Page 13 of Fluke
Foxx just stares at him.
“You won’t letmeeat in your truck,” Banks says.
“Banks, I won’t let youin my truckif I can help it.”
“Why? What harm would I do?”
Foxx settles his sights on our brother. “Let’s take your last appearance in my vehicle, shall we?”
Banks sees where he’s going with this and cringes.
“It was three in the morning, and I was picking you upfrom jail,” Foxx says. “Dried blood was on your shirt from crushing a man’s face. Trust me when I say you’ll never be in my truck again.”
“Sounds like a challenge to me,” Banks says.
A part of me would like to kick back and watch this play out. No one can put someone in their place like Foxx, and he gets entirely too much enjoyment out of dressing down our youngest brother. But another part of me, one I’m kinda pissed about acknowledging, thatalmostfeels sorry for Banks.
“Where are you headed?” I ask Foxx to keep him from tearing into Banks.
“I just have a few things to do. You know how it is.”
“Yeah,” I say. But even though I’m sure I knowhow it ismore than anyone else in our family, I don’t have a fucking cluehow it is. While I’d say I’m the closest to Foxx, we might as well operate on different continents.
I spend my days working for Dad’s company, Laguna Homes. Foxx spends his days working, for sure. He has plenty of money and travels often. But what does hedofor employment? I have no idea.
And I’ve realized over the years that I don’t want to know. It feels safer somehow.
“Guess we’ll see ya when we see ya,” I say.
“I’ll be back the first of the week,” Foxx says.
“Be safe,” Banks tells him.
Foxx turns to the door. “Goodbye.”
“Later,” I call after him.
The door closes with a soft thud.
I turn to tell Banks it’s time for him to go home when my phone buzzes in my pocket. I pull it out and look at the screen.
Unknown: An underwater city built by octopuses called Octopolis was found in 2009.
“What the hell?”
“What’s wrong?” Banks asks.
“I just got a text from an unknown number about an octopus city.”
Banks smirks. “Is that code for something?”
“What? No. I mean it. It says, ‘An underwater city built by octopuses called Octopolis was discovered in 2009.’ What the fuck is that?”
“Wait. Moss and Maddox both said that they get random texts too. I can’t remember what about, but it’s not octopuses.”
Me: Who is this?
I wait for a response, but nothing comes.Weird.
