by Jane Charles
“It’s kind of hard to do.”
Dylan turns around. “Guys, really. Go away.”
They don’t exactly leave, but they turn away from us. Thank God.
She’s only been gone half an hour, but Nina should have met her brother by now.
Damn, I hope it’s going good.
That’s all I’ve been able to think about. The six people in the club aren’t keeping me busy enough not to think about Nina and Dylan.
My phone dings and I grab it.
Ian: Meet and greet and hug
Me: She let him hug her?
Ian: Surprised me too. Horns doesn’t hug. She didn’t hug back
I told Ian to text me and keep me posted.
Ian: They took a table away from friends and talking
Me: What friends
Ian: D’s. Ones in the photo. They all showed to spy
Joel: Not surprised. They are nosy like that
Ian: Tight bunch though
Joel: Good friends. No worries
Me: Bet Horns liked that
Ian: They were here before D. Surprised H didn’t bolt
Me: Is she pissed?
Ian: Got over it
Me: Let me know if she needs me
Ian: Why you?
Shit! I can’t tell him the truth
Me: Because we’re friends
Ian: As in “friends” ;)
* * *
What the hell does he mean? I know what is going on with me and Nina but we aren’t telling anyone else.
* * *
Me: Huh?
Ian: Did you tell her you love her yet?
Me: WTF
Ian: Don’t worry. Miguel is clueless
I sure hope to hell he is.
Joel: But we aren’t
Me: None of your business
Joel: How cozy did you two get all alone during the storm?
* * *
He’s on the other side of the building and if I didn’t have to watch the front I’d go kick his ass.
* * *
Me: None of your business
Ian: Just what we thought
Me: Keep your opinions to yourself
Joel: We will
Ian: Horns scares us
37
“So, how long have you known Ian and Joel?”
“About two years.”
Dylan just shakes his head. “They knew I was looking for you. How did they not figure it out?”
“Because they didn’t really know my name, or I don’t think they did.”
Dylan frowns at me. “How could they not know your name after knowing you for two years?”
“They’ve only called me by my nickname.”
“Which is?”
I don’t want to tell him because then I’ll need to explain it and I’m not ready to do that. “It’s not important right now.”
He stares at me and then nods, as if he isn’t going to push it.
Alyssa comes over and puts a beer in front of Dylan and a cup of coffee in front of me. “If you want something else, let me know. Ian said you drink coffee, but we have juices too. He said you don’t drink soda.”
“This is good. I think half my blood is coffee.”
She chuckles and walks away.
“Are you hungry?” Dylan asks. “We can get something to eat.”
My stomach feels like it is tied in a bunch of knots right now. I’m not sure I can even get the coffee down, let alone anything solid. “No thanks.”
He takes a sip of his beer and this starts getting awkward.
“Mrs. Kragen explained how you started looking for us as soon as you were eighteen and how Mrs. Hood lied to you and everything that’s been going on.”
“I still wish I could figure out why she did that. It could have saved a lot of heartache, especially for Noah.”
“Maybe she had her reasons.” I shrug. “So tell me what you’ve been doing for the last twelve years.” I try to sound casual but the question is anything but that.
“I want to know about you,” he counters.
“Not until I know everything about you.”
Dylan’s grey eyes narrow and he tilts his head, studying me. “I get the feeling you don’t trust me.”
“I don’t.”
“I’m your brother.”
“I had you for six years and you were the best brother anybody could have,” I answer. “But, you’ve also been out of my life for twelve. How do I know you aren’t fucked up?”
His eyes widen with shock and he pulls back. “You don’t trust easily do you?”
“I can count on one hand the people that I completely trust.” It’s cold and maybe a little too harsh, but I learned long ago that the only person who can protect me is me. This is the very reason I didn’t want Tex to come with me. I love the guy but he also doesn’t get it. His family is warm, solid and have always been together. He doesn’t know how the system can change a person and would assume that I’d naturally trust Dylan just because he’s blood. It doesn’t work that way.
“You need my life story, right?”
“Yep.”
“Will I get yours when I’m done?”
I look him in the eye. “That all depends on what you tell me.”
“Okay, we’ll start with the day our family was separated.”
“I remember that day well enough, thank you. It’s the after that I’m concerned about.” Some memories are better not relived, not that I’ve been able to forget.
“Do you know why the cops came that day?”
I shrug. “I just figured they got the evidence against Mom and Dad or something.”
“They did.” He looks away. “I gave it to them.”
Who the hell did he tell and what did he say?
“You knew what they were doing in the basement?”
He shakes his head. “Remember how Jade was so sick?”
I nod.
“I’d gone to the basement to ask Mom where the medicine was but they couldn’t be bothered right then.”
Holy Shit! I lean forward. “You went into the basement?” We were so not allowed to go down there. I was scared to death what they were hiding because Dad would bark at us if we even came close to the door.
