On the Rocks Read online

  Annie smiled, too. “I’m not sure how this place survives without you.”

  “Easy,” I said, tapping her nose with my index finger. “They have you.”

  I was still smiling and confident as I turned, making my way down to the last room in the left hallway. My eyes scanned the names and decorations on the closed doors, and I nodded to those who peeked out at me from where they watched the TVs in their room or read in their beds. When I reached the door at the very end, the one that had donned a red and white wreath since I was a freshman in high school, I let out a shaky breath, eyes washing over the familiar name in gold above the wreath.

  Betty Collins.

  A smile touched my lips, memories of the spunky old woman I’d first met years ago resurfacing. Betty was an eighty-nine-year-old woman with a loud, genuine laugh and a birthmark that sprawled across her forehead. She covered it with white, whispy bangs that she’d constantly run her freckled fingertips over as she told me stories about her favorite movie stars.

  She was a forgetful old woman, and though half the staff thought she was showing signs of dementia, I knew better. Betty was more in her right mind than half the people my age were. She just had selective memory — and also approximately zero patience when it came to people she didn’t care for.

  Annie worried that with me being gone so long, she might not remember me.

  Again, I knew better.

  We’d kept in touch while I’d been gone, writing letters and having the occasional phone call. She’d remembered me just fine when I came back for Christmas break, and I had a feeling she’d never forget me — even if she ever was diagnosed with dementia.

  And I also knew I’d never forget her.

  Betty was the first one to ever open my eyes to a world outside of Stratford, to challenge me to take risks, to move passionately and unapologetically through life. “Anyone can lead an ordinary life, child,” she’d said to me one lazy afternoon. “But the best adventures are reserved for the ones brave enough to be extraordinary.”

  I inhaled a deep breath, knocking gently before I pushed through the door and into her room.

  Betty sat in the same rocking chair she’d been in the last time I left her to go back to UNC. She faced the window, though the curtains were drawn, and she rocked gently, humming the melody of “Good Morning” from Singing in the Rain. I smiled at the sight of her long, white hair, her magazine collages hung on each and every wall, old movie posters filling any space left between them. When the door latched behind me, Betty stopped rocking, ears perking up.

  “Who’s there?”

  “Why don’t you turn around and find out, old lady,” I sassed.

  Betty’s head snapped around, her eyebrows drawn in like she was offended, but when her eyes settled on me, everything softened as a smile slid into place. “Well, I’ll be damned. Look what the wind blew in.”

  I returned her smile, rounding the bed until I could sit on the edge closest to her chair. I leaned forward, folding one hand over hers as her eyes glistened with unshed tears. “You need to stop frowning so much,” I said, squeezing her wrist. “You’re getting wrinkles.”

  “Ha!” she guffawed, squeezing my hand where it rested on her arm. “I smiled too much when I was younger. I’m just trying to reverse the damage.”

  I chuckled as her eyes fell to the magazines in my arm.

  “Are those for me?”

  “Hmm… that depends. When’s the last time you stole someone’s pudding?”

  “Last week,” she confessed, her gray eyes almost a silver as she leaned in conspiratorially. “But it was a vanilla one, so does it even count?”

  I smirked, handing her the stack of magazines. She took them with a smile that doubled the one she’d greeted me with, already flipping through the pages as I settled back on her bed. It only took a few pages before she started telling me how Anne Hathaway was named after Shakespeare’s wife, and I nodded and listened intently as she continued flipping, pausing on each page to tell me a new story about a different celebrity.

  Betty was born and raised in Stratford, and she’d never been farther than two counties from the town that she called home. Though she’d never physically traveled, her imagination wandered all the time, and she loved to escape into movies and books, to live the lives of spies and queens and young college students. The collages that decorated her walls brought her favorite adventures to life, and in her mind, she’d seen the world.

  She’d seen everything.

  “I’m getting married,” I told her after an hour had passed, and she paused where she was reading about Chris Pratt’s hobbies, a strange shadow passing over her features.

  “That so?”

  I nodded.

  “How did he propose?”

  “We were at a party with all his friends and family,” I said. “He’d just announced he was running for state representative.”

  “A political man,” Betty mused. “Your father must love him.”

  “He very much does.”

  “And do you?”

  I smiled, throat thickening in a way it never had when I was asked that question — not until it was asked by Noah Becker, anyway. “I do,” I said through the unfamiliar discomfort.

  “Well,” she mused, nodding as her eyes lost focus somewhere on the page. “I’d like to meet him. Will you bring him by?”

  “He’s coming into town in six weeks for the wedding,” I told her. “I’ll try to sneak him away.”

  “And where will you sneak away to once the knot is tied?” She looked at me then, brows tugging inward.

  I leaned forward, folding my hand over hers. “Not too far. I’ll never be too far.”

  I knew she didn’t understand how much time had passed since she’d last seen me, but I also knew she could sense that it had been a while. I squeezed her hand, falling quiet as she flipped through the pages of the second magazine before a yawn stretched between us. I reached for the magazines, and once I deposited them on her bedside table, I helped her under the covers.

