The First to Know

by Abigail Johnson

  Me: That bad?

  Selena: No.

  Me: Are you okay?

  Selena: I’m fine.

  Me: You’re starting to freak me out.

  Selena: I’m fine. It’s good news.

  Me: You are so full of it. Just tell me.

  Selena: I will. Tonight.

  Me: I still like my idea of telling me now.

  Selena: Don’t be cute.

  Me: Since when do you keep secrets from me?

  Selena: It’s not a secret. It wasn’t ready until now.

  Me: Did you join a cult?

  Selena: Yes, Brother Todd is taking me to Vulcan on his magic Pegasus.

  Me: That sounds like one of the better cults.

  Selena: I comparison-shopped before getting the forehead tattoo.

  Me: I need you to tell me because I can’t come tonight.

  Selena: Why not?

  Me: I just can’t. Can you put it off a night?

  Selena: No, I planned for tonight.

  Me: Please?

  Selena: What is with you?

  Me: I met this guy named Brother Todd.

  Selena: Now who’s keeping secrets?

  Me: I just have to do something tonight. If you want me there for whatever bomb you plan to drop, pick another day.

  Selena: I can’t switch.

  Me: I can’t tonight.

  Selena: @%#!

  Me: Do I win?

  Selena: &*#@ ^$# @!%!

  Me: Thanks, Sel.

  I was halfway to Jungle Juice when Mom texted.

  Mom: Selena can’t make it home tonight, so we have to wait to hear her news. Do you know what it’s about?

  Me: Not a clue. If tonight’s off, is it okay if I go study at Jessalyn’s?

  Mom: Sure, sweetie. Be home by eleven.

  Chapter 12

  I shifted into Park outside Jungle Juice. I’d driven there because I had no other options, but once I was actually facing Brandon’s work, I couldn’t make myself get out of the car.

  I hadn’t thought it was possible for another desire to compete with the one currently shredding its way through my heart, let alone eclipse it, yet, as much as I needed to know how my seemingly loving dad had fathered a secret son, every part of me recoiled at the thought of hurting the brother I’d just discovered. But I couldn’t see how to do one without the other. I couldn’t.

  I didn’t even know if Brandon was working today, and besides that, he’d told me to stay away and made it impossible for me to even message him back. He couldn’t have made it any clearer that he didn’t want to hear from me, and in his situation, I might have done the same thing. But I still longed to talk to him again, so badly that I convinced myself that it was okay just to watch for him.

  I hadn’t parked close, and Brandon didn’t know what kind of car I drove. With my baseball cap and sunglasses on, he wouldn’t recognize me even if he glanced my way. I wouldn’t be hurting him, and it might help me just to see him, somehow.

  That was the extent of my plan: sit in my car and stalk my half brother. Hope that he changed his mind about talking to me, and pray that I could survive until he did. It was a terrible plan. Every part of me chafed against the inaction of it, but every time I reached for my car door, I’d remember Brandon’s face when he read Dad’s results, and I couldn’t bring myself to open it.

  Outside, the sky grew hazy orange and purple. The lights in the parking lot blinked on, growing brighter as the day dimmed. The crickets started up their nightly symphony, singing the sun to sleep. At eight o’clock Jungle Juice officially closed, but it was another hour until the remaining employees trickled out. With a sinking heart, I realized Brandon wasn’t one of them.

  But Chase was. He was the last to leave. He came out carrying two large trash bags and stopped to lock the doors before circling around the building to where I presumed the dumpsters were.

  That same first impression struck me: he was cute, and it hit me harder seeing him the second time. Maybe that was because when he’d seen me crying, he hadn’t fled. Maybe it was because he’d offered me a much less pathetic outlet for the emotions I hadn’t been able to handle the night before. Maybe it was because he’d let me see a little of what was hurting him so that I wouldn’t feel so alone with my own hurt. And it might possibly also be because he uprighted a knocked-over wrought iron table with one hand like it was made out of cardboard without stopping on his way to the dumpsters.

  A minute later he was strolling toward his truck. His big white truck that I’d somehow failed to notice in my single-minded search for my brother. Too late, I realized that, unlike Brandon, Chase knew exactly what my car looked like. He wasn’t halfway across the parking lot when he saw me, and he didn’t miss a step, just changed course to walk just as casually in my direction.

  I got out of my car as he reached me.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Hi.”

  “I wasn’t expecting to see you again.”

  “I wasn’t expecting to be here again.” The unspoken question lingered between us, waiting for an answer I couldn’t give him. I should have gone with an obvious excuse, claimed I was there looking for a lost earring or something, but I didn’t.

  I hadn’t technically lied to Chase yet, but I had deliberately misled him, whereas he’d been open and honest in return. I couldn’t tell him the truth—that had to be Brandon’s decision, just like it was mine with my family, but I didn’t want to lie to Chase either.

  I wanted to squirm under the weight of Chase’s brown eyes, which were a deep honey color. I was waiting for him to realize that that was all I was going to say and then make the decision I seemed incapable of making. He’d be nice about it. I’d spent only a few hours with him, but I already knew he’d be kind but direct. Maybe borrow my brush-off line from the night before about being too busy.

