Tell Me Something Real Read online

  a novel

  KRISTEN KEHOE

  Copyright © 2017 by Kristen Kehoe

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing.

  Cover Design by KLa Boutique - Swag

  https://www.facebook.com/klaboutiqueswag

  Cover Photo: PeopleImages.com

  Editing by TCB Editing Services.

  Copyright

  Contents

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  For Derek and Kelsey,

  Type 1 warriors, living out your love story.

  Thank you for everything.

  xoxo

  I don’t know if I should be impressed or concerned that five hours after arriving in a new state to live with grandparents I’ve never met, there is a girl literally falling into bed with me.

  I’d be impressed if it weren’t for the tiny, but not insignificant, fact that five hours ago, this was not my room, but my cousin’s. Oh, and if she knew I was in the bed when she did the falling.

  “The hell?”

  Confusion and annoyance color her tone, the female voice the second thing identifying her as a girl. The first is her breasts, which I register in the brief moment after impact, when they are pressed up against me. That’s all the time I have to feel her though, before my hands are grabbing narrow shoulders and shoving her aside until I’m up and rolling off the too-small twin bed, landing on my feet at the same time I grab my phone from the end table, and swipe the tool bar until I can click the flashlight.

  The small beam cuts through the country-dark, lasering in on the petite girl with a lopsided knot of golden hair slipping off her head, the same girl who just Alice-in-Wonderlanded my bedroom window.

  “Easy with the light, fuzz.” She holds up a hand to block her face, but it’s small, like the rest of her, and doesn’t do much to obstruct my view.

  “What the hell are you doing?” My voice is quiet, even though my heart is racing, and the adrenaline I used to crave like a junky flowing fast and freely through me while I stand in bare feet and Nike sweat-shorts, three feet from the urchin who toppled in my window and literally jolted me awake.

  My friends in Seattle call it my default-mechanism. The quiet before the crazy. My dad calls it astounding.

  “How can you be so calm during a crisis, and still lack the ability to control your impulses on a daily basis, Ford?”

  This was a near-daily talk we had, the one-sided conversation where he sat behind his desk and listed each and every one of my faults, while I stood at ease on the other side, waiting to be dismissed. I didn’t speak because A) it wouldn’t have changed anything—my father wasn’t a listener, nor did he care what I had to say in these moments; and B) even if he was interested in listening, I never knew quite how to tell him that it wasn’t the lack of impulse control that had me engaging in fights and reckless endangerment—and it wasn’t utter disregard for authority, another phrase he used on me all the time.

  It was—is—lack of fear for the consequences.

  As evidenced by the fact that I’ll be spending my senior year of high school in Oregon, not Washington, in a city that is better known for their production of meth-heads and grass seed (no joke, it says that on their welcome sign), than the Space Needle and Public Market. Would I rather be in Seattle, thriving amongst 3.5 million people, instead of in podunk Albany, Oregon where Mazdas appear to be a luxury car? Sure, but when my dad informed me I wasn’t being shipped to Europe to go to boarding school, but instead to Oregon to live with his parents—people I’ve never met—I gave no reaction other than to start packing.

  No reaction insults him more, and nothing gives me greater satisfaction with half the effort.

  Back to Alice.

  “What am I doing? Who the hell are you, and why are you in Colt’s room?” Before I can answer, Alice stands, squinting her eyes and keeping her hand outstretched to block the light. “Crimany, put the light down. You’re blinding me.”

  I ignore her. “It’s not Colt’s room anymore.”

  “What do you mean, ‘it’s not Colt’s room anymore’? Where’d he...? His mom was released yesterday.”

  This is not a question, and I stay silent. She’s ignoring the light now, no longer trying to stare at me, but turning and shifting back to the window.

  “Sorry, fuzz, miscommunication.” And then she climbs out and over the windowsill, disappearing. I wait ten seconds before walking over and looking down. There’s a small tree, one that looks like it would snap under a weight greater than a hundred pounds, but there’s no Alice.

  +

  “You just let her walk home?”

  The next time I’m jolted awake, it’s to the sound of the door slamming open and into the wall. The sun is up, so there is no need to grab for my phone when I roll to my feet this time.

  Not that I would have had time to use it, the way the ape comes barreling in, already on top of me by the time I’m standing.

  The breath leaves my lungs on a forced exhale when my back slams into the wall, pictures rattling on their hooks. Instinct engages long before my brain does, and when I finally catch up, my left knuckles are singing, and the mountain who had me pinned to the wall is stumbling back, cussing the air ripe.

  I’m on the balls of my feet, waiting, and taking a quick stock while he recovers. I’m tall at 6’2”, but he’s a goddamn giant, the same width from his shoulders to his hips, and since his shirt is missing the sleeves, I know it isn’t fat he’s packing.

