Page 50 of Foolish Games

“Depends on the situation,” I say, giving him a saucy little smirk.

“You’re killing me, Smalls,” he says with a groan.

“My brother would literally murder us if he caught us messing around.”

“Here’s an idea,” he says. “We don’t tell him.”

“You’re going to get me in trouble.”

“Hey, I’m willing to risk it, and he’d be way more pissed at me.”

“Trust me, he’d be pissed at me.”

Sebastian just laughs. “Y’all fight over some nonsense. It’s not his business.”

“Like you always get along with your sister.”

“Not always,” he says. “But that’s mostly because she’s a pain in the ass and thinks she doesn’t have to do what I say because I’m not her dad.”

“That seems reasonable.”

“I knew you’d take her side.”

“If it makes you feel better, Rob never does what I tell him, either.”

“That’s different.”

“Why?”

He shrugs and looks out the side window at the dead rice paddies blurring by. “He’s only a year younger. My sister’s a freshman, and I’m a senior.”

“You’re still not her parent,” I reason. “Maybe she doesn’t like you bossing her around. Does she do what your dad says?”

“Hard to know. He hasn’t been around much lately.”

“Oh,” I say, glancing at him and adjusting my hands on the wheel. “I’m sorry. Does he work a lot?”

“Nah,” Sebastian says, tipping the seat back a bit to lounge beside me. “He went to grab a drink with friends and hadn’t come back in a few days.”

“A few days?” I ask incredulously. “Aren’t you worried?”

He shrugs. “I handle shit when he’s gone.”

It strikes me that even though Sebastian’s been friends with my brother for two and a half years, and I’ve been running into him in my house or out back at the pool for at least half that time, I barely know the guy. I’ve never thought about whether he came from a good family because I never cared.

I don’t care now, either. He’s not my boyfriend.

Still, it’s weird how little he’s shared about himself in all the time I’ve known him. At school, Rob would rather keep our groups separate, and when he brings Sebastian over, they hang out in a different part of the house doing boy things or go outside and shoot hoops on the basketball court. When we do run into each other at my house, Sebastian’s always treated me like an annoying little sister. If we’re at the pool, he makes disparaging comments about what a loser I am for sitting by the pool reading, like I should find that less entertaining than getting in and letting him splash me in the face or dunk me.

I feel bad that I don’t know the first thing about him. Ever since we started tutoring, and then hanging out pretending to date, he’s barely shared anything personal. I only know he has a sister at school because I’ve seen them leaving together. Beyond that, I’ve never even wondered about his family life. I just assumed he was a middle-class arrogant jock like the rest of my brother’s friends on the team.

“Does your dad do this a lot?” I ask after a few minutes. “Disappear for days at a time?”

“A few times,” he says, like it’s no big deal. “What about yours?”

“Sometimes he goes away on business trips or works long hours during a tough case,” I admit. “But he always calls to check in. Maybe you should call the police if you haven’t heard from him. What if something happened to him?”

“We’d have gotten a call about life insurance if something happened,” he says, not sounding at all bothered by the thought of his dad dying.

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