Page 38 of Stay in Your Lane!

“I want to start an interstate courier service. Well, actually, I want to open a franchise. The buy-in is pretty low, and I’ve already got a lot of work lined up. I just—I’m done moving bodies, Ev. It freaks Penny out. I know Dad’s been hoping she’d work for us as a marketing person, and for a while I hoped that too, but she just can’t handle the dead people and I don’t blame her. She won’t marry me if I don’t have something else lined up, and I really love her. Besides, I’m ready for something new.” He sighed. “I’ve been driving for Dad since I got my license. I’m ready to go to work for myself.”

“Damn.” That was all I could say at first, but luckily it came out more enthusiastic than accusatory. “That’s…that’s so exciting! Holy crap, you’ll be great at that!”

My brother gave me the biggest smile I think I’d ever seen from him. “You think so?”

“Yeah! And of course Penny, I mean, she’s awesome. Way too cool for you, but I guess she likes car nerds, so?—”

He punched my shoulder. “Shut up. But…really? You think she’ll say yes?”

I shrugged. “Why wouldn’t she?”

“I don’t know, I guess…we’re kind of a codependent family. Even with me moving out, I can’t imagine not seeing you and Leanne and Dad all the time.”

“It’s not a bad thing to like your family.” On the contrary, it was sad if youdidn’tlike your family. I thought of Kyle, tense and pale while he talked to his brother, the way he spoke about his dad and the rest of his cop-heavy relatives, and wondered how long it had been since he’d hung out with most of them. Maybe a long time. Maybe years.

I felt like more of a heel than ever.

We talked a little but more about Stuart’s plans—he could run the business out of a garage for starters, which was good because he was planning on moving into Penny’s place once they were engaged if she said yes. Which she would, I was pretty sure. She really did love him.

It was nice to know that my brother was happy, but weird to know he was going away. “Was it just Penny that made you decide to stop working here?” I asked as we sat side by side on the hearse’s bumper, coffees in hand. “Or is there more to it?”

Stuart stared at his cup for a moment before he said, “I never really wanted to work for Dad. I agreed to it at first because it was right after Mom passed and he was losing it. You might not remember how much he was drinking, but I’m pretty sure the business would have fallen down around his ears if Leanne and I hadn’t been covering for him. You were still a minor, and if we’d taken off, the state probably would have taken you, so…yeah. I went to work instead of to trade school.”

He took a sip. “And I don’t regret it,” he continued, “because I don’t mind the work and I love our family, and if I’d gone away somewhere to school I wouldn’t have met Penny, but I can’t do it forever. At some point my dreams have to come first, or I lose them. Shit, look at our sister.”

I didn’t want to look at Leanne too closely. She was still a mess, which was totally understandable, but we were all walking on eggshells around her. I didn’t know exactly what dreams she’d given up on, but I did know that I didn’t want to have that depth of sadness in my life if I could prevent it.

All of this was a weird, roundabout way of my brain deciding that I needed to not be a fucking jerk to Kyle. It wasn’t the same, I got that—my sister had been with Theo for almost seven years, and Stuart had been with Penny for two. I’d been on two cleaning jobs with Kyle, fed his piranhas once, and gone out toeat with him twice. Three times if you counted the bar, which really shouldn’t count probably, since we hadn’t had anything to eat or drink since we’d been kind of focused on our meeting with a drug dealer, but still. We’d only had a few dates—well, “dates”— but Kyle was great. Super smart. Funny. Hard-working—he owned his own successful business already, that was so impressive, and he’d done it without his family’s support.

All he had were two cats, seven piranhas, and the godly powers of caffeine.

“How should I apologize for being a jerk to someone?” I asked my brother.

He snorted. “Oh, are you going to be apologizing for that now?”

“I’m never a jerk to you!”

“You used up my shaving cream just last week without buying more.”

“You used mine first!”

“Bullshit!”

“Youdid, you?—”

“Boys.” We both turned around to see Dad standing in the door leading to the garage. He had his work suit on, and a particularly grim demeanor that informed us he wasn’t happy to be standing there right now. “We have two funerals to get through this afternoon,” he snapped in a low voice. “Leanne’s not able to host, so it’s time for you to step up. Everett, you’re on greeting duty, so I want you by the front door in ten minutes. Stuart, there are flower arrangements to be picked up at Plume and Feather in half an hour, so you better have that car in working order.”

“Plume and Feather delivers,” my brother pointed out.

“Not when it means we get to keep an extra ten percent of the fee, they don’t.” He pointed at the car. “Now get moving. Flowers are for the Rodriguez family; the Smiths are bringing their own.”

Stuart pressed his lips together until they blanched, but nodded. “I’m on it.”

“And Everett.” My dad shook his head as he looked more closely at me. “Jesus Christ, change your shirt already. Why do you even try to help your brother if you’re not gonna stay clean? That’s no way to represent the family business.”

No, it wasn’t. That was why I had twelve, count ‘em, twelve spares in my room. But no matter how many times I’d proven that I could, in fact, dress myself and put a good face on for the job, Dad felt the need to keep reminding me. Maybe I really was that unreliable. Kyle probably thought so, after what I’d done with him. He probably thought he was in it all on his own now. He probably thought I was a?—

“Everett! Answer me when I ask you a question!”

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