Oh, that's right!” Jaron said. “It'll be fun to have that little guy around again.”

“Hey, can I drive with you?” I asked. “Noah's gone, and I'd like to see Mom and Dad.”

“I'd love to have you along.” Brian stopped and shifted his gaze to Jaron briefly before continuing. “I don't mind the stop, but I leave early and I do the whole trip in one day,”

“Well, I can always sleep in the car. Besides, I need to dig into my fabric stash for the Masquerade Ball.” I had a plan, and I knew I had the perfect fabric at Mom's house.

“Ah,” Jaron started, “the infamous spring formal.”

“Don't make fun. I know Megan's already planning her dress.” I pointed my finger up at him.

“And how do you know that?” he asked. He leaned over the porch railing to see me better.

“Because I'm making it for her. Both our costumes will count for my class. I'm also going to do one for Noah.”

“You're making Noah a dress?” Brian asked, trying to be serious. I threw him a dirty look.

“So, you and Noah are making plans more than a month out now?” Jaron asked.

“Yeah.” I tried squeezing my lips together to contain my smile, but it didn't work. Thinking about Noah did that to me. I was still in the having fun phase. I didn't want that part of Noah and me to be over yet. That would be thinking and planning, and I wasn't ready for any of that.

“So, are you and Brian okay without a chaperone?” Jaron teased.

“He's almost as much my brother as you are. We'll be fine,” I said back. I turned and started walking to my apartment. “Well, good night guys. Thanks for letting me tag along, Brian. I can't wait to see Nathan again!”

“Night, Leigh. I'll come get you when I'm ready to leave, like seven?”

I turned and walked backward a few steps. “I'll be asleep, so knock loud.” I laughed.

“All right,” Brian buckled in. Apparently hitting the freeway meant it was time to buckle. “What does Leigh have on her iPod?”

“Oh, wow, are we at that point in our relationship?” I teased.

He held out his hand. “Let me see.”

“You're driving.”

“I'll set it on the steering wheel.” His hand remained stretched toward me.

I handed it over. “It's soundtracks, almost all of it. Everything from
Romeo and Juliet
,
500 Days of Summer
,
Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist
, and
Garden State
to stuff like
Dances With Wolves
,
Legends of the Fall
, and yes, even for me, the soundtrack for
Pride and Prejudice
.”

“Wow. Insightful.” He was still scrolling while driving with one hand down the freeway.

“I like that soundtracks have a certain feel to them. That and I can't stand listening to the same artist over and over.” I watched Brian's face as he scrolled through.

“Hmm, interesting.” He said, finally. He handed it back, and I plugged it in to the car.

“So, what was it like growing up in the Tressman family?” Brian asked.

“I'm sure you have a pretty good picture from my brother.” I wondered what Jaron had told him about us. Aside from Joseph's rather dramatic departure, we were a pretty normal bunch.

“Well, I don't have a good picture from you.”

“You already know how great my parents are. I don't know. My older brothers were way too protective, but both were out of the house before they could do any real damage. I think it would have been worse being the youngest of three if we'd stayed in Seattle. When my family moved to St. George, I was the only kid in the house, and I finished my high school career there.”

“So they moved your senior year?”

“Yep.”

“Wasn't that hard?”

“I wasn't thrilled at the time, and I have almost no high school buddies to catch up with, but looking back? It was a good thing.” I wasn't a bad kid by any stretch, but some of the kids I hung out with in Seattle were definitely not making good decisions.

“Bad girl, Leigh, huh?” he asked.

“No, not yet, but I was definitely headed there. I did get to be the new and interesting girl from Seattle for most of my senior year.”

“And then you got sick.”

“Yeah, in August I started having some issues, but they didn't give me a diagnosis until November. I had to be pretty persistent. So that took what should have been my freshman year in college, though I'd guess that I learned a lot more in that year than I would have at school.” Brian already knew all that.

“I can't imagine.” He said, still staring at the road. “To come out of something like that stronger than you went in… I think it's great.”

I didn't know how to respond, so I sat quietly. It had strengthened my testimony in certain areas, but I was still struggling with the idea that I wouldn't be able to have my own kids. I didn't admit it often, not even to myself. It would be hard to ask someone to give that up, just to be with me. It was probably more my perception of Mormon culture and all that, but it was still there.

“You got quiet,” Brian remarked. “Did I upset you?”

“No.” I shook my head. “I just think you're giving me more credit than I deserve.”

“I doubt that.”

We drove in silence for a few minutes, and I saw the sign for Cedar City. The drive was going by so fast. I couldn't believe how far we'd already come.

