THE LAST SHOT: by

by Matayo, Amy

  With assurances they will be here soon, I hang up, grab a clean towel from under the sink and crawl back to my grandmother’s side to wait. “The ambulance is on the way, but they’re backed up. Said they would be here in ten minutes or so.”

  She nods, silent and wide-eyed. What if we don’t have ten minutes? Seconds are precious when life is on the line. I should know, and I have a history of seeing time run out. What makes me think today will be different?

  I shove my dark thoughts aside and smile down at my grandmother, unsure what to do with the towel in my hand. The glass looks so deep and moving it seems like too much of a risk. She’s already lost a lot of blood. So, I smooth back her hair the way she once did to calm me as a child, resting the towel just under the cut to catch the trail of blood falling under her ribs. Smiling works to ease worry, at least that’s what I’m counting on. Still, the only thing I can think is: what if she falls asleep? What if we don’t have ten minutes?

  Dear God, please give us ten minutes.

  It’s a mental prayer that plays on repeat while the wind howls all around us.

  Minutes pass. An ambulance doesn’t come.

  Chad

  I think I found a solution to the Miller’s insurance claim that they can live with. It won’t garner them as much money as they’d hoped, but it won’t leave them penniless either. Sometimes in life, we have to take the hard knocks with the rewards and be thankful even when things don’t work out according to plan, and this is one of those times. They planned to settle for a half-million dollars. Their reality is one hundred thousand, take it or leave it. Let me be clear: both scenarios were astronomical, but this one won’t involve my head on the proverbial company platter, or my body buried in the local unemployment line.

  I crunch a few more numbers and enter them in my laptop, then file the claim. They’ll be given a check for one-hundred-seventeen-thousand dollars and twelve cents, to be exact. I know for a fact we’re being generous. Flood insurance isn’t common in Tennessee, but the Millers were one of the fortunate few who’ve paid for it. Claims filed for busted pipes at an old bed and breakfast are almost unheard of because they never pay out. Had their home not been listed with the historical society two years ago, this claim wouldn’t be paid either.

  The money covers damages and nothing else. Mrs. Miller will have to give up her dream of new furniture and double-paned windows for now. She’s lucky she doesn’t have to give up her house.

  “What’s up, Buttercup?” My brother Liam walks in the kitchen and reaches for a bowl, then takes out a box of Rice Krispies and fills it nearly to overflowing. A few pieces ping as they fall to the counter. I smile at the nickname and click submit, then close my laptop.

  “Did we just step back two decades? I haven’t heard that nickname in forever.” I squint through the bay kitchen window and rub my eyes. It takes me a while to wake up, but it’s worse on Saturday mornings, whether I’m working or not. I drain my coffee and stand up for more, happy to see a freshly brewed pot.

  “I know, right? It flew out of my mouth like Mom was the one here saying it. I’m more disturbed about it than you are.” He eyes the table. “You’re working already?”

  “It’s almost noon, and I had a deadline. I would have had a very irate client if I didn’t file their claim this morning. I can’t handle another phone call from her, even though she won’t be happy about this claim when I drop the news.”

  “You didn’t make her rich?”

  I blow out some air and spoon two heaps of sugar into my mug. “It’s always the dream, and always the disappointment. I intend to down three more cups of this before composing an email to her. Ten minutes after I hit send, I should have a half-dozen messages telling me what a rotten insurance man I am.”

  “Cool. Is this what I have to look forward to when I join the firm? A bunch of clients who hate me?” My brother passed the bar last week and starts a new job at McCain, O’Connell, and Stephenson on Monday. They’re the biggest law firm in Nashville, which probably also means they’ll give him the biggest headache. I love my brother, but I’m secretly looking forward to witnessing him struggle. I immediately feel chagrined, considering he spent five days on a deserted island a few months back with no promise of being rescued. I suppose that was struggle enough.

  I take a sip of coffee and swallow the taste of guilt. “If you’re as lucky as me, it is.”

  Liam holds up his mug in a toast. “Awesome.”

  “Is there more? Please tell me there’s more.” Teddy, our roommate and the owner of this apartment, shuffles into the kitchen and slides onto a barstool looking more disheveled than I’ve seen him in a long time. I suppose I’m one to talk. My hair is two inches longer than normal, and I haven’t shaved in three days. But where my reasons are plain laziness, Teddy has a good excuse.

  He’s been traveling for over a month and got in late last night. After a three-day reprieve—the longest break he gets in a five-month span—he’ll head back out to begin the overseas leg of the tour. The life of a musician is glamorous and enviable, sure. But it also leaves you exhausted as hell and missing your friends. We miss him too. This three-man apartment isn’t quite the same with two, because when Teddy’s away, Liam and I argue more. It’s the downside of being brothers.