“After two hours I couldn’t wait any longer because Jade was getting worse so I ran down to the Tollivers because she was a nurse. I told her what was going on and mentioned the basement and then Mr. Tolliver stated asking all kinds of questions.”
Why would he care? Then it hits me. “He was a cop, wasn’t he?”
Dylan nods. “Vice had asked them to keep an eye on the house because they suspected Mom and Dad of dealing but didn’t have any proof.” He takes a sip of his beer. “I thought you should know that it’s my fault that we were split up.”
Alyssa comes back and refills my coffee and puts a plate of nachos in the middle of the table with two plates. “Ian sent them over.”
“Tell him thanks.”
Dylan takes some nachos and puts them on his plate. I’m not hungry, but it gives me time to think about what he said. Sure, he opened his mouth to a cop, but if Mom or Dad had come up and checked on Jade, Dylan wouldn’t have gone to a nurse. “It isn’t your fault.”
He blinks at me in surprise, like he expected me to blame him for my life. Mrs. Kragen said Dylan felt responsible, guilty for what happened. “You’ve got to get over that guilty shit. Mom and Dad fucked up and you were just doing the best you could. I put all the blame on them.” The spicy hamburger meat on the nachos wafts toward me. Maybe I am hungry. I scoop some up and put them on my plate. Crap, they put onions on them. I pick them out and put them on a napkin.
Dylan lifts an eyebrow and then picks a few up and eats them.
“Ewwww.”
“I’ll remember you don’t like onions.”
“Why? What difference does it make?”
“For when I cook you dinner.”
“I don’t see that happening.” If it does, it wi
ll be a long way down the road. We’ll have to meet more and get to know each other better first.
“Mrs. Kragen showed me your transcripts, at least through your junior year and your GPA is really impressive.”
“Good grades help get you into college.”
“What do you want to study?”
“Sports management.”
“Really?” he asks in surprise.
I bite into an onion-free nacho, chew and swallow.
“So, where did you go when you left your foster home?” He asks. “Why not the halfway house.”
“Nobody told me about it, but I’m good. It wasn’t needed.” And that’s all I’m telling him for now. I also need to make sure neither Ian nor Joel tell him either. I don’t care if they think he’s a great guy. This is my life. “What happened to you when we were split up?”
“A few foster homes, kicked out of a few schools and spent about a year in juvenile detention.”
Dylan in juvie? That just shows how people change and that you can’t trust what you knew from the past. I would have never pegged him for getting in trouble. Hell, he didn’t even skip school when we were together. “Why were you in juvie?”
“Fighting. Well, that’s what got me kicked out of schools and a few foster homes. Juvie is because I put a kid in the hospital.”
Holy shit! He is so not the same kid who raised me. “Seriously?”
He pushes his plate away like he’s lost his appetite. There are still half of the nachos on that plate. “Yep. I had some serious anger issues. Pissed at Mom and Dad for not being parents and all kinds of things. Guilt because it was my fault our family was destroyed. I was worried about you guys, what was happening to you because nobody would tell me anything, frustrated at not having any control over my life anymore, and then, whenever someone was a jerk, I hit him.” He grasps the bottom of his beer with both hands and looks down. “You were my responsibility and I blew it.”
“You were twelve,” I remind him. I’ve built up a lot of resentment for my parents over the years, but I’m bordering on hate right now.
“Still, my responsibility,” He says.
I just shake my head. It’s their fault he feels this way and the reason he went from being the best brother ever to juvie. “There are ways to channel that anger, you know.”
He just shakes his head, but the side of his mouth tips up and he looks at me. “I learned that. Therapy. Good guy. Mr. Joe. He taught me to write whenever I was angry. Get it all out on paper. And, if I wasn’t angry, to still write and keep writing.”
“It worked?” Going from hitting to writing is like a huge jump.
Dylan relaxes back in his seat and takes a drink of his beer. “Actually it did. And, I found out I had a talent for writing. When my time in juvie was up, he got me into a high school for artistic kids. I could stay there as long as I continued my therapy, and I did. Probably the best thing that happened to me.”
“Why?”
“Because if it hadn’t been for Mr. Joe, I might have not stopped using my fists and eventually killed someone. Fighting isn’t the way to solve anything.”
I look down at his hand. He posted that he hit a brick wall. “Are you sure you still don’t have anger issues?”
Dylan’s face turns a little pink, but he looks me in the eye. “I didn’t until I couldn’t find you. I went to your high school, asked around, but nobody knew where you went. Frustrated and angry because Mrs. Hood would never tell me anything, I ended up taking it out on the wall of your school.”
I can’t help but snort. “That was kind of stupid, you know.”
“Something Mary tells me every day.”
“Girlfriend?”
“Yep.”
I’ll ask more about her later. “So, before you attacked my school, when was the last time you hit someone or something?”
“Nine years.”
“That was a pretty long dry spell. Chance of it happening again?”
“Nope. And, that is a promise.”
I believe him and I get it. He was protective of us and if Dylan really did take on all the blame of us being separated, combined with teenage hormones, no wonder he flipped his shit.