  “This man you’ll marry,” she said as I pulled the knit blanket up to her shoulders. “Does he make you feel the way Richard Gere made Julia Roberts feel in Pretty Woman?”

  I smiled, tucking the blanket around her arms as I considered the question. Did Anthony make me feel like that — special, desired, beautiful in a way that he can’t resist? Not necessarily. But did he make me feel safe, comfortable, cared for? Yes.

  “I think so,” I whispered, but then I raised both brows as my eyes found hers. “He’s not quite as handsome, though.”

  “Well, no one is as handsome as Richard Gere, my dear,” she said on an exaggerated sigh, as if that were obvious. “Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

  I laughed, and Betty smiled before her eyes fluttered closed. Within minutes, her soft breathing turned to a light snore, and I found myself staring at her favorite scene from Pretty Woman that hung above her bedpost. I imagined the scene, wondering what Anthony would look like if he swept in to save me the way Richard Gere did — a white knight in a limo instead of on a horse.

  I was sure he would act out a grand gesture if he ever needed to. I was sure he would take care of me, that I’d be comfortable as I stood by his side on his race to his political dreams. And I was sure he was just as handsome as Richard Gere, regardless of what I’d told Betty.

  But as I stared at Julia Roberts’s wide smile, the one thing I didn’t know for sure was if I wanted to be the princess he saved.

  In the back of my mind, I heard a voice I’d been trying to forget since Monday afternoon.

  “No one asked you if you were ready to get married?”

  And I wondered why it never occurred to me that I had a say in the matter.

  Noah

  On Friday night, I sat at the table my father built with my three brothers and the woman who raised us, drinking a cold Budweiser after another long week at the distillery. I’d had family dinner with my friends, with a few girlfriends in
the past, and I’d always been disappointed. Because where most families were quiet and orderly and respectful at the dinner table, my family was the exact opposite.

  In the Becker household, it was always madness at dinner time.

  Complete and utter chaos.

  “God, you’re disgusting,” Logan said, tossing a green bean at our youngest brother, Michael, who had just belched so loud even I was impressed.

  Mom swatted Michael’s arm to show her own disapproval, but couldn’t hide her smirk. “Manners, Mikey.”

  “What? Better out than in, right?” Michael grinned at all of us before burping again.

  “Feet off the table, Logan,” Mom said next, as soon as she finished plating the last of his meatloaf. She set it in front of him where his feet had been, smacking his hand away when he tried to dig into the mashed potatoes. “Not until we pray.”

  “Yeah, Logan. Not until we pray,” I said, sneaking my own bite. He narrowed his eyes at me, and Mom smacked my hand next.

  “Gray hairs,” she murmured, shaking her head. “Every single one of you are giving me gray hairs.”

  She took her seat, hands reaching out — one for mine, one for my older brother, Jordan’s — and the rest of us linked hands and bowed our heads.

  “Heavenly Father, thank you for this meal, and for these boys, though they drive me insane. Please bless this food and this day, and be with those who need you most. Amen.”

  “Amen,” we all echoed, and it was the quietest that house would be all night as we each stuffed our faces with the first bite.

  Even though we liked to rag on each other, my brothers and I were close. We were like a well-oiled machine, and Mom and Dad were the grease that kept us in working order. After Dad died, Mom took on that job as a solo party, and that was the only time I ever remember the machine breaking down.

  Our dad was well known in the town, especially since his dad was best friends with the founder of Scooter Whiskey. They had built the brand together, essentially built the town together, and anyone who watched the Scooter Whiskey brand take over the world knew my grandfather was a pivotal member in the team that made it happen.

  But when Robert J. Scooter passed away, he left no will behind, and his family inherited everything — leaving our family cut dry. It wasn’t long after that that our grandmother passed away, our grandfather following quickly after. Dad always said it was from a broken heart, but he never clarified if it was Grandma who’d broken it or the Scooter family.

  I always thought it was a little of both.

  Dad had never given up on our family, though, and he’d already established himself as an integral part of the Scooter Whiskey Distillery before the founder passed away. He was young, ambitious, and the Scooter family was happy to keep him around. He worked his way up the ladder, eventually becoming part of the board, and that’s where the trouble started.

  Somewhere along the line, my dad pushed the wrong buttons.

  He wanted to stay true to the Scooter brand, to the company his dad had helped build, but the ones who inherited the distillery had other plans. Where dad wanted to keep the tradition, the “old ways” of making whiskey, the Scooter family wanted to lean more toward innovation. The more Dad fought them on it, the more they did to silence him, and sooner or later, Dad learned to just comply to get by.

  But his pay suffered, and so did his job duties.

  He went from essentially running the company to pushing papers, taking care of remedial tasks that were better suited for a secretary. One of his last tasks was cleaning out Robert J. Scooter’s old office, and though Mom was upset when they assigned it to him, Dad took it in stride. He was always so optimistic, and used to always say that, “Every experience is an opportunity, no matter how trivial it may seem. Some of my best ideas and most memorable achievements began from a seemingly ordinary day.”

  Little did we know that that “seemingly ordinary” day, that “seemingly ordinary” task, would be the literal death of him.