  “What kind of man kicks a girl out of his room, and lets her walk miles in the dark?” He comes back, but this time I’m ready, fists up, head down. He swings, faster than I gave him credit for with all of that bulk, but I’m fast too, and it grazes my shoulder instead of smashing my jaw.

  “Probably the same kind who forgets to tell his girlfriend he’s moved.”

  I’m guessing with my statement—making the leap that this is the Colt Alice was looking for last night. His guttural exhale of rage, before he comes at me again, tells me I nailed it.

  We don’t exchange anything but punches and grunts after that, both of us getting in our fair share of hits. He lands a particularly brutal one to my kidneys, and I retaliate with one to the underside of his jaw. When a set of hands separates us, grabbing us both by the ear in a mov
e I thought was only for television, my breath is heaving and my vision is a little blurry.

  It helps my ego immensely to see that my opponent is also breathing hard, his jaw swelling and his eye already turning purple.

  “There will be no more fighting in this house. Do you understand?”

  I know the voice belongs to Beau—Beauford Slaughter, my grandfather for whom I’m named, though I don’t know why since my father hasn’t been home since he moved away at eighteen.

  Beau hasn’t raised his voice, and doesn’t appear to be breathing hard, even though he’s in his sixties and holding onto what looks to be three hundred and fifty pounds plus of angry men.

  Instead, he stands at his full height, boots already on, arms separating us with ease, using only the pressure from his fingers on my ear.

  “Yes, sir.”

  This comes from the kid next to me. I don’t say anything, but I give a slice of my chin to acknowledge what has been said. A second later, Beau releases us.

  I step back, eyes measuring the two other men who are both dressed similarly in boots and jeans with ball caps. Where my intruder has a T-shirt with cut off sleeves on, Beau is wearing a snap front work shirt in faded plaid.

  “Colt, go on down and get some breakfast. We start work in fifteen.”

  Colt leaves the room without so much as a backward glance, and I’m left shirtless and barefoot in a room with my grandfather. I try not to dwell on the fact that he looks identical to my father, if my father had stayed in this town and wore Wranglers instead of Armani. It’s clear that I get my height and coloring from him: the brown eyes and hair, long arms and big hands.

  Despite my disadvantage of being half-naked, I straighten my shoulders and meet Beau’s eyes. I can’t read them, but I don’t really try.

  “Well, you’ve met your cousin,” Beau finally says, his voice carrying that same steady volume—another thing it appears I got from him; calm in the chaos. I don’t respond. “I expect that won’t be the last time you find yourself at odds, since your fathers found good reason to smash each other in the face once a week, but it will be the last time you do it inside of this house.”

  He stares at me, silent, until I nod. Though I don’t show him, his words have given me a jolt. My father is a loner—always has been. Thinking of him with parents and a brother is weird.

  “Breakfast is at seven-thirty. Work begins at eight. Tractors, rakes, combines and all other field equipment needs to be ready to go for the drivers by nine. You’ll be with Colt today, servicing tractors and doing small fixes as the calls come in, cleaning barns and getting them ready for the bales, since we’re nearing the end of the season and they’re about to fill up.” I nod again. “All right. Get dressed. Maggie put some boots in the closet for you. Figured you might need them.”

  He stares, maybe waiting for me to say something, but I just continue to nod my acceptance, unsure what to say. Thanks for taking me in when my parents were too ashamed to keep me seems like a lot for someone I just met. So does it’s nice to meet you after eighteen years of hearing what a crap town and life this was to be raised in from a son who has uttered your name less than ten times my entire life.

  Beau must understand this because he nods once more before walking out, closing the door with a quiet click behind him.

  I give in and wiggle my jaw, testing the ache in it and finding it to be mild in comparison to my side. Then I lean down, pull out jeans and a T-shirt, dry swallow Advil, and wonder how I’m going to survive a year as a farmer, with random girls falling into my bed, and angry cousins ready to beat my ass before the sun is completely up.

  “I told you. I already ate.”

  My best friend, Colt, ignores me, rolling his eyes and shoving the tinfoil full of bacon at me before hitching himself up to sit beside me on the tailgate of his truck. He’s wearing essentially the same thing I am—old jeans, battered Romeos, and a white T-shirt—only a gazillion times larger, and I take a minute to check him over.

  He’s good looking; always has been in a behemoth kind of way, with broad shoulders, a thick chest, barrel sized thighs, and legs long enough they almost touch the ground from the tailgate, while mine swing a good three feet off the ground.

  He’s the Jolly Green Giant, and I’m nearer to Tiny Tim, but when you live through circumstances like we have, you tend to bond together immediately. Ten years ago, that’s what we did.

  Which is why I can tell he’s still seething from what I thought was a funny story about falling into bed with his grandparents’ new ward. If I’m not mistaken, that seething turned into all-out rage at some point in the last hour, and resulted in the black eye and bloody lip he’s now sporting.

  Because I was lying—and the bacon smells like heaven when the last time I ate was yesterday afternoon, I don’t try and give the food back. He wouldn’t take it even if I did. Instead, I rip open the foil, snag a piece and crunch in, grateful as always that he can read through my bullshit.

