“So, let me get a read on this,” Ethan said. “You own property that you let people rent for cheap.”
“There's a bit more to it than that,” Brad said. “I'm involved with a group of businessmen. We invest in property, and a percentage of any return we make has to go on housing for those who need help.”
They'd been talking at Brad for the better part of an hour. The questions were not fired at him, or invasive, but gentle and persuasive, and Brad, for the most, was trying to answer them. He was doing this for Annabelle—and maybe himself and Ethan, but he wasn’t ready to admit that yet.
“A genuine Robin Hood.”
He found a smile for Newman.
“Nope, we all have enough money, so we're helping out those that don't.”
“How'd you fall into something like that?”
Brad shrugged, unsure whether he wanted to go there yet. The story of how he’d met his friends was not a pretty one.
“Just say it quickly, Brad,” Annabelle coaxed him.
“In the normal course of my day, I don’t speak that much,” Brad said. “In fact, I’ve probably used up a week’s worth of words today.”
“To be fair, you were never a big talker.”
“If I remember right, none of us were.”
Ethan nodded, and Brad knew that like him, he was remembering how it had been.
“I met Mark in a bar two months after I left home,” Brad said slowly. “He found me in an ally puking my guts out, and helped me back to the motel I was staying in. To my surprise he came back the following day and took me out for a meal.”
“You should have called me.” Ethan's words were almost a whisper, but Brad heard the anger that was still there, because he could sound the same when he was trying to keep himself in check.
“Probably, but as I liked you about as much as EG, that wasn't going to happen.” It felt surprisingly good to say the words openly; for so long he'd kept his feelings close. He'd hated his brother, and piled a ton of shit on his head. He wasn’t sure that had changed much as he really didn't know him, but now he had calmed down, he could concede the man wasn't the monster his father was.
Ethan scowled.
“Mark asked me what I was doing, I said anything that involved alcohol and drugs.”
“Drugs too?”
“Come on, Ethan, you know the world I lived in. How could you think I wasn’t using drugs?”
“Are you clean now?”
Brad nodded. “It never really got its hooks in me, but it was getting there.”
“What happened next?”
“Mark asked me if I rode a bike, because he liked to get out on his when he had free time. When I nodded he told me what he did, and the rest is history.”
Newman and Annabelle looked intrigued, Ethan still looked pissed off.
“Does EG know?”
Brad looked at Ethan. “I imagine so, as he seems to know everything about everyone. He's had you followed for years.”
Ethan didn't appear surprised by that revelation.
“He's capable of that and more, we both know it. But you, what you're doing, now that will stick in his craw. Helping people has never been a strong suit of EG’s. I like it.”
Brad found a smile to match the one on his brother’s face. In this they were in total agreement. Anything that annoyed their father was all right by them.