  There had only been one fire in the Scooter Whiskey Distillery, and my father was the only one who perished in it.

  To this day, no one in our family believed the story the Scooter family fed to us. The fire department claimed the fire was started by a cigarette, and our dad didn’t smoke. I would never forget when Patrick Scooter, Robert’s oldest son, tried arguing with my mother that he’d seen Dad smoke plenty of times.

  Maybe he just never told you, Patrick had said, and I’d seen murder in my Mom’s eyes when she stepped up to that fully grown man, chest to chest, mascara streaked down her face, and told him no one knew her husband like she did, and she dared him to try to tell her otherwise again.

  We’d never been given the truth, not in all the years we’d looked for it.

  And that one time in our life was the only time I ever remember the machine breaking down.

  We fought. And cried. And asked for answers when we didn’t even know what questions to ask. Mom drank for the first time in her life, and Jordan and I struggled to hold the family together, all the while fighting for who was the man of the house.

  I wanted that title so badly, and Jordan tried to take it simply because he was the oldest. So, we fought one night — literally, punched and kicked until we were both bruised, bloody messes — and then, we came together.

  Jordan was the one who made me realize that we were all the man of the house — and we were all in this battle together.

  Ever since that day, the machine seemed to work even better together than it did when Dad was alive. We were in sync, tuned into each other’s needs, and forever protecting each wheel and axle.

  God help any man or woman who ever tried to break down a Becker.

  “What are you boys getting into tonight?” Mom asked, taking advantage of all of our mouths being full.

  It was Friday night, which was like a weekly holiday in Stratford. Other than the tour guides, the weekends were slower for most employees at the distillery, and that meant less time spent working and more time spent living. We always did family dinners on Friday night before dispersing to whatever weekend plans lay ahead.

  Michael was the only one of us who still lived at home with Mom, and he had just turned seventeen. He was going into his senior year after the summer, and we were all just waiting for the day he said he was moving out of the house and into a place with his high school sweetheart. They’d dated for two years now, and he was the only one of us I could ever imagine actually settling down.

  I worried about when he moved out, though — and part of me wondered if I should move back in at that point. The thought of Mom living alone in a house that once fit a family of six was hard to stomach.

  “There’s a party out at the Black Hole,” Logan answered, grinning at Mom. “Wanna come?”

  “And have to bear witness to whatever debauchery lands one of you in jail tonight?” She shook her head. “Just bail each other out and I’ll see you for dinner next week.”

  Logan’s smile mirrored Mom’s, the resemblance uncanny. He and Michael favored her — hazel gold eyes, olive skin, lean and fit, a smile that stretched across their entire faces. I looked more like our dad — stout, tan skin with a reddish tone that he attributed to the Native American in our blood, striking blue eyes that almost took on a silver hue in the sunlight. Mom said sometimes when she looked at me, she saw Dad when he was a boy, when they first met.

  I’d always worn that like a badge of honor.

  Jordan, who was the quietest at the table, didn’t look a thing like any of us. His skin was a light umber, his hair black and cut in a short fade. He was the tallest, the largest, the one who always stood out in family photographs.

  And yet, he was our brother just the same.

  “Bailey and I are heading up to Nashville for the weekend,” Mikey announced, and judging by Mom’s widened eyes, it was the first she’d heard of the plan.

  “Oh?”

  He nodded, stuffing his mouth with more mashed potatoes and
speaking around them. “Her label is doing a showcase at one of the bars on Broadway. It’ll be kind of like Nashville’s first taste of her as part of their team.”

  “I thought she hadn’t signed with anyone yet?” Jordan asked, speaking for the first time since we’d dived into our dinner.

  “She hasn’t.”

  “And when she does?” Mom asked, brows pulling together.

  Mikey was quiet, pushing green beans around on his plate before stacking a few on his fork with a shrug. “I don’t know. I guess we talk about it then — where we’ll move, what our next steps will be.”

  An uneasy silence fell over all of us then. We knew the day would come that he would move out, but what worried all of us — though no one said it — was that he was so sure his future was with Bailey.

  And we couldn’t be sure she felt the same.

  She seemed to love him, to care for him the way he cared for her, and we all knew he was like me in the sense that he wanted what Mom and Dad had. They had met in high school, and I knew Mikey felt like Bailey must be it for him because she was his high school sweetheart, too.

  But anyone who knew her could see that music was her first love. And we weren’t sure where that would leave Mikey.

  “Well,” Mom finally said, forcing a smile. “Be careful. And don’t get into too much trouble.”

  All of us scoffed at that, because just being a Becker meant trouble was never too far off.

  After dinner, Logan and I helped Mom clear the table — Logan’s favorite job — while Jordan helped Mikey pack up his car. I walked out onto our old wooden porch just in time to see Mikey’s taillights pull away, the sun setting over the hills in the distance. I sidled up next to Jordan, draping my arms over the railing and cracking open the two beers I’d brought while he stood with his arms crossed hard over his chest.

  “Your worry is showing, big bro.”

  He humphed, taking the beer I offered him and popping the lid open. “Kid pretends to be so tough, but if that girl leaves him behind…”