Page 40 of Synced to Us

“We don’t talk about money, dear.” May stretches out her hand and places it on the table between us. “We find it…ill-mannered and abrasive.”

Well, then. I guess Wyn never told them what I do for a living.

The shutting of the screen door and clomping of boots in the hallway thankfully draws the rest of the attention away. May practically leaps from the table when Wyn appears.

“Darling! Come eat. We’re all ready for you.”

I wait with tense shoulders for Wyn’s scan of the room to halt on me. When it does, the reaction I expected doesn’t come. His expression goes flat before he asks, “What’d I miss?”

“Not much,” Brad says before anyone else can chime in. He makes sure I’m looking at him when he steeples his hands, and adds, “We were just discussing our plans for tonight. Lucy and I were thinking of taking you two lovebirds to the Dockside for a drink and a dance.”

“Oh!” Lucy wriggles in her seat and claps. “I haven’t been out in ages! Please, Dee? Say yes. Omigod, say yes.”

“I…” Licking my lips, I glance at Wyn, letting him know it’s his decision. Last we talked, I used every piece of body language in my arsenal to tell him I was leaving. And I should. I was set to skip out of town and get back to the city, where I can breathe, stretch out, and be myself.

Except, I don’t know what me is anymore. An even stranger sensation is the feeling that I’d rather not leave Wyn on a sour note.

“You know what? Yeah,” Wyn says. “It’s been a while since Dee and I’ve hit the town, too. Hasn’t it, gorgeous?”

“It sure has,” I say. My shoulders relax as he heads to the seat next to me and squeezes the back of my neck before he sits. Against my better senses, my skin tingles at the touch.

As soon as Wyn’s beside me, the suffocating air dissipates. I inhale his scent—sweat and forest— and lean into him before I can scold my body back into submission.

“You sharing?” he asks me, but drags my plate in front of him before I can answer. I playfully shove his shoulder at the act, lifting my head enough to catch Lucy’s eye.

Genuine longing flows across her face and it’s so wrenching, I have to use severe skill to maintain a playful demeanor. It’s pretend, I want to tell her. Wyn and I are acting out a deal.

Even though my time with him is becoming less and less frivolous. It’s not just my emotions becoming involved in our theater. It’s other people, too.

The resulting guilt at fooling Lucy has my gaze sliding away. And landing on Brad.

His eyes linger on me, assessing me, almost in a predatory manner. Then he raises his coffee to his lips and smiles.

15

Wyn

The rest of the day consists of being crouched in Ma’s—formally Dad’s office—going through piles of unopened mail and attempting to log everything onto a spreadsheet in an old-as-shit desktop.

I sit back in Dad’s battered leather desk chair and scratch my head. I thought I’d sent money for Ma to upgrade her computer. But, after sifting through various stacks of receipts and clearly seeing the POS in front of me, it doesn’t take a financier to understand the funds didn’t go to a new monitor and that Brad’s the same piece of shit as this computer.

Brad didn’t used to be this way. Sure, we were always competing in school, in grades, sports, extra-curriculars, but it became clear pretty quickly who was better at what. I was made into a first-string linebacker after my freshman football tryouts, whereas Brad, after four tries and fails at getting a spot on the football team, was finally placed and made into QB4 in his senior year. It was dumb luck he played in our championship year, with the first, second, and third-string quarterbacks all getting injured during a particularly vicious season. But where he floundered at sports, he excelled in academics—vice versa for me. It was drama class where I discovered a piano in the back of the theater. Unbeknownst to me, I had an ear for music, and I started playing the notes with shocking precision. Ma was so excited when the teacher called her, she bartered with our ailing neighbor for me to use her piano in return for Ma tending her garden.

When Brad came home from college that year, all Ma could talk about was how wonderful I played and that it could be heard throughout the neighborhood. Brad glared throughout the speech, storm clouds brewing, and then he announced to Ma he was engaged.

That’s what Brad does—tries to outdo all those around him, even if it’s about things he cares nothing about, like piano playing. If Ma loved that I was good at piano, well, then, he’d send her over the moon with an engagement announcement, her dreams of getting her sons wed and babied coming into fruition before her very eyes.

I’d asked him to help with finances because he loved Ma as much as I did. I thought he’d be able to put his ego aside and stop seeing competitions where there were none and just take care of Ma. Was that so hard? Why couldn’t I rely on my older brother to do this shit when he was all I had after Dad died?

Crumpled receipts slip from my hands and flutter to the floor. I’m close to stomping on them, ripping them to shreds with my teeth, and spitting them into the toilet. It’s so unorganized, scattered, and impossible to log—now I’m fucking wondering how Ma files her taxes every year.

Dee would be so much better at this. Obviously. If I brought her in here, she’d likely take one look at this riffraff and have it catalogued and seamless by the end of the weekend.

It’s to my benefit she’s not here. Lucy took her into town to do some clothes shopping for tonight. Not that Dee needs new duds—the mass she brought with her seems to be enough, but I’m sensing Dee’s soft spot for Lucy. And if my eyes don’t deceive me, Lucy enjoys Dee’s company, too.

Fancy that. Dee actually likes someone other than McKenna.

Asking Dee to help would show my utter weakness, and I won’t admit I’ve lost control of my family’s upkeep. Ma’s heart would be ripped to pieces if I had Dee take any role in our finances. Something I don’t think Dee will ever understand. It shames me to have told Dee to keep that part of herself hidden at the same time I’m demanding to see more of the real her. I get why Dee stormed off at the shed, because I wasn’t making sense. I’m sharing the most intimate details of my life with her—my music—yet cutting her off from the parts that formed who I am as a man.

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