  “You like black olives?”

  “What?”

  “Black olives. I was going to go grab a pizza,” he said. “Do you want to come with?”

  “That’s not even close to what I thought you were going to say.”

  His mouth lifted in the promise of a full smile. “Well, I’d offer you another smoothie, but we’re closed.”

  I bit the side of my lower lip so I wouldn’t smile back. I’d given myself a pass with Chase the night before. I hadn’t known how close he and Brandon were, and I’d been too heartsick to focus on the reasons I should keep my distance. I didn’t have the same excuse anymore. I was still hurting, but I was thinking more clearly too. Brandon had told me to stay away from him, not anyone else, but I couldn’t imagine him loving the idea of me hanging out with his cousin.

  Then again, that was part of the problem. I couldn’t imagine what Brandon would feel, because I didn’t know him. Most everything I knew about my half brother had come from Chase, and it wasn’t a lot.

  “It’s just pizza.” Chase pointed a few stores down. “And it’s literally right there.”

  It was as though I’d just needed to see the neon-red-and-green sign for my nose to register the mouthwatering mix of garlic and cheese beckoning me toward LJ’s Pizza. My stomach loudly expressed its approval.

  Chase’s promised smile showed up. “Hungry?”

  “Apparently.” My cold pizza from lunch was a distant memory, and the thought of one fresh from the oven with the cheese still bubbling all golden brown on top was enough to have me half swaying toward the restaurant. My appetite wasn’t the problem; it was the potentially illicit company. I knew I was giving him all kinds of mixed signals, which I didn’t want to do. I’d shown up at his work with no explanation, my stomach had outed how hungry I was and I wasn’t retreating back to my car.

  He took a step backward toward LJ’s. “I know it�
�s not smashing up a building, but I swear it’s the best thin crust in the state.”

  I laughed. Maybe it could just be pizza. With effort, I kept my gaze from moving back to Jungle Juice as I fell into step beside Chase. “You ever try hamburger?”

  “On pizza?”

  “It’s the best,” I said. “My sister and I tried it a few years ago when we were home alone and broke, and now we make it all the time. Before she left for college, I mean.”

  “You say it’s good, I’ll try it.”

  We reached the pizza place and Chase grabbed for the door, pausing when it was only half-open. I’d already stepped forward, expecting to go inside, but when he held the door, I was forced to stop right next to him. “Where did we land on the black olives?”

  My breath came out as a laugh—I was relieved he hadn’t asked anything serious. “They go great with hamburger.”

  When he pulled open the door, he leaned toward me as I walked in. “I’m glad you came back.”

  Right or wrong, I felt that way too.

  * * *

  “So,” I said, fiddling with the parmesan shaker. “Do you like working at Jungle Juice? You said your cousin works there too. How’d that happen?”

  “No story there.” Chase rested his forearms on the table. “I told you Brandon and I grew up together. Our parents are siblings and all—”

  “Wait, yesterday you said your coworker calls you both McCormick. How do you guys have the same last name?” I knew there was no way Chase and I were related, but I couldn’t help blurting out the question.

  “Easy.” Chase pulled the pepper-flake shaker toward him and wrapped both hands around it. “The day I turned eighteen, I legally changed mine to my mom’s maiden name.”

  Oh. “Oh.” I felt stupid for bringing it up considering we’d spent the previous night smashing his childhood home in effigy of his dad. If I’d been thinking less about myself, I’d have kept my mouth shut.

  “No, it’s okay,” he said, picking up on my discomfort. “It was a great day.” Great maybe, but something in his voice told me that wasn’t the same as happy. “His last name was the only thing my father left me when he took off, and I waited a long time to give it back to him.” He pulled out his wallet and handed me his driver’s license. The name read Chase William McCormick. “Now I can look at that without thinking of him.”

  I handed him back his license.

  “Best birthday I’ve ever had.” Chase put away his wallet and a few seconds later reclaimed the pepper-flake shaker. I could tell, despite his words, that it was just shy of okay.

  “You look like a McCormick.”

  He smiled before lifting his gaze to me. “Dana...?”

  “Fields.”

  “You like your last name?”

  Chase’s question caught me up short. I used to. I’d thought it was perfect, given how much my family liked baseball and softball. But everything was different now.

  “I used to,” I said, frowning at nothing in particular. “I don’t think I can anymore.”

  “Why’s that?”

  Chase asked his follow-up question so casually that I almost gave him an equally unguarded answer. “Stuff with my dad,” I said, after I took a moment to refocus.

  “Your grandfather, the one you were supposed to meet yesterday, was his father?”

  I nodded. “My dad never knew his family, so I thought I was doing this amazing thing by finding his father, and it all blew up in my face.”

  “You didn’t get to meet him, though.”

  “I didn’t, because he doesn’t exist. Or, I’m sure he does somewhere, but I didn’t find him. My sister kept warning me not to go looking because I might get hurt or I might hurt our dad.” I pushed the parmesan shaker away. “But I’d rather talk about anything else right now. You didn’t finish telling me how you and your cousin started working together.” When I lifted my gaze to his, I found Chase staring at me so intently that I had to run back through what I’d just said to make sure I hadn’t inadvertently mentioned my connection to Brandon.