“I knew I screwed up,” he says. “In fact, I called Mr. Joe after I did it and we had a nice long talk. He’s not worried about me backsliding and neither am I.” I lift my hand and look at it. “Besides, this is kind of screwing with my career right now.”
Ian comes over and stops at the table. “We need to go. Or, Nina does. The party crowd is headed in and she’s underage.”
I grab my coat and stand.
“We can go somewhere else and get coffee,” Dylan says.
I want to keep talking but I also need to take a step back. “Need to get back to work.”
“At eight?”
“I close up tonight.”
“Where do you work?”
“I’ll tell you tomorrow. Maybe.”
His eyes flood with disappointment. “At least give me your phone number.”
“I don’t own a phone.”
He frowns at me. “Who doesn’t own a phone?”
“Me.” I grin. “Never had a need.”
“Is there a way I can get a hold of you?”
I almost give him Tex’s number, but I don’t want the two of them talking yet. “Message me.”
“Tomorrow then?”
“Same time, same place?”
“Sure.” It’s easy and convenient.
“Don’t forget the picture for Noah,” Alyssa calls.
Dylan holds up his phone.
“I don’t do selfies.” In fact, I hate pictures of me. Any that are out there I never posed for.
“I already got some good ones,” Ryan calls out.
Shit! I had forgotten his friends were here. “See you tomorrow.”
“You were kind of tough on him in there,” Ian says after we get outside.
I know I was, but it’s just too hard for me to just fucking open up. “It was new. Strange.”
“He’s your brother.”
I stop and look at Ian. “He’s a stranger.” And that is what it is. I don’t know this Dylan. I want to, but it’s going to take time.
Tex is sitting at the front desk when we walk back in the gym.
“How did it go?”
“Well, I guess.”
“And?”
I know Tex wants to talk to me about this, but I’m worn out. More than I thought I’d be. It was a simple conversation, but I’m unsettled. Part of me wants to cling to Dylan, the littler sister who counted on him for the first six years of her life. The other half of me is wary of him because I still don’t know him. I know Tex wants to help, but he can’t.
“I’ll go check in back,” Ian says as he leaves.
“Tex, I know you care and you want me to talk and for me to rehash the conversation, but I’m still processing.” Please don’t push me like you have on other things.
He looks at me and then nods. “Just let me know if you need me.”
“You’re not mad?” We’ve gotten real close and I was afraid he’d be on the page that we share everything.
“Nina, I’ve known you for two and a half years. I love you and I also know you don’t let people in very easily.”
He does get it.
“He may be your brother, but I get that you want to go slow. I only wanted you to make contact and take it from there.”
“Thanks.” I go around the counter and kiss him. “I just need to think things through and figure things out.”
He pulls me close. “Just don’t stay in your head too long. I can be a sounding board for all that thinking if you need it.”
Damn, I love this guy. He knows exactly what I need when I need it. How the hell did I get so lucky? “Mind if I head up? I know you’ve been here all day, but…”
“You’ve got some thinking to do.”
“And I’m really tired.”
He kisses me again. “I�
�ll take care of everything. You just go do what you need to do.”
Horns may not want to tell me anything, but Ian might.
I want to know so bad what happened, but she was drained when she got back and I’m not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing, or just an emotional thing.
There is only one person in the club and he’s just leaving. I want to lock up but we have to be open for two more hours and I can’t really leave the front.
Joel and Ian wander out a little bit later, hitting the lights as they go.
“Nobody else is going to show tonight.”
“I know, but if Miguel calls, I better answer the damn phone.”
They both laugh because they know I’m right.
“So, what happened when she met Dylan?”
Ian grabs a seat and sits down. “She was Horns.”
“What do you mean?”
“She had her walls up, wanted to know everything about Dylan and gave nothing of herself.”
Shit! I was afraid that’s what would happen. “How’d he take it?”
“I think he was pretty disappointed, but he didn’t back off. Told her what she wanted to know.” He gets up and grabs a water out of the vending machine. “They are going to meet again tomorrow though.”
Good. Maybe she’ll let me go along this time.
“Hey, I gotta go. My shift at the Poison Apple starts in about thirty.” Joel grabs his coat.
“Go ahead,” I tell him. “You too, Ian. Nobody else is coming in and there is no reason why all three of us need to be here.”
“You sure?” Ian asks
“Yeah. And if Dylan is still there, maybe give him a heads up about Nina.”
He nods with understanding. “Will do.” He grabs his coat. “Have a good night.”
I sit there for another hour and not a soul comes in. “Fuck it.” I lock the door and turn off the lights and head back to the apartment.
Nina is sitting on the couch in her pajamas going to town on a pint of ice cream. That’s never a good sign. I’ve never seen Nina do that before, but I’ve seen my sisters do it more than enough to know to steer clear.
“Closing early?”
“Nobody is coming in.”
“Better hope Miguel doesn’t call.”
