The drive to school was going to be farther than my previous five-minute commute, but my brother’s house wasn’t far from all of the college-town action.
It was a nice house. Simple but nice. Much nicer than wherever our mother had thought Danny would end up with the choices he’d made in his life and the career path he’d chosen. I almost wished he cared enough to rub his success in her face.
Mom always suspected Danny would end up like the rock-and-roll artists she’d seen depicted on television or like the ones who found themselves in the emergency room, overdosing on drugs, which she categorized as such without even knowing their story. Countless holidays and family gatherings, she warned him that the “band life” would leave him homeless and addicted to heroin or cocaine and that he’d never amount to anything without proper schooling.
After a while, he stopped going to functions altogether. I didn’t blame him.
When I walked through the front door, I could smell the only drugs I knew my brother touched.
It wasn’t a punch in the face, but marijuana had a very distinctive scent, even through the remnants of men’s aftershave hanging in the air and the plug-in fragrance trying to mask it.
“You couldn’t have stored all of this at Mom’s?” he asked, dropping the box onto the floor in the back bedroom with fatigue.
Bedroom.That was a joke. It was as big as my walk-in closet at my … er, myex’sapartment. Danny had said they used the room as an office for a short time, but when Nikko had started managing the band, he’d moved anything of importance to his house.
Piles of folded band T-shirts, dusty speakers, and a couple of guitars were placed on the floor just outside my room. Beer cans and liquor bottles trailed toward the kitchen across any random flat surface.
The place wasn’t a complete mess, but it certainly wasn’t tidy. Anything that could add a homey, decorative touch to it was notably absent, but I hadn’t expected my brother to have welcome throw pillows on display or framed photographs hanging on the walls.
It was organized chaos, but so was my brother.
Danny was letting me stay with him until my best friend, Nina, and I could move in together, and I was grateful to have a place to rest my head. Living with his roommates couldn’t be as bad as moving back home. At least it had a window, and the futon appeared to be in good shape and free of anystains. Though I didn’t think I was brave enough to take a black light to the room. It used to be Nikko’s after all.
Just to be sure, I had placed my cleaning supplies in an easy-to-reach spot.
Danny paused in the doorway as I tried to pass through it. “She doesn’t know, does she?” His eyes flickered with intrigue.
I brushed him aside, checking my shoulder into his. “Know what?”
“About you and Zayn calling it quits.” He grabbed a book from an open box and started flipping through the pages. “What kind of name is that anyway?Zayn.” He scrunched his nose as he said his name, and I shook my head to try and clear my thoughts of him.
“Needing a refresher on how all that works?” I pointed at the textbook on the female reproductive system he was skimming. “You can borrow it if you’d like?”
Danny squirmed and tossed it back in the box. “You didn’t answer my question.”
“No, okay? She doesn’t.”
Danny pinched his lips together tightly, suppressing a smile.
I chewed on my lip. “What?”
“You’re scared of her.”
“I’m just not in the mood for one of herI told you solectures.”
My mother had hated the idea of me moving in with Zayn and tried to talk me out of it, even after I had. It wasn’t that she didn’t like him. In fact, I thought she had future wedding stationery picked out for us. Dating Senator Westbrooke’s son, who was also a med student, like me, was any mother’s dream. My mother’s dream, however, also included me finishing medical school and finding a residency program before I could even think about living with a guy. Getting pregnant before I did all that was not part of the plan. Obviously, couples who didn’t live together also remained abstinent…
Moving in with my brother and his bandmates was going to be much more difficult to sell her on. Next to impossible actually. So, I had come up with a plan: I just wouldn’t tell her.
He raised a brow. “Oh, please. Like you’ve gotten any of those. If you want, I can tell her for you? I’m used to her not liking what I have to say.”
“No, thanks.”
“I’m sure she’d be happy to have you move back in.”
“Leave it alone,” I exhaled.
Danny clapped his hands. “I wish I could be there to see her face when she finds out you’re livinghere. She’s going to fuckin’ lose it.”