  “There’s more unless Liam drank it all.”

  “I didn’t, jerk.” He pours a cup for Teddy and slides it across the bar. “Are you hungover?” Teddy’s head rests on his arms, his face buried in the counter.

  “No, I’m not hungover. I’m exhausted. Where am I? What city do we live in? Is it Christmas yet?”

  Liam grins at me, shaking his head. “It’s September, idiot. Drink that and pretty soon you’ll remember. I made it strong.” Yet another downside of living out of a suitcase; life is a constant adventure, but you never know exactly where you are. I might feel sorry for Teddy if he didn’t have the best life of anyone I know. Money, fame, talent, travel, the adoration of women everywhere. He’s on the cover of a different tabloid every week, and last month he was listed as number twenty-three in People’s Sexiest Man Alive issue. Twenty-freaking-three. The guy isn’t hurting for anything.

  He raises up on one arm and drains his coffee in a long pull, and I wince. That had to burn. Okay, maybe he’s hurting for that. His cup clatters when he sets it on the counter and drops his head onto his arm once again. When he speaks, it’s a muffled, familiar whine.

  “My head’s about to explode, and I think I’ve lost hearing in my left ear.”

  “You say that every time you come home, but by the next day it’s always better,” Liam points out. It’s true, he does and it is.

  Teddy’s head comes up. “I know that, dipshit. But right now, I can’t hear anything on this side and I’m worried I never will again.” He points to his ear while I roll my eyes behind him and make faces he can’t see. I’m aware this gives me the maturity level of a child; I’m also aware Teddy is fun to mock because sometimes he complains so freaking much. Liam leans against the counter, trying not to laugh.

  “If you think I don’t know what you’re doing back there, you’re wrong,” he says to me. “I can see your reflection through the glass cabinet door. Cut your hair, by the way. It’s too long.” Teddy whips a dishtowel off the bar and hauls it backward like a man who’s done it before. I don’t manage to duck fast enough, so the damp towel lands on my face. It slides downward, leaving the scent of old onion and wet paper in my hair. I grimace and use it to wipe up a coffee ring. My hair is not too long, and there’s nothing wrong with it or the twelve pounds I’ve taken off since last month. Sometimes when your life veers a different direction than you hoped for, you veer right along with it. Reinvention is the close cousin of heartbreak.

  “You’ll hear fine tomorrow,” Liam says. “Today, though, you should stay in bed and sleep. I’ll call for pizza tonight and stay in with you.”

  Teddy frowns and twists back around to face Liam. “You’re offering to stay in with me in
stead of going out with Dillon? What gives?” Dillon is Liam’s fiancée, and I’d like to hear the answer to this question as well. The two have been inseparable since their engagement, something that took me some time to get used to. Before my brother began dating Dillon, I dreamed of her. Hoped and prayed to date her myself. Now that he has her, I’ll kill him if he lets her go. I didn’t suffer the loss of an imaginary future with her for nothing.

  He looks between us like a frat boy caught with two women. “Nothing gives.” So much guilt camped inside those two words.

  Teddy and I stare at him, waiting.

  He runs both hands down his face. “Fine. I don’t want to taste wedding cakes again, but that’s all she can talk about. Should we go with the strawberry cream or the raspberry coconut or the vanilla caramel?” he mimics in a high-pitched voice. “What even is raspberry coconut? Chocolate. It’s the only choice. No one wants strawberry cream.”

  I shudder. Teddy shudders. “If you pick strawberry cream, I’m not coming to the reception,” he says.

  “Me either.”

  I see Liam’s jaw clench from here. “You’re my best men. You have to come and give toasts.”

  “Then pick chocolate, or you’ll hate what I have to say.”

  “Ditto.”

  “Do either of you ever have your own separate thoughts?” Liam asks us both.

  “Nope,” we both say in unison.

  And it’s mostly true, especially about food. We’re a chocolate group through and through. Don’t believe me? Check out our pantry. Oreos are stacked five packages deep, and the Reese’s peanut butter cups have their own special corner complete with a Candy Only label.

  “Now that the cake’s settled, yes pizza,” Teddy says. “Chad, you in or out?”

  I run a finger around the coffee cup rim. “Can I let you know later?”

