Grace forced a tight smile, and I had to excuse myself to the bathroom. Tonight wasn’t the night. Not when he was in a mood. We needed to support him. I did my business and washed my hands, only to find Grace outside the door. “He’s going to get hammered.”
“I can’t drive him home. Can he crash here?” I asked, my eyes filling with tears. “I can’t tell him today, Grace. Look at him.”
“I know.” She gave me such a sad smile, I pulled her into a hug and buried my face in her neck. She patted my back a few times and said, “It’ll be okay. I promise.”
“I’m not so sure,” I said, pulling back and wiping my nose. “I need to pull it together. He’ll know something’s wrong.”
“I’m going to make tacos, and we’re going to chill for a while. He can crash here, but youneedto tell him this weekend.” She gave me a pointed stare.
I nodded. “I will.”
Two hours later, Fritz was stupid drunk as we watched YouTube videos of people falling—his idea, not ours—but it made him laugh, so it was worth it. I excused myself to leave for the night and was going to call an Uber, using the PayPal account I still had access to. It wouldn’t set me over budget, and it wouldn’t clue Fritz in on my car dilemma. I hugged him good-bye and kept it together as I walked out the front door and sat on the edge of the curb. It’d be at least ten minutes before one got here, and I called for it just as the door shut at Christopher’s parents’.
“Yeah, good night,” he said, his voice carrying over toward me, and I recognized his footsteps. That’s how in tune I was with him. His gait had a certain rhythm to it, and it stopped when he approached his car. “Gilly?”
“Hey,” I said, hoping my face wasn’t giving away my absolute mess of emotions. “How’s your parents’ new place?”
“It’s okay. Don’t love how they financed it without telling me, but it’s their business, I guess.” He shoved his hands in his pockets, and his lips quirked up on both sides. “We seem to run into each other a lot, don’t we?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s wrong?” He moved closer to me, and his brows drew together as he eyed me from head to toe. “Your posture is off.”
“No, it’s…I did something to help my brother without telling him, and it’s eating at me.”
“Ah,” he said, glancing down the street and at his car. “Are you waiting for a ride? Your car is still in the shop, right? I didn’t see it at school.”
“I still don’t have it,” I said, careful not to lie because that’s all I did now. “There’s an Uber coming.”
“Cancel it. Come on, I’ll drive you home. You can talk to me about your brother. My sister and I…we’ve had our moments too.” He held out a hand to help me up, and I placed my damp palm in his, and it was stupid how my stomach fluttered.
“You sure?”
“Yes,” he said, smiling and moving his hand to open up the passenger side door of his car. I hesitated for a second, and he narrowed his eyes. “Get in.”
He still wore his work clothes, and his polo fit his shoulders so well. No one had muscles like that without hard work. I gulped when he got into his car.
Maybe it was my emotions going out of control, but the car seemed smaller. His soap-and-leather scent tickled my nose, and I sighed, exhausted from everything.
He reached over and placed his hand on my thigh, just above my knee, and squeezed. “Siblings fight. It’s part of being a family. You’ll get through it.”
He removed his touch and put the car in drive, totally unaware how that simple gesture sent a shot of heat through me. My toes curled into my flats against his dirty mat, and I chewed on my lip. He looked completely unaffected by how close we were, again, in his car. I could lean over the console and crawl into his lap in one movement.
But would he want that?
“Tell me what happened,” he said, glancing at me as we hit a red light.
“I made a decision for him, without consulting him or telling him about it. If I tell him now, he’ll never forgive me.”
“Okay, what was the decision?”
I paused, unable to complete the sentence as I squeezed my eyes tight. “Uh, well,” I started, but he waved a hand in the air, cutting me off.
“Kayla was sneaking out with this guy who was just an asshole. Used her, said the right things, but they were lies. He’d try to convince her to do all this stuff she didn’t want to, and one night, when I knew he was coming over to sneak her out, I waited. I scared the shit out of this kid, threatening him and warning him it would not end well for him if he ever did it again. She refused to talk to me for two months, but that guy? He got another girl pregnant a month later. Not saying that would’ve been Kayla, but I don’t regret doing that.”
I sucked in a breath through closed teeth and nodded. “Looking out for her.”
“I thought so, yeah. She was fourteen. This guy had a motorcycle, and yeah, not my baby sister.” He barked out a laugh, turning onto the street that led to my modest apartment complex. It might not look flashy on the outside, but no one knew it had a doorman and extra security. It let me live in my illusion a little longer, where he had no idea of my wealth.