  The pepper shaker rolled in Chase’s hands before he set it back in the middle of the table. “I started there in high school, became manager after I graduated last year and hired Brandon. He’s a good guy, not to mention he’s in love with Ariel—she’s the girl with the blue hair—and she detests him less than anyone around here, so it works.”

  “Do you still live near each other?”

  Chase nodded. “I told you his mom died right after he was born, so Brandon lived with me and my mom for a few months while my uncle... I guess it was hard for him, losing his wife. I know he really loved her. He didn’t blame Brandon or anything, but, yeah, it was hard for him.”

  My brain froze, imagining a much different scenario than the one Chase believed. One where a husband found out the child his wife had borne wasn’t his, only to lose her and be faced with raising another man’s child or walking away altogether.

  “When he got himself together, Brandon was still a baby and he needed help, and with my mom raising me on her own, she did too. We all lived together until I was seven and Brandon turned six. Uncle Bran got his own house then, a couple blocks away. Growing up, I spent half my life at his house and Brandon spent half his at mine. We’re cousins, but we’re brothers too.”

  Our pizza arrived before I was forced to try to respond to him.

  Chase wolfed down three slices in the time it took me to finish one. I slid another onto my plate, and he added two to his.

  “So you’re a senior?” he asked.

  “Junior. And you’re a freshman? Where at?”

  “Mesa Community College. I’m planning on transferring to Arizona State next year. And you’re...seventeen?”

  I nodded. “You?”

  “Nineteen. Last month.”

  “Happy birthday. I’d buy you a pizza, but...” I gestured to the empty pan in front of us.

  His mouth lifted on one side. “I could go for more.”

  “Really?” I was uncomfortably full and still had crust left on my plate. Then again, I was basically half his size. I started to push back my chair, intending to make good on my offer, when his hand shot out and covered mine.

  “Dana, I’m messing with you. I’m good.”

  My hand grew warm under his. I slid it free, then took another bite of pizza and chewed it slowly. What the hell was I doing? I hadn’t stopped to think about that question since I’d sent my supposed grandfather that first message. I’d reacted with little to no thought, first with Brandon and then with Chase. I was still just reacting. The longer I sat there with Chase, the more I realized that just seeing Brandon wasn’t enough. I wanted to know him, to figure out if he was allergic to cinnamon like I was, or if he loved french fries dipped in ice cream. I wanted to know if he was a Diamondbacks fan or rooted for another team, or if he even liked baseball. I wanted to know which movies had scared him as a kid and which ones had made him laugh until he cried. I wanted to know if he’d ever imagined having a sister, and if she was anything like me. I wanted to know him, and Chase might be the only way I ever could.

  * * *

  “So,” Chase said, walking me back to my car. “Still think AJ and Mesa are too far away from each other?”

  I had to blink at the directness of his question. “I have softball practice every day till four or four thirty, games three nights a week and tournaments most Saturdays. I’m betting you work a lot too, besides the classes you take.”

  He nodded, still looking at me in that unnervingly direct way. “When’s your next game?”

  “I have tournaments all day tomorrow.”

  “I work on Sunday. What about the day after?”

  I would have laughed at his persistence if the question hadn’t made me feel so warm. “Just practice.” />
  “And I get off at five. I’ll even come to you and save you the drive.”

  That time I did laugh. “You don’t give up, do you?”

  “You want me to?”

  I should, but I didn’t. “How do you feel about batting cages?”

  “If you’re asking, pretty damn good.”

  * * *

  The smile on my face lasted me halfway home. It was way too easy to spend time with Chase. I’d also discovered more about Brandon and possibly learned that at least one other person besides Brandon’s mother knew about his paternity. Those were things I wanted to know, but I couldn’t completely shake the scummy feeling that accompanied me the rest of the way home because of how I’d learned them.

  Chapter 13

  Tournament days were good. They required complete focus, which was exactly what I gave. In the dugout, I was just another player getting the same speech from our coach as the girls on either side of me. He wasn’t my dad on game days, and I made sure to remember that. I did nothing that would single me out for correction, nothing that would necessitate a private talk after the game or later at home, good or bad. I played well, but my heart wasn’t in it the way it usually was. I didn’t know if I expected Dad to notice or not, but he didn’t seem to, and we still won the game.

  I saw Nick afterward, but I made sure to dominate the conversation so as to avoid the chance he’d ask any more follow-up questions about my dad’s DNA results. I left him and Jessalyn talking about work and joined my sister.

  Selena beat a drum solo on my shoulders as we walked to the cars. “You guys are killing it this season. You have a real shot at state, which, you know...” Her pause was unnecessary. Of course I knew. And just in case I forgot, my sister was there to remind me at every opportunity that she’d won two in a row.

  I didn’t feel like enduring Selena’s thinly veiled bragging the whole way home, but anything was better than riding with my parents. “Are you coming home for a while or do you have to head back to U of A right away?”

  “I can hang out a bit. Ride with me?”

  I got into Selena’s car. And actually, she wasn’t that bad. With Dad out of the picture, we could talk about the game and not have the conversation be tainted.