“We’re hardly family,” I remind him, rounding the bar to check on Johnny.
“You good?” I crane my neck around him to see the guy emptying his guts in a paper bag.
“What do people think this is? A dive bar?” Somehow, even his huff of laughter is accented as it turns into a throaty smoker’s cough, and I smack his back. I don’t tell him a comedy club that advertises a Jazz Night by using clip art burlesque dancers on the flier is only fractionally less grimy than a dive bar. He takes pride in his establishment. I do, too, but I’ve also seen kids, whose yearly tuition is triple most people’s yearly salary, vomit into Ming dynasty era vases at department mixers. People without any respect for other people’s shit will show that disrespect anywhere.
“Andy!” my half-brother shouts from the sticky bar top, shaking his empty glass at me like the entitled asshole he is. I stalk my way over, barely rinsing the glass out before filling it with soda water. “So that was actually rum and Coke, but whatever,” he mutters into the glass, swirling his straw around.
“My shift’s almost up.” I shake my wrist out, checking the watch I only ever wear here. Lends credibility, I read; improves the likelihood that someone will tip me more than a dollar, I’ve learned. “You’ve got twenty minutes to make headway on your evil master plan, or whatever the hell you’re doing over there.”
“I…” he dips his head, scrolling until a smirk erupts on his face, “was trying to look for this.” He spins the computer around to expose an outdated website, rows and columns full of names and date of births and…deaths.
“What the hell is this?”
“Death records. Step one to all of this is figuring out exactly what went on the record about Lily’s death.” He continues typing, pulling out a credit card before groaning. “Shit. I can’t do it.”
“Yeah, I would’ve assumed only family could do somethinglike that,” I tell him, furrowing my brows. “Probably for the best. I mean, Lily had a brain aneurysm…it was random.” I can distinctly recall the way Will’s face hollowed out that semester. We all said he was going too hard at practice and he’d laugh it off, crack a joke about how the rest of us were gonna be left in the dust when the scouts started coming around.
I should’ve been paying more attention.
“You know what tipped me off?” Ian asks, leaning forward, his head resting on the bridge his hands form. “Wasn’t Ben coming back. Wasn’t Will acting weird.”
“What, then?”
“That he tapped you to keep an eye on him. I thought,whywould my father ask this kid from nowhere to buddy up with a Chapman? I mean, how did my father knowyouin the first place?”
I blink across the bar at him, my blood running cold as the front door chimes and a gaggle of women rush toward a table, just in time for the next act. “That is strange,” I admit, feeling sick.
“Naturally, I started with you. Figured out you were my half-brother almost immediately because when I confronted him about it, he just slapped me.” His gaze drops to the hardtop, his mouth pressing into a line. “I guess he told you shortly after so he could beat me to it.”
“I’m sorry you had to?—”
“Please. He hit me. You’re poor. Maybe we’re even,” he says with a small shrug, and it has me pulling in a breath to compose myself. The middle aged crooner on stage breaks on a brittle belt, his voice the aural manifestation of whatever heartbreak he’s on about, and the women go wild. “Anyway, it did get me to stop. Until Ben came back. Freaked him out—I could just tell.”
My eyes narrow on him, like his inner thoughts suddenly glow on his forehead, obvious and hard to miss. “You put Liv on that story, just to poke the bear. Why?”
“Because I hate him, Andy. He’s made my life hell for as long as I’ve had memory, and he made my mom’s life worse when she was still here.”
Fuck, I remember someone mentioning that she passed, and I hate that I just walked him to the lake of that probably horrifying memory. He found her, or so I heard.
“Don’t feel bad for me. Pity is like…disgusting,” he complains, his nose scrunching, and I can’t help but laugh. His eyes crinkle at the edges, like making me laugh was some progress toward whatever congeniality we’re meant to have as siblings.
“Fine. I don’t feel bad for you. But I do need to know what the fuck I’m getting myself into, since you clearly know way more than me,” I say on a sigh, wiping down the counter that barely got used tonight. I peek into my pocket, making sure the twenty-five dollars in tips from this four hour shift are still safely swimming around in there.
“I ask you questions, you keep answering them,evenif you think you shouldn’t.” I wince, and he sighs in thinly veiled annoyance. “I know you think I’m fucking your friends over and?—”
“I mean, you are,” I remind him with a tight smile.
“In the short term. Do you know how twisted these people’s lives are? They’re built on secrets they don’t evenknowthey’re being held prisoner to. What would it mean for Will to be free of his father? For you to be free of yours?” He pauses, waiting for me to answer. “Can you honestly tell me Liv would’ve been better off never knowing about Will and Lily?”
“No,” I murmur, hating the truth. Accepting a lie would’vebeen so much easier, far less messier, but a lie, still. “So you want her death certificate.”
“Ineedher death certificate. I’ll figure it out. Just keep your eyes and ears peeled, okay? Especially about Will. He might remember something and just spill it.” He slides his laptop off the bar, letting it drop into his messenger bag before hopping off his stool.
“Wait,” I stop him, anxiety churning in my stomach like an endless frothy wave. “And if I have questions for you?”
He tilts his head in consideration. “What do you want to know?”
“What’s he want with Sloane?”
