Page 1

Emerson

Some questions don’t have answers. Like, what is the meaning of life? Or, less cliche, why is the most horrifying thing seeing a seahorse give birth? My eyes squint at the screen, and I war with wanting to either push the screen away or pull the damned thing closer.

There are so. Many. Babies.

“Holy fuck,” I mutter and take another sip of my Long Island as the video plays back from the beginning. Yep. Just as wickedly unsettling the second time around.

“What the hell are you watching?” The sound of the familiar voice almost isn’t enough to pull my eyes from the screen. But I decide a third time would be too much, and I glance up at my brother.

There was a time I would have been incredibly alarmed to see a purple bruise on his cheek, but that ship sailed a long time ago. Around the time I caught him in the middle of a ring of feral looking dudes while he was in the center getting his ass handed to him by an extremely sexy Asian man.

I pushed through the crowds as quickly as the runt of a litter could get through big, sweaty bodies. I won't lie, though, the guy who kicked Warren’s ass held my attention more than he probably should have. Especially when he did a smooth flip-kick-thing that ended with his foot connecting with my brother's head. Warren went down like a sack of potatoes, and I stood there motionless for a solid five seconds, just gawking.

Warren was the daredevil. The crazy one. The one who held little regard for his life, as I learned that night. A good five years have gone by, and he still sports cuts and bruises from time to time. He pretends he has no clue what you’re talking about if asked, so I stopped asking. Fight club and all that.

The bartender flutters her eyes at my burly, bruised brother and definitely adds a little extra swing to her curvy hips when she walks away to make his order. Another question with no answer: why did the good Lordy make me so damn gay when humans like that grace this Earth? Not that many of them would look twice at me, even if I dressed more…hetero? Masculine? I’m about six...or more inches shy of the tall, but I’ll be damned if anyone tries to say I don’t check the dark and handsome boxes.

I flick a dark wave over my shoulder and eye my brother. No one has ever accused Warren of talking too much, but he normally says hello at least.

I tap my platform sandals on the chair and my pointed nail on the bar top. Silence makes me feel fidgety. This stupid bar is always dead, and besides my loud thoughts, there are no other sounds. Just a few quiet conversations at the other end of the bar and the occasional clink of glasses.

I would give up rights to my firstborn to get some club action. The flashing lights. The house music blaring so loud over the billion speakers, you can hear the echoes of it all week long if you listen hard enough. Enough to get you through while you drag on through the sick, monotonous reality of adult life. But I digress. There will be no sweaty humping on a dance floor this night.

I may not have always been the best brother, but when one of my siblings call, I will always show up. Always.

“Spit it out already, Warren. What did you do this time?” I look from him down to my nails, eyeing my fresh manicure. “I’m sure it can be fixed with a good bit of groveling and flowers. Perhaps a handwritten poem said on bent knee with a tear or three.”

Not even a snort comes from the doofus, and now I’m starting to actually worry. I do not like to worry. My eyebrows pull down when I’m worried, and I refuse to have worry wrinkles when I’m old.

“Warren?”

“It’s over.” The words replay in my head, and I watch him take a long pull from the beer bottle in front of him. That’s when I see his own knuckles. Not a swollen one in sight. No busted skin, no wrapped bandages. The bruise looks a lot more daunting now.

“What happened?”

His lips part like he’s going to divulge it all, but he snaps his jaw closed and gives a slight shake of his head instead. “Doesn’t matter.”

“Of course it matters, dummy. You’ve been with Morgan for a hundred dreadful years already. You’ve spent your prime years together. No one is going to want you now. I’m pretty sure I saw a bald spot when you bent your head. Bald, Warren. I mean, I guess you could maybe pull off a shaved head, but you’re supposed to bag someone when you still have the ability to grow hair. Now they’re going to know those genetics are in your swimmers, and I don’t know, brother. Are you sure you can’t write a poem? I could probably help—”

“Jesus, Emery, shut the fuck up.” Warren waterfalls the rest of the beer into his mouth and slams the bottle down. My jaw drops.

“It’s that bad?”

“What part of ‘it's over’ gave you the impression it could be anything but bad?” Warren says, and finally, he looks at me. I wince at the look in his eyes. Hazel but glassy from recent tears and puffy. There are purple shadows that have nothing to do with the bruise on his cheek under his eyes as well, and I feel a little bad for whatever shit I just said. Because apart from all that, his eyes look tired. Resigned.

Done.

I grip his forearm and lean closer. “Shit, Warren.” Breakups between him and his high-school sweetheart are nothing new. They’ve been doing it since they were in high school. It got to a point that I figured it was an unspoken form of foreplay—they got addicted to the makeup sex or something equally gross that I don’t want to think about. This isn’t the first time Warren has called me to get him through one of their breakups. Hell, this isn’t even the first time we’ve sat on these exact barstools. But this is the first time he’s not pumped up with adrenaline, ready to battle all the battles and fight to get his girl back.

He’s not egging on my non-filtered ADHD brain into talking him up while he pounds beers and gears himself up to fix it. He’s hunched into himself, and I think this is the very first time that my big brother looks small. Theoretically, of course; the asshole is massive.

And just like that, I have no idea what to say. He needs a serious heart to heart conversation, and I am the furthest thing from serious. I always end up saying something offensive or crude, or cracking inappropriate jokes because serious gives me hives. I glance around the bar like one of our mature siblings is hiding in a booth, ready to tap in so I can get the fuck out of dodge.

No such luck. There are no other Bennet boys lurking. If Warren didn’t look so sad, I would ask him why the fuck I was his choice in support. I give him an awkward pat on his hunched shoulder.

“There, there. You have so many muscles, I’m positive you can find someone that will overlook the lack of hair. And you’re so tall, how will they see the top of your head anyways?”

Warren looks at me like I just crawled out of a dumpster, and I’m covered in last week's trash. I roll my eyes and sit back. “I’m not good at dealing with”—I move my hands to motion towards him—“this.”