‘Don’t be a wuss. You grew up with this weather. What’s wrong with you?’
His brother’s face clouded. ‘In case you’ve forgotten, I played ball up north for years. Tennessee summers aren’t my thing these days.’
‘Come out to the workshop with me, then. I’ve got a mosaic idea and you could help.’
‘Me?’
Where the heck did that crazy suggestion come from? Griff had discovered contentment in working with his hands, but that didn’t mean his brother would, too. However, if nothing else, it might give them something else to focus on outside of their long-held resentments.
‘Fine, we’ll do it your way.’ Jase shrugged as if they both knew this was a complete waste of time, but he’d go along with it to keep the peace.
‘Come on then.’
Out in the workshop, he wasn’t sure how best to go about catching his brother’s interest. ‘You were pretty good at art when we were kids. What happened?’
‘Sport and girls.’
Big mistake to askthatquestion.
‘So what’s your big idea?’ Jase asked. Lingering by the offcuts bin, he leaned down and picked up a cherry-red square of glass, lifting it to the light. ‘This would make a great sunset.’
‘It sure would. What else?’
His brother laid the red glass on the workbench and hesitated, giving Griff a puzzled look. Without another word, he went back to the bin and added other colors to the mix, in varying shades of greens and yellows.
‘A baseball field as the sun goes down.’ Jase’s lip curled. ‘Like it did on my fuckin’ career.’ He brushed the glass away with his hand, jumping back out of the way as the pieces crashed to the floor. ‘Damn.’ Blood seeped through his fingers.
‘Let me see.’ Later he’d reiterate his lecture on safety, but for the moment, he’d concentrate on comfort instead of condemnation. Griff unfurled Jase’s hand and smiled at the small cut in the center of the palm. ‘You’re lucky. It’s just a nick.’
‘A nick? I’m bleeding like a stuck pig.’
‘This is par for the course working with glass. The cut I got the other day puts this to shame.’ Griff regaled him with the story of trying to catch a heavy piece of glass. ‘Damned stupid. I knew better.’
‘There’s a lot of times we know better. Doesn’t mean we pay attention.’ The unmistakable undertone to Jase’s words resonated around the room.
‘Sit down and I’ll patch you up.’ After he fetched the first-aid box, he picked his brother’s hand up again.
‘If I’d gotten a criminal record, I would’ve lost everything, Griff. No college scholarship. No chance to turn pro.’ Jase’s voice shook.
He was too angry to look at his brother, so he concentrated on cleaning the wound with an antiseptic wipe before peeling the wrapper off a Band-Aid and smoothing it over the cut. Losing his temper now would be way too easy. ‘And Hannah? You snatched my girlfriend out from under my nose, then almost got her killed.’
‘I didn’tsnatchher from you. You won’t want to hear this, but she told me she was tired of my serious brother with his talk of engagement rings and mortgages. Hannah was sixteen, for God’s sake. She wanted some fun and knew she’d get that with me.’
Those careless words held the ring of truth, no matter how much he’d prefer to deny it. He’d known in his gut that Hannah was pulling away from their relationship and had made an immature mistake by struggling to tighten the bond between them in an attempt to hold onto her.
‘I didn’t know who else to call,’ Jase pleaded. ‘I didn’t deliberately set out to get you in trouble. I panicked.’
A garbled phone call had sent Griff sneaking from the house to avoid waking their parents and out into the night, running as fast as he’d ever done before or since. A single car accident on a lonely country road a mile from their home at two in the morning. Their mother’s car crashed headfirst into a tree. His brother reeking of beer. Hannah a hysterical wreck. Fortunately, neither were hurt apart from being badly shaken.
‘You suggested the swap, remember?’ Jase prompted.
‘I wasn’t thinkin’ straight.’
‘Yeah, well, I wasn’t either.’
With a new clarity he saw neither of them was to blame — and both of them were. At the time, they couldn’t have pictured the possible consequences ten or twenty years down the line. Amazingly, they got away with the deception. Griff calmly called the police, then their parents. He ordered Jase and Hannah to stick to the story that he’d been driving too fast after borrowing their mom’s car to pick them up from a party and lost control on a sharp bend. His brother’s golden life continued. Griff escaped with points on his license for reckless driving, a hefty fine and community service. Being forced to pick up trash from the side of the road in an orange safety vest wasn’t one of the highlights of his life.
‘I’m gonna tell Mom and Dad,’ Jase said. ‘It’s way past time they knew.’
