“Why?” I ask. I didn’t really know a whole lot about Brighton outside of what I’ve been told. Unlike his social butterfly twin, he kept his distance from us, was polite but short, and never hung around long enough to hold a conversation. It was like Sunday, and Boone had stolen all the extroverted energy and left him with the leftovers.
“Bri doesn’t really like people in his space,” Sunday explains, “like more than a usual person, and there’s a lot to it, but I don’t think he’s roommate potential.”
I think about that for a moment, the conversation I had with him the other night felt normal, but I was also very drunk, so maybe I’m imagining things. “But there’s a chance I could convince him.”
“How do you handle that?” Rhea asks, sitting at the bar, shoving sweet potato fries between her lips while she listens to music. She pulls out one earphone, and the cord bounces on her shoulder. The Hollow is shut down for the night, and I’m running through the closing chores while Boone cleans the kitchen.
“What?” I grunt, shoving a door closed with my boot. It’s becoming a consistent challenge to keep my eyes off her, but when she wears tight black pants and tiny fucking t-shirts, it’s impossible not to admire every sculpted curve of her body.
“The empty sound?” she asks when she’s finished chewing.
“Silence?” I furrow my brow at her. Only Rhea would find an issue with the quiet.
“Yeah, that.” She snaps her fingers. When I don’t respond, she takes it upon herself to fill said silence with her voice. “I won’t even volunteer for after-school activities because it’s scary. Makes everything feel haunted.”
I pause, stocking the new bottles of vodka. That we can agree on, when everyone is gone, and the Hollow is empty… It does feel haunted. It’s when the memories claw their way back into my skull and paint everything red.
“You’re afraid of the dark?” I ask her with a huff, trying to seem normal. No one needs to find the skeletons that clank around in my closet.
“Nobody is afraid of the dark, Brighton,” she scoffs. It’s funny to see a woman so sure of herself pretend like she wasn’t afraid of the monstersunder the bed. She’s Rhea Drake, for God’s sake; people move out of her way when she moves through a crowd. I’ve seen the tackles she makes;the monsters under her bed should be afraid of her.
“Bright,” I repeat myself for the hundredth time.
“People are afraid of what could be in the dark… It’s the lack of control—the endless possibilities.” She speaks absentmindedly as she picks up the burger and swallows tightly. I gaze down at it in her hands and notice Boone put tomatoes on it again, but I never hear her ask for it without them.
“Control the darkness.” I shrug like it’s a simple answer. “If you aren’t afraid of what will come out of it, then it doesn’t matter anymore.”
“Oh yeah sure, good advice, Terminator.” She rolls her eyes at me, giving me a phony salute, and takes a bite, chewing slower than usual. It’s clear she’s struggling, but I’m not going to say anything about it. Fighting with her about tomatoes isn’t on my agenda tonight.
“What did you call me?” I pull out a few bottles, a piece of paper, and a glass, setting them on the counter. I still need to come up with the specials for next week before bed.
“You know, big as a black bear, cold as steel, meaner than a rabid animal, impossible to kill…” Her sentence trails off when she notices me staring at her. “I’m starting to feel like that’s a nickname Kaia gave you in secret.”
“Yeah,” I say in a clipped tone. It’s barely two minutes of silence before she’s asking ridiculous questions again.
“What are you doing?” she asks, setting down the uneaten half of her burger. I look up from the bottles of liquor to her and find those massive dark eyes staring back at me, the red lights from the Hollow glimmering around inside like stars.
I clear my throat.She’s your little sister's best friend, and these hot flashes are because you haven’t touched a woman in two years. Get it together.If I just keep reminding myself of that, it will be easy to get the rest of my body to fall in line.
“Changing the drink menu for next week,” I say to her, and she smiles.
“Literally the best day of the month is when you change the specials.” The way she blurts it out is endearing, and she pushes up, dropping her headphones onto the counter and slamming her hands on the bar top to see the piece of paper.
“This is classified information, Hellcat.” I hold the paper away from her and watch her cheeks turn pink as her eyebrow raises in question to the nickname.
"Mm," she hums.
"You know, a Hellcat. A bad-tempered,violentwoman." I think she might snap at me, that the moment might be more heated than I meant it to be but she surprises me.
“I kind of like that." She shrugs it off and I realize that she's telling the truth.You're a strange little thing. "And please, I work here now. That should give me some kind of special insight!” She grabs for the paper, leaning further now, and if she loses her balance, she’ll barrel roll into the back of the bar, so I move closer to get her to stop.
“It’s blank.” I show her.
“Do you decide on a whim?” She sounds excited.
“It just depends on how I feel, I guess…” I say with a shrug.
“Oh, the girls will get a kick out of this, straight and proper Brighton Black, creates the drink menus on a vibe!” She giggles.
