Page 21 of The Older Brother
I move to my mother’s desk and flip through the paper calendar to make sure I didn’t mess up our date. When I see my name highlighted at noon today, I sigh. I almost wish I had it wrong, because then I could leave and not entertain Caleb’s encroachment on my space.
“Say? Did you hear me?” He leans a hip on the edge of my mom’s desk as I flop into her chair and let it spin halfway around before shuffling my way back to facing him.
“I heard you. I just don’t have anything to say. There’s nothing. No deal. Is that what you want?” I mean, I wouldn’tminda deal, or at least another tryst. Maybe something more for the summer.
Caleb’s head drops forward as he nods, a slow laugh airing out through his breath.
“Makes sense now. He’s trying to get to me,” he says.
I roll my eyes but take in his assessment. Is that all the flirting is about? Getting under Caleb’s skin? It’s not like Rowan knew Caleb would show up at the shop. He didn’t have to fix my car for me. That didn’t feel like a show for Caleb’s benefit.
“Didn’t we break up?” I blurt out.
Caleb straightens his posture, dropping his hands into the pockets of his slacks as he rolls his shoulders and meets my eyes.
“We’re going to different colleges, Say. It just makes more sense, and we’re young. I don’t know who I’m going to be in four years, and neither do you.” He’s delivering the same bulletpoints he gave me when he broke things off, which is not what I need to hear right now.
I nod.
“I was there for it the first time. You don’t need to repeat yourself. But for a guy who ended things, you seem awfully interested in being jealous.”
He flinches at the J word, and my mouth pulls into a tight, smug smirk because of it.
Caleb’s head falls to the side a tick, his lips parting as he seems to be pondering the appropriate words.
“I’m not jealous, Say. I just don’t want you getting mixed up in any of my brother’s chaos. He can’t help it. Trouble just seems to follow him everywhere he goes.” He shrugs as if what he just said is some simple, obvious fact. And to an extent, there’s truth to it. Rowan has had a lot of struggles for sure. But the more I get to know him as an adult, the more I wonder if those struggles are entirely of his own making or, at the very least, a result of being an Anderson boy.
“So, no jealousy . . . at all.” I rest my arms on my mother’s desk, folding my hands together as I stare Caleb directly in the eyes.
His head falls back in laughter, then shakes as he rights it.
“None at all. Only worry for you. I swear.” He crosses his chest with his finger as my inner voice screams,“liar!”
Our silent agreement is broken up as my mom pushes the door open wide behind Caleb. Her cellphone is pressed to her ear, and her other arm is weighed down with a pile of white binders. She plops them on her desktop, then sifts the phone against her face as she looks at me.
“I’m so sorry, Saylor, but I’m slammed. Can we try again tomorrow?” she whispers, returning right back to the phone conversation with a full volume, “Of course. We can pull that together for tomorrow. Uh huh. Uh huh.”
I draw in a long breath before snagging the pen from her desk and using it to draw a line through my name with an arrow pointing to the same time tomorrow. I tap on it to get my mom’s attention, and she twists her neck to read the appointment that seems to be in the way.
“Shoot,” she mouths, taking the pen from me and sliding it along the week until it’s into the middle of next. There’s a pretty big gap around noon ten days from now, so she circles it and writes my name down, never bothering to confirm if that’s okay with me. Of course it is. What else could I possibly have going?
Chewing at the inside of my cheek, I nod and stand. I type the new date and time into my phone as I head around one end of my mother’s desk while she circles the other. Places now swapped, I leave my mother at her desk and find my way back to the lobby, where Rowan has now propped his feet up on the slick granite coffee table as he scrolls through his phone.
“Hey, since your mom bailed on lunch—” Caleb says over my shoulder. Rowan’s eyes shift up to mine.
“I don’t want to have lunch with you, Caleb.” I breathe out an exaggerated sigh, then spin on my heels to face him with a shrug. “We’re just in different places, and I . . . well, I just don’t know the person I’m going to be after lunch. I want to dine on my own, you know . . . to figure that out.”
“Say, that’s not . . .”
I turn my back to him, ignoring his hurt feelings. I embarrassed him in front of his brother, who smirks back at me like he wants to offer me a fist bump for dropping the mic.
“At least let me drive you home,” Caleb says as the elevator dings and I step inside.
I turn around fast and flash an open palm. I’m taking this ride alone. I’d take the stairs nineteen flights before riding with the two of them again.
“I’m good. I’ve got my car,” I say, flashing my gaze to Rowan’s just before the elevator doors close and hoping he caught the hint. And the flash of green and blue, along with the twitch of his upper lip, tells me he did.
Chapter 7