“So, what about you?” I asked.

“What do you mean?” He smiled back.

“Where did you grow up?”

“Everywhere.”

I stayed quiet, waiting for him to continue.

“My dad was in the military, career enlisted. We moved around a lot. Both of my parents were loners. I know I have aunts and uncles, but I have no idea who they are.”

“And your mom?”

“She was a tailor, a seamstress, whatever the word is. She died when I was twelve. My parents didn't have me until they were nearly forty.”

“I'm sorry. I can't imagine being without my mom.” My chest caved with the thought. She made me crazy, but for her to be gone…

“My dad was a bit of an alcoholic and was just finishing with the military when Mom died. We tolerated each other just long enough for me to finish high school, and I signed up for the army as soon as I could.”

“And you were Military Police,” I remembered from our conversation over his tattoos.

“Yep. I knew my dad would like me in the army, and I knew he hated the MPs, so it was kind of the best of both worlds for an angry eighteen-year-old.”

“I see.” I hadn't heard about or seen the rebellious side of Brian before.

“I spent a year or so stateside and actually went to Afghanistan first. I was home for just over a year and got married to a girl I'd known in high school. Amanda got pregnant just before I left for Iraq. I missed it all. The pregnancy, the birth—everything.”

I was quiet. I wanted him to continue. Brian fascinated me. His life experiences made the fact that he was such a good man even more impressive.

“I came home, and after spending a year in small gun fights, doing everything I could to protect the guys around me, it was hard. When I got home, simple things like going to the grocery store were overwhelming. Amanda tried to be understanding about it, but she'd just spent a year of her life pregnant and tired and wishing I was there, and then when I got home, I wasn't the same guy who had left. I didn't know how to take care of her anymore.” Brian rubbed his hand over his chin a few times. Maybe in thoughtfulness, maybe trying to break up some of what he was feeling.

“We did our best for a little over a year, and then she announced one day that she was going to live with her mother in Las Vegas. I'd known it was coming. Watching her leave with Nathan… I thought it was the end of me. I almost volunteered to deploy again, hoping to save some other family guy from going through what I just had, but when my reenlistment came, I couldn't do it. I started school at UNLV, played with my son when I could, and then I met your brother.”

I sat quiet for a minute. I wasn't sure what to say. The story of him and his wife was heartbreaking, even with the sparse details. “Where were you? In Iraq, I mean?”

“Baghdad.” His eyes shifted from the road to the dials on the dash several times. He looked uncomfortable. “It was intense.”

“You said that you and Stuart were there together.” I wanted to know more—anything he was willing to share. Brian had lived a fascinating life.

“Yeah. He was a good guy to have around,” Brian paused, “We saved each other, in a lot of different ways. We lost a lot of friends in one ten-minute gunfight. It happened so fast.” His hands shifted on the steering wheel a few times. “I find myself, even now—especially coming home after work—scanning buildings and alleyways. Certain sounds, smells, situations… they pull me right back there. I have to work hard sometimes to get back to the present.” He was staring out at the road, two hands on the steering wheel.

How had there been so much to Brian that I'd never known about? I felt guilty, like I hadn't taken the proper amount of time to get to know my brother's best friend. “I'm sorry.”

“Well, I'm happy and I'm doing well. I feel good about life, and I'd be afraid to change anything from my past because it might not lead me to where I am.” He looked at me. I could tell he remembered a conversation we'd had earlier in the year when Nathan first came to stay with him and was upset about missing his mom.

“I can understand that.”

Brian's experiences had shaped him into a pretty remarkable person, when they could have easily done the opposite. I felt impressed by him again. We'd both been through a lot that had shaped us for the better. Maybe it was part of why we got along so well.

We pulled into the driveway of a rather ordinary-looking house on a worn out, old street. Weeds came out from every crevice in the sidewalk. I wanted to clean up the trash from the front yards and repaint the homes. Everything around us looked old—the cars, the fences, the signs—like no one lived there, or as if the clutter of abandonment had taken over. It made me realize what a sheltered life I'd led.

I hadn't thought the car's air conditioning worked until we climbed out. It felt like we stepped into an oven, and it was still early in the year, the beginnings of April. I followed Brian to the door and looked around at where Nathan normally lived. I'd be afraid to let my kid play in the front yard in a place like this. Brian knocked on the door, and we waited. He knocked again, and we waited some more. I realized I was about to meet his ex-wife. I wondered what she'd think of Brian showing up with a girl. I folded my arms in front of me, just to give my hands something to do.