Jake picks up a wicker laundry basket off the cement floor and tosses it back onto the top of the dryer, but as I take a step, something catches my eye, and I stop at the top of the stairs. A buck hangs by its hind legs off to the right, a small pool of blood gathered around the drain the dead deer hangs over. His antlers hover a foot off the floor, swaying just slightly.
What the fu…？ I hang my mouth open, gaping at it.
All of a sudden, Jake is standing next to me on the stairs. “Like I said… grow, catch, and kill.” He sounds amused by whatever he sees on my face. “You’re not a vegetarian, are you?”
He’s gone before I have a chance to answer, and I back away from the garage, step into the house again, and close the door. I’m not a vegetarian, but it occurs to me I’ve never met my meat before it was meat.
I swallow a couple times to wet my dry mouth.
“Living room, bathroom, TV,” he points out as I follow him. “We don’t have cable, but we have lots of movies, and you can stream as long as the Internet holds out.”
I follow him around the great room, seeing rustic-looking leather sofas, a coffee table, and chairs. The fireplace is big enough to sit in, and the chimney stretches up through the rafters. Wood and leather everywhere. It smells like Home Depot in here with a tinge of burnt bacon.
“Do you want the WiFi?” Jake asks me.
The reminder that I can stay connected here makes me pause for a moment.
But if I refuse it, he’ll wonder why. “Sure,” I answer.
“It’s under Cobra Kai.”
I shoot a look up at him. Cute.
Searching the available networks, I find Cobra Kai is the only one that pops up.
“Password?”
He’s quiet for a moment and then says, “A man confronts you, he is the enemy. An enemy deserves…”
I stop myself before I can shake my head and type in “No Mercy.” It connects within seconds.
Jake comes to my side and glances down. When he sees I got the password correct, he nods, impressed. “You can stay.”
He stands close, and I draw in a breath and take a step away, looking around the room for what’s next. But he stays rooted in place, watching me, and something crosses his eyes that he doesn’t say. Like me, he’s probably wondering what the hell I’m doing here and what he’s going to do with me for a week, or a year, until I leave.
“Are you hungry?” he asks.
“Tired.”
He nods to himself as if just remembering my parents died two days ago, and I’d traveled across four states today. “Of course.”
But I’m not thinking that at all. I just need to be alone now.
He picks up my suitcases, and I follow him upstairs, the bannister wrapping around the square landing at the top. I stop for a moment and turn in a circle, taking in the seven or eight doors around all sides, getting turned around easily in this new place.
“My room.” Jake points directly ahead of us to a deep brown wooden door and then in quick succession around the landing as we pass other rooms. “Bathroom, Noah’s room, and here’s yours.”
He drops my luggage at a door in the corner of the landing, the dim light from the wrought iron chandelier above barely making it possible to get the lay of the land up here, but I don’t care right now.
But then it occurs to me he only pointed out his, Noah’s, and my rooms.
“You have another…son,” I say to him. “Did I take his bedroom?”
There are more doors. I wasn’t infringing on their space, right?
But he just turns his head and jerks his chin off to the right. To the only door on the back wall. The only door between me and the bathroom.
“Kaleb’s room is on the third floor,” he explains. “It’s the only room up there, so no need for a tour. It’s got a great view, though. Lots of air and space. He likes space.” He sighs, his words weighted with frustration as he opens my bedroom door, both dogs rushing inside ahead of us. “Keep that in mind when you meet him and don’t take anything personally.”
I pause a moment, curious what he means, but people say the same thing about me. I glance at his door again, guessing there were stairs behind it, since Jake said his room is on the third floor. Is Kaleb up there? His brother said he was “in.”
Jake opens my door and carries my cases in, and I follow, hearing the click of a lamp and see the glow of the bulb suddenly filling the room.
My chest instantly warms, and I almost smile.
It’s nice.