I was halfway to Jungle Juice when Mom texted.
Mom: Selena can’t make it home tonight, so we have to wait to hear her news. Do you know what it’s about?
Me: Not a clue. If tonight’s off, is it okay if I go study at Jessalyn’s?
Mom: Sure, sweetie. Be home by eleven.
CHAPTER 12
Ishifted into Park outside Jungle Juice. I’d driven there because I had no other options, but once I was actually facing Brandon’s work, I couldn’t make myself get out of the car.
I hadn’t thought it was possible for another desire to compete with the one currently shredding its way through my heart, let alone eclipse it, yet, as much as I needed to know how my seemingly loving dad had fathered a secret son, every part of me recoiled at the thought of hurting the brother I’d just discovered. But I couldn’t see how to do one without the other. I couldn’t.
I didn’t even know if Brandon was working today, and besides that, he’d told me to stay away and made it impossible for me to even message him back. He couldn’t have made it any clearer that he didn’t want to hear from me, and in his situation, I might have done the same thing. But I still longed to talk to him again, so badly that I convinced myself that it was okay just to watch for him.
I hadn’t parked close, and Brandon didn’t know what kind of car I drove. With my baseball cap and sunglasses on, he wouldn’t recognize me even if he glanced my way. I wouldn’t be hurting him, and it might help me just to see him, somehow.
That was the extent of my plan: sit in my car and stalk my half brother. Hope that he changed his mind about talking to me, and pray that I could survive until he did. It was a terrible plan. Every part of me chafed against the inaction of it, but every time I reached for my car door, I’d remember Brandon’s face when he read Dad’s results, and I couldn’t bring myself to open it.
Outside, the sky grew hazy orange and purple. The lights in the parking lot blinked on, growing brighter as the day dimmed. The crickets started up their nightly symphony, singing the sun to sleep. At eight o’clock Jungle Juice officially closed, but it was another hour until the remaining employees trickled out. With a sinking heart, I realized Brandon wasn’t one of them.
But Chase was. He was the last to leave. He came out carrying two large trash bags and stopped to lock the doors before circling around the building to where I presumed the dumpsters were.
That same first impression struck me: he was cute, and it hit me harder seeing him the second time. Maybe that was because when he’d seen me crying, he hadn’t fled. Maybe it was because he’d offered me a much less pathetic outlet for the emotions I hadn’t been able to handle the night before. Maybe it was because he’d let me see a little of what was hurting him so that I wouldn’t feel so alone with my own hurt. And it might possibly also be because he uprighted a knocked-over wrought iron table with one hand like it was made out of cardboard without stopping on his way to the dumpsters.
A minute later he was strolling toward his truck. His big white truck that I’d somehow failed to notice in my single-minded search for my brother. Too late, I realized that, unlike Brandon, Chase knew exactly what my car looked like. He wasn’t halfway across the parking lot when he saw me, and he didn’t miss a step, just changed course to walk just as casually in my direction.
I got out of my car as he reached me.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hi.”
“I wasn’t expecting to see you again.”
“I wasn’t expecting to be here again.” The unspoken question lingered between us, waiting for an answer I couldn’t give him. I should have gone with an obvious excuse, claimed I was there looking for a lost earring or something, but I didn’t.
I hadn’t technically lied to Chase yet, but I had deliberately misled him, whereas he’d been open and honest in return. I couldn’t tell him the truth—that had to be Brandon’s decision, just like it was mine with my family, but I didn’t want to lie to Chase either.
I wanted to squirm under the weight of Chase’s brown eyes, which were a deep honey color. I was waiting for him to realize that that was all I was going to say and then make the decision I seemed incapable of making. He’d be nice about it. I’d spent only a few hours with him, but I already knew he’d be kind but direct. Maybe borrow my brush-off line from the night before about being too busy.
“You like black olives?”
“What?”
“Black olives. I was going to go grab a pizza,” he said. “Do you want to come with?”
“That’s not even close to what I thought you were going to say.”
His mouth lifted in the promise of a full smile. “Well, I’d offer you another smoothie, but we’re closed.”
I bit the side of my lower lip so I wouldn’t smile back. I’d given myself a pass with Chase the night before. I hadn’t known how close he and Brandon were, and I’d been too heartsick to focus on the reasons I should keep my distance. I didn’t have the same excuse anymore. I was still hurting, but I was thinking more clearly too. Brandon had told me to stay away from him, not anyone else, but I couldn’t imagine him loving the idea of me hanging out with his cousin.
Then again, that was part of the problem. I couldn’t imagine what Brandon would feel, because I didn’t know him. Most everything I knew about my half brother had come from Chase, and it wasn’t a lot.
“It’s just pizza.” Chase pointed a few stores down. “And it’s literally right there.”
It was as though I’d just needed to see the neon-red-and-green sign for my nose to register the mouthwatering mix of garlic and cheese beckoning me toward LJ’s Pizza. My stomach loudly expressed its approval.
