Page 22 of My Brother's Bad Best Friend

“Why?” I ask.

He thinks for a second. “Don’s a good person,” he says finally. “Fearless and kind. He deserves it, I guess.”

“Wait, so he’s not paying you?”

Jonas laughs. “Don doesn’t have any money. His parents are divorced and his Dad went back to Vietnam. His Mom’s a drug addict living over in San Pasqual Valley, so Don basically bums around and skates as much as he can.”

“How old is he?”

“Nineteen.” Jonas grins at me. “Seems older, right?”

“Yeah,” I say, laughing a little. “I would’ve guessed mid-twenties, like your age.”

“Nope. Don’s been through some shit, though. I guess that’s why I like him.”

We lapse back into silence. I feel like I’m learning more and more about Jonas, and it’s making him seem less like the shadow of a bad boy that haunted my memory for a long time, and more like an actual person. I always saw him as a caricature, one-dimensional, completely flat. He was never quite real, just the guy that disappeared with my brother and randomly showed back up in my life hovering in the background, looking gorgeous, dangerous, and bored.

It’s strange how you can build a replica of someone in your head, and it’s even stranger to have that replica completely demolished by the truth.

He’s helping out this young, talented guy, basically working for free to try and get him some recognition. He’s clearly well liked and known in this community, judging by the way people react when he comes walking past. He’s a businessman, and most importantly, he’s been kind to me.

He’s all of these things, but he’s also the drug dealer, the bearded, tattooed asshole, the handsome bastard. He pisses me off as much as he makes me laugh, and all I want is to get to know him even better.

“What about the other two?” I ask him, nodding toward the other young guys following in Don’s wake.

“They’re all right,” he says. “Kids, you know? Remind me of myself. Which is why I’m trying to keep them from fucking up the way I did.”

I arch an eyebrow. “You fucked up?”

He grins and makes a face. “I know, right? Big shock, didn’t think I was capable of it.”

“Doesn’t seem like you feel bad about anything you did.”

“I don’t,” he says. “But I got lucky.” His gaze strays across the park as Vinny messes up a trick and Shrink laughs at him, the two boys grinning and tussling each other. “Not many people deal drugs for as long as I did and never get arrested. Even fewer turn that into a real career.”

“But you made it happen.”

“I made it happen,” he echoes, his face completely unreadable. “Sometimes I wonder how.”

“You worked hard.”

He cocks his head, a little smile straying on his perfect lips. “You think so?”

“Only thing that makes sense.”

“Believe it or not, selling drugs isn’t hard.” He pauses, leaning back on his hands. “The hard part is not getting caught.”

“Is that all you sold?” I ask him suddenly. “Just weed?”

He hesitates, and that says everything. I watch as he looks away from me, hands curling slightly on the concrete, a frown tugging at the corners of his mouth.

“No,” he says finally, and I’m almost surprised he chose not to lie. “I sold coke for a while, pills, illegal steroids, shit like that. But I never sold meth or crack or heroin.”

“Just the classy stuff.”

“Exactly.” The frown’s replaced by his signature cocky grin, but it was there and it says a lot about the kind of guy he is.

He cares what I think about him, and he thinks I’ll judge him if I know he sold more than just pot. Part of me does judge him, truth be told, but I’m not surprised by it. There’s no way you make enough money to open up a dispensary just selling some weed on the side. He was probably moving serious product around, judging by how nice Half Pipe is.

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