  “Sure, but you need to be here.” Liam says, settling the matter. Then he hones in on Teddy again. “Dude, did you see this cover?” He picks up a US Weekly and flips it around to show us the front. “It says here you’re dating her. But this one…” he turns over a Star, “claims you’re dating her.” One girl is an A-list actress, the other a well-known fashion model. Both of whom any red-blooded American and non-American man would kill to be photographed with. “What I want to know is…” Liam continues, “Which one is true?”

  Teddy rolls his eyes. “They’re both true. I’m dating them at the same time, and I’ve got three more chicks waiting in the wings, and the new Marvel hero is giving me serious consideration. It’s exhausting to be me, what with all the making out I must do on a round-the-clock schedule. I barely have time for touring, much less writing new songs. The real question is, why do you buy that crap?”

  “To annoy you, of course.” Liam grins and tosses the magazines down. “I’m tired just thinking about it. One girl is more than enough, though I’m fully invested in the Marvel chick. Let me know how that one works out for you.”

  “You’ll be the first to know.”

  Liam’s phone rings and breaks up this three-ring circus, and he picks it up. “Good morning, baby. You having a good day so—? Wait. What? No, I hadn’t heard…” I stuff down a residual pang of jealousy as he walks down the hall and closes his bedroom door.

  “I see you’re still struggling,” Teddy says, drilling a tiny hole in my conscience.

  “Only a little,” I admit. I hate being called on my crap, but it’s also nice to be known without judgment.

  “Give it time, and it will go away.” He’s right, but I don’t respond. There’s no need. We both know I can’t wait for the day I wake up no longer pining for my brother’s fiancée. After a couple of seconds, Teddy pats the countertop and stands up. “Alright, I’m heading back to bed. I’ll see you tonight, okay?”

  I nod, distracted. “Okay.”

  He takes a few steps, then doubles back for the magazines and swipes them off the counter. “I guess I should catch up on my fake love life,” he says with a smile.

  I laugh, though it fades into melancholy as Liam wanders back in with a look on his face. I’ve seen that look before, but it’s been a while. It’s like an ache before the flu sets in. Worried, but not feeling quite entitled to the emotion.

  “Did you hear the news?”

  “About Teddy’s love life? A few dozen times too many, I’m afraid.” I laugh and so does Teddy, but Liam’s eyebrows furrow.

  “No, about Springfield, Missouri. They had a massive tornado a couple hours ago. They’re speculating over a hundred people are dead, maybe more. Supposedly it’s worse than Joplin.”

  My stomach sinks into my shoes. Joplin was catastrophic. All these years later, and I’m not sure that town ever fully recovered. Yet this one is worse? That’s hard to imagine, but I do, and what my mind conjures up leaves me unsettled, worried, and sick. It’s another example of how life can change on a dime even when you’d rather feel penniless.

  A hundred people dead. What must that town look like?

  “Man, Missouri is not a place I’d want to live,” Teddy quips, rolling the magazines in a tube inside his fists.

  “Nor me, though sometimes Tennessee can be just as bad,” Liam says. He’s right because he knows firsthand. We both know.

  “What are we going to do?” I ask, more to myself than anyone else.

  Teddy sighs, long and slow. “Well, I’m going to take a nap.”

  Liam shrugs. “And I’ve got to call Dillon back. Pizza tonight, don’t forget.”

  I scratch my eyebrow, wishing I had it in me to be so flippant and unconcerned. “You’re not an athlete like your brother, and you don’t have his looks. And with that bleeding heart of yours, you’re gonna have to prove yourself another way. Like, be a hero or become a millionaire. And snagging a hot wife wouldn’t hurt.” My dad’s oft-spoken words rush back like they always do, not at all concerned that I resent them like a leech already half-filled with my blood. I’ve spent my life proving myself. I’ve chased storms, chased heroics, chased women, chased anything that takes those words away. In all that time, I have managed to make a few lives better, but the girl is still elusive. Maybe someday, though it’s looking less and less likely.

  I’ll settle for helping others out.

  I watch as they both leave the room, then pick up my coffee and turn toward the window, staring at the iron railing that encircles the balcony. A robin is perched on one corner, the occasional burst of music bursting from his bill. Another bird lands at the other end and hops a bit closer. They’re together, those birds, in the way nature pairs living creatures off and forms a family. I’ve never been jealous of birds before, but here we are.

  Maybe it’s the sound of Liam’s voice drifting down the hallway as he talks in low tones to Dillon once again. Maybe it’s the way Teddy is adored by so many…the number of women so vast the tabloids can’t agree on who he should date next.

  Either way, everyone has a person. Everyone has a place to belong.

  “You’re gonna have to prove yourself…”

  I watch the birds and slowly sip my coffee.