I laughed to myself, thinking of Brando sitting in the back, his own decompression chamber after too much drink. Then I sighed.
“Does Mick know?”
“No. He doesn’t suspect that it’s Mitch. He just thinks his brother is a screw up. They weren’t even fighting over the dance back at the bar. Just that she’s been distant from him lately.”
“She has three kids.”
If Brando Fausti had been an eye roller, he would’ve rolled them at me.
“It does, you know,” I said, defensive. “Make a difference.”
Why I was defending her, I wasn’t sure. She was my best friend and I’d go to the ends of the earth for her, but I never approved of the choice she made and lived with every day.
“Yeah,” he said, somewhat quiet. “Maybe so. But she’s not having sex with him. Apparently that happens every so often with them. He’s getting more suspicious as to why. Think about what you’re saying, baby.”
After a bit, I gave him a blank look.
“Something is going on.” He cleared up the haze for me. “His gut feeling is right. Even if his radar is off.”
Twisting my fingers, I asked, “Should we tell Mick?”
He took a deep breath, releasing it slowly. His grip on the wheel tightened. “I’ve thought about it. If it were anyone else, I would’ve already told Mick. Then he could’ve handled his business. But as it stands, they’re brothers, and I can’t be the one to sever that bond. No matter how thin. So, no, I think we should stay out of it. If anyone should tell him, it should be Mitch, or Violet. Or both.”
Brando took a familiar path on our ride. He slowed in front of my parents’ dance studio. We smiled at the memory—the night we connected out in the snow. Then we passed the train tracks, where a party was going strong. Those kids could’ve been us in more modern clothes.
“Ha!” I laughed. “Remember all the times we had there?”
“Yeah, but the memories don’t come often. I feel the aneurysm coming on every time they do.”
He went cruising over the tracks and the entire truck shook, jostling me a bit.
“Was it that bad?”
“A man at the playground, baby.”
“I wonder if there’s another Scarlett and Brando out there?”
“Poor bastard.”
I cried when we passed the spot where my brother and his friends were killed. “Proceed with caution,” I said, releasing the words to the wind.
Brando took my hand, squeezing.
We went even further, coming to a stop when we arrived at the house on Snow. Brando parked in the driveway, putting the truck in park.
Leaning forward, I sucked in a breath and released it. “Look at the moon, Brando!”
A full moon seemed to float behind the house, silver spilling on the roof, trickling onto the ground, collecting in a pool of light. The windshield was cracked from a shooting rock, and the light filtered in, making the glass seem like ice.
The back of the truck bobbed up and down. Mitch jumped out, stumbling. He came to my window and almost hit me on the head when he went to knock. I had the glass down. His condition was much worse than it had been before. He needed more than a long ride in the back of a truck to sober him up. He was just hitting his peak.
“Brando?” he said, pointing toward the house.
Brando nodded, watching him try to make it inside. He teetered every so often.
“Perhaps you should—help him,” I said.
“Nah, let him go. You do the crime, you pay the time.”
