Page 36 of Waking Olivia

When we arrive, there’s a beat-up Honda Civic in the driveway that I don’t recognize. I look over at Will.

“Brendan,” he says, sounding not entirely pleased. “My brother.”

From the little I’ve heard, Brendan sounds like a bit more of a wild card than Will, but then whoisn’tmore of a wild card than Will? I’ve seen pictures of him—a cute kid with a kind of impish smile. I get the sense that the impishness is still there, and that while Dorothy enjoys it, it’s an irritant to Will.As am I…

Maybe Brendan and I will get along just fine.

I don’t have to wait long to meet him. The man himself comes running out of the house and tackles his completely unaware older brother while I look on. Brendan is a rangier version of Will. He has the same ice blue eyes, the same light tan, the same wide mouth, but there’s something boyish about him that no longer exists in Will.

Brendan jumps up and whoops, then runs in a circle shouting “Vic-tor-y! Vic-tor-y!”

“Brendan,” sighs Will, climbing to his feet, “stop being an idiot and say hi to Olivia.”

It’s only then that Brendan seems to see me at all. “Oh. Holy shit. I mean, hi.” He laughs at himself. “Sorry, I wasn’t expecting you. I mean, I knew Will was bringing a student home I just didn’t know it would … Wow. I’m sorry. I’m gonna stop talking now.”

“Good plan, jackass,” says Will, picking my bag up and slinging it hard at Brendan, who staggers backward.

“Hey!” I object. “Don’t use my bag as a weapon. What if it had been full of priceless glass objects?”

“Yeah,” smirks Will, “you seem just like the type who’d collect priceless glass objects.”

“Ican totally see you collecting priceless glass objects, Olivia,” says Brendan with a wide smile. Brendan, like his brother, is insanely hot. Also like his brother, he seems well aware of it.

“More the type to beat up priceless glass objects,” mutters Will. “Put her bag in my room.”

Brendan raises a brow and has a smile on his face so dirty that there’s no doubt what’s going through his head.

“It’s not like that, dickhead,” says Will, pushing me inside.

“You should come out with us,” Brendan says to me, ignoring Will entirely. “We’re going to Jimmy’s, in town. Have you been?”

“She’s not going drinking the night before a meet,” snarls Will, which sort of irritates me. It’s not like I was going to agree.

Brendan glances over at me, giving me another of those sly half-smiles. “I don’t have to leave right away,” he says to his mom. “Maybe I’ll stay for dinner after all.”

“I was going to hold dinner so Olivia could go riding first,” says Dorothy.

“Cool,” says Brendan. “I’ll go with her.”

Will’s face has gone, over the course of this conversation, from its standard stern look to something far more grim. Right now he’s giving Brendan a scowl I thought he’d reserved only for me.

“You hate horseback riding,” he says.

Brendan grins. “Under the right circumstances I don’t.”

27

Will

Ican’t rememberthe last time I wanted to hit my brother as much as I do right now.

I’ve certainly had better reasons for wanting to hit him. Technically, he’s not doing anything wrong, but my brother runs through pretty girls the way Starbucks runs through coffee, and he loves a challenge. And right now he’s looking at Olivia like a mountain climber staring at Everest from its base.

He not only invites her out, but when she refuses (okay, I guess I actually refused on her behalf) he starts waffling about whether or not he’s going to go outat all, when he just drove three fucking hours to see his friends, proving he still does 90% of his thinking with his dick.

“Let’s go for a walk,” I tell him, between clenched teeth.

“Walk?” he asks, meeting my eye. “Don’t you think we should stay back and make sure our guest is comfortable?”

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