“When did I ever play a practical joke on you?” Lucas demanded.
“When you told me we were having a birthday party for Dad and Papa and that it was at the Grand Hotel and I ended up accidentally crashing someone’s bar mitzvah instead,” I said.
“That was hilarious,” Lucas laughed.
“Or when you put cayenne pepper on my deviled eggs at that picnic instead of paprika and nearly sent me to the hospital?”
Lucas laughed loudly, gripping his stomach. “You turned so red!”
“Or when you cut the brake lines on my old car and nearly got me killed?” I demanded loudly.
“You barely made it out of the driveway,” Lucas defended himself. “I was right there and would have stopped you from going out into real traffic.”
“I crashed into the stop sign,” I reminded him.
“And I got the whole thing on video,” Lucas laughed.
I huffed out a breath and turned back to my work. “Go away, Lucas. I have worksheets to grade.”
“Please, Linus,” Lucas said, dropping overdramatically to his knees, clasping his hands in supplication, and holding them up to me. “It’s just a job interview.”
His eyes flashed with something teasing. His entire plea was suspicious as could be.
“A job interview,” he insisted again, still on his knees. “You know I’ve been having trouble getting a real job lately. This could be it. Don’t you want to see me gainfully employed for a change?”
That familiar, awful feeling in the pit of my stomach whenever someone asked me to do something I didn’t really want to do, but felt too bad to say no, rushed into me. Lucas desperately needed a real job. He needed something to keep him out of trouble. He was way too good at getting into trouble.
“What kind of job is it and where is the interview?” I sighed, kicking myself for being such a pushover.
Lucas leapt to his feet, looking like it was the best day of his life. “It’s tonight at eight o’clock. I’ll text you the location.”
“Eight o’clock?” I balked. “What kind of company has job interviews at eight o’clock on a Friday night?”
“It’s a prestigious company with offices on the West Coast,” Lucas said quickly, pulling out his phone. “They’re interviewing a lot of candidates remotely, too, so their hours are weird. There. I just sent you the location.”
My phone was in my satchel, which was stashed under the desk. I would look at it later. “Why don’t you just reschedule the interview instead of sending me in your place?” I asked.
“It’s a limited-time deal,” Lucas said, practically buzzing with energy. “The interview has to be tonight. But trust me, you’re going to love it.”
“I’m going to love a job interview?” The whole thing was highly suspicious to me.
“Yes!” Lucas blurted. “It’s going to be fun. It’s a really, um, unique company. They have a new method of interviewing people, so don’t freak out too much.”
“What kind of method?” I asked.
“You’ll see when you get there,” Lucas started backing away from my desk. “Just trust me on this one, okay? You’ll enjoy yourself. You need this. I need this. Everybody needs this.”
“What if I get this job for you and when you show up at the office instead of me, they figure out what happened?” I asked, torn between wanting my brother to sit down and explain a few more things to me and wanting to be rid of him.
“It won’t be a problem, I promise,” Lucas said. He reached the door, smiled one of his winning smiles, and said, “You’re the best, Linus. You’ll love it, I know you will. You’ll be thanking me for months to come.”
“For going on a job interview for you?” My brother was out of his mind.
“For enabling me to earn some money for a change,” Lucas said. “I can’t live off of the leftovers of your teacher’s salary forever, after all.”
That was certainly true. I was tired of loaning Lucas money anyhow.
Before I could say anything else, he said, “Okay, bye! I’ll be at the beach house if you need me,” then darted through the door, disappearing.
