Page 20 of Five Brothers

Sanoa Bay never seems to sleep. Kids run around where their older siblings and parents played last night, and I can never tell if people are just getting in or just going out for work. There’s always music drifting from someone’s garage or someone’s house. Always from Mariette’s Restaurant, and always from the bar next door to it after 4:00 p.m.

It’s a community in the way my neighborhood isn’t. The only thing I hate over here are the dirt roads. They’re a reminder that the Bay is just the poor part of St. Carmen and not its own town. If it were, it would have autonomy over its own revenue and be able to afford the bare minimum. Like streetlamps and sidewalks.

Iron leans under the hood of my car next to me, and I hear him talk, but I don’t know what he’s saying.

He’s been kind this morning. Really helpful like he never has before.

But my grandfather is sending him to prison for three and a half years, so maybe he thought seducing me last night would be a great way to get back at my family? And now he feels guilty about it? Was it him, then?

Army was attentive at breakfast, too. He’s usually rushing around, overwhelmed, because he’s running a businessandtrying to shield Macon from whatever will set him off, and I’m eighteen, so what do I matter to a twenty-eight-year-old single father? But he was calm this morning. He smiled at me. Why?

Dallas was as angry as ever. It can’t be him.

Trace looked guilty when he saw me on the couch, too.

But he did walk that girl out, so I doubt he came down after me last night and left her in his room. It wasn’t him. Definitely not. I know what he feels like, and that wasn’t it.

Macon’s the only one who acted typical this morning.

And I don’t think it’s his style to sleep with his little sister’s friends, either. He’s way older than me.

“Krisjen.”

It had to be Army or Iron. Right? I mean …

“Krisjen!”

I blink, coming back into focus. Iron still leans under the hood, but he’s staring at me. Oh my God. Was I thinking out loud?

But he just smirks in that way that makes the color in his eyes look like a shamrock. “You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?” he asks.

Talking? What? Oh, the car.

I shrug a little. “Could you write it down? I’ll pass it on to a mechanic.”

It’s not like I’m fixing any of this myself.

He laughs under his breath, standing up and closing the hood. “I’ll give you a ride home. Just leave it here for a few days. I’ll fix it.”

“No, that’s okay,” I say it as gently as possible. “I won’t be back.”

He looks at me, and I don’t mean that to sound insulting. Last night ended much better than it started, but I need to focus now. If I don’t get ahead of my mother, she’s going to have my future figured out for me.

But he just slips my keys into his pocket. “I can drop it off when I’m done, then.”

“Why do you want to fix it?” I study him, definitely having an idea why but deciding not to press it. If he’s not going to talk about last night, then it’s either not him or it wasn’t a big deal, so I play along. “I’ll put in a word with my grandfather, but all you had to do was ask. Not that my input will help you anyway. He barely knows I exist.”

“I don’t want to hear about your grandfather, and I don’t want you to talk to him for me.” He takes a T-shirt hanging off the handlebar of his motorcycle and pulls it on. “He warned me the first time I was busted and the second, and I didn’t listen. Not sure I still would if I could go back and do anything differently.”

He’s not lying. My grandfather gave him chances.

But my grandfather also knows, as do I, that if Iron’s last name was Ames or Collins or Price, his punishment would be no more than being the butt of a joke within his father’s circle as he smokes a cigar on the golf course while they all complain about their kids.

Prison rarely makes a person’s life better. It’s more likely than not that Iron will be perpetually in and out of jail.

He steps up to me, takes my backpack, and slips it into his saddlebag. “I would like you here after I go away, okay?”

I hesitate.

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