Page 37 of A Brother's Secret

“Yeah, well, I’d been drawing a long time by then, since late elementary, maybe early junior high. I started dating everything in the next book. Seemed important.”

“So like, these are your diary?” Reaver asked and I gave another shrug, going back over and dropping into the desk chair.

“I guessso.”

“Oh, weird…” he closed the book and set it down like he’d just been caught going through my underwear drawer. I laughed.

“What’s this?” he asked, picking up a small, black velvetbag.

“My old pocket knife.”

He slipped the old red Swiss Army knife out of the bag and opened it up, wrinkling his nose as he tested theedge.

“I see you took care of this about as good as Trig says you took care of your daddy’s gun.” I frowned at him, but Trigger barked a laugh.

“I don’t think that thing had been cleaned since your dad bought it,” he remarked.

I snorted, “My dad didn’t buy it,” I said. “He either won it or stole it. My dad wasn’t really in the habit of holding down an honest living or, you know, buying things if he could lift ‘em or cheat ‘em out of somebody.”

“Apple fell far from the tree, didn’tit?”

“Only because Kyle and his folks got to me and intervened. They did what they could to teach me the right way to do things and I’ve probably struggled with it ever since.” I was watching Reaver by now, who was going through his many pockets, my poor, old, little pocket knife that hadn’t actually cut anything in years open on the table in front of him. He gave an ‘ah-ha’ and produced a little whetstone out of one of his pockets.

“Got any oil on you, Trig?”

“What? Yeah, gunoil.”

“That’ll do for this, I think.”

I sorted through the rest of my meager belongings, stacking my books, setting my art supplies near them, and generally just moving things around when Reaver stopped me again, thrusting his chin out and asking, “And what’sthat?”

“God, you’re nosy, aren’t you?” I teased.

“Maybe, now what isit?”

“They’re my Tarot cards. Kyle bought them for me when we were,” I rolled my eyes and my breath left me in a rush as I tried to remember exactly how old we were. “God… fifteen?”

“Oh yeah? You any good with ‘em?”

“I dunno… You tell me.” I unwrapped the deck and set it in front of him. “Shuffle.”

He raised an eyebrow and looked over to Trigger who grumbled at him, “Don’t look at me, asshole,” without even looking up from the sketch he was absorbed in. I frowned slightly.

“You’re looking at that thing like it’s the map to the holy goddamned grail,” Isaid.

He glanced at me over the top of the book and said, “It's good work, your lines are clean and your design well-thought-out. You as good with a needle as you are a pencil?”

I held out my arm and said, “What do you think?”

“You did these yourself?” he asked, leaning forward to scrutinize my forearm.

“Just the forearm, here. Awkward as fuck to reach the rest, so once I was sure Djinn had it down at the shop I used to work at, then I let him do all of the rest, but this one was important and the watercolor style isn’teasy.”

“It’s a pretty new thing, that’s for sure. Not many people doit.”

“Which is exactly why I kicked its ass. Women loveit.”

Trigger nodded to himself and went back to my sketchbook. I turned back to Reaver and raised my eyebrows goading him on, “You gonna puss out over a deck of cards or are you gonna shuffle already?” I asked.

---