  I have pride, but I also have legit needs, and things like eating? Yeah, they pretty much overrule everything.

  When he shakes his head at my offer to share, I crunch another piece and turn to look at him. While his body is all man, hardened and toned from years working the farm and playing football, his face still holds boyish charm, with wide cheeks, warm brown eyes, and a patchwork of stubble on his chin. At six-three and two hundred-plus pounds, he still grows facial hair like a twelve-year-old.

  “Where’d you get the shiner?”

  Colt ignores my question to ask one of his own. “Did you test your levels this morning?”

  Now, it’s my turn to ignore him. I bite into the last piece of bacon. “I’m guessing it came from McHotpants, who’s now living in your old room. Was he still shirtless?”

  I wiggle my eyebrows, and Colt throws a glare at me. “I’m serious, Lincoln.”

  “So am I, Colton. I mean, I’ll admit I was a little shocked when I rolled through the window and it wasn’t my usual cot that I was falling onto, but I got over that real quick when I realized a naked male chest was what caught me.”

  Now I’m being obnoxious, and I’m doing it for several reasons. Colt won’t acknowledge the first reason, which is to ease his guilt and get past the fact that my cell phone was stolen (read: my mother took it and sold it for money), and I didn’t get his text about moving in with his mom, but God knows he’ll latch onto the second reason and skin me for it.

  He proves me right when he turns to me, gripping my shoulders in his hands, eyes boring into mine like they have since we were kids and realized that this—Colt and Lincoln—was the only real family we’d ever have, and we better take care of it.

  “What were your levels this morning, Lincoln? What were they last night after you walked five miles in the dark? Alone.”

  My non-answer is enough to have him cursing. “How long have you been guessing?”

  I don’t lie. Avoidance is one thing. Lying is something we don’t do—not with each other. “Three—four days.”

  More swear words as he releases my shoulders with a small shake. “Have you bolused?”

  “Of course. I’m not an idiot, Colt.”

  “What you are is stubborn and prideful. What you could be is dead. Walking lowers your levels, Lincoln—which means you would have needed to eat last night. Did you do that?”

  I nod. He’s not fooled.

  “What did you eat at midnight after walking, Lincoln? What generous food did your mother provide to keep you from dying?”

  “Hey!” This time it’s my temper that spikes, but before I can unleash it, he jumps off the tailgate, heading away from me. “Colt!” I call, sliding down to stomp after him. He ignores me, stalking around to the front of the truck, and yanking open the door to his single cab. While my old Dodge Neon is a rusted heap that I bought for five hundred dollars from the auto-shop graveyard at school, this truck is a work of art, with a shiny chrome grill and perfect chrome fenders.

>   While my car screams “rusted death trap, enter at your own risk,” his truck screams “vintage retro truck—I’m a badass.”

  “A lot of people bolus at random for a few days, and then level themselves out. It’s not a big deal.” My words aren’t entirely true, but the reality is, I wish they were. Type 1 diabetes is a high maintenance, auto-immune disease that takes over a person’s life, and requires constant time, care, and attention. It also requires money and good insurance.

  I have none of the aforementioned things, and there are times when I have to choose between insulin and test strips. Since the insulin literally saves my life, I choose it.

  Needless to say, this is not the first-time Colt and I have had this argument.

  “I had some candy last night, and I injected this morning. And I’ll test tomorrow after I get a paycheck, okay? I’ve dealt with this long enough that I know the symptoms of rising blood sugar—I’ll be okay.”

  He slams the driver’s side door, gunning the engine. I step up to the window. “Stop overreacting.”

  Colt doesn’t spare me a glance, instead yanking the gearshift into drive. “Tell Beau I’ll be back soon. All the tractors were serviced and ready last night. Pretty boy can take care of the sweeping until I’m back.”

  Then he peels out, spewing gravel and dust when he fishtails before pulling onto the highway.

  “Balls.” I kick at the gravel, the back-and-forth of gratitude and guilt pulling at me like normal when Colt goes all white knight on my behalf.

  “You two seem to have a real solid relationship.”

  What was that, Kelly Clarkson? “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”? False. What doesn’t kill you settles on embarrassing the hell out of you until the next prime opportunity to crush your life presents itself.

  I turn around to face McHotpants, whose face I can see much clearer in the daylight, without a flashlight doing its best to blind me. News alert: it’s just as hot as the bare chest that goes with it. Colt wasn’t lying about the pretty boy comment.

  Even with the slight swelling at his jaw, and the bruising that’s starting to show, this guy is Grade A gorgeous, the kind that comes from living a good life, and being blessed with a genetic pool that doesn’t suck. He’s also a direct replica of his grandfather, who’s walking up behind him. Colt is connected as well, and for a second, I wonder how three men can look near identical in physical form, and carry themselves so differently.