Page 6 of The Older Brother
“It’s time, Cam. We gotta get out of here,” I whisper.
“One more hour. Please,” she whines. Her eyeliner and mascara are smeared so much she looks like a linebacker wearing eye black in the rain.
“No, babe. We’ve gotta go now,” I urge. In another life, I’d let her be and crawl under Caleb’s covers for another hour of sleep of my own. But I’m not welcome here like I once was. I felt it in the guest room. I felt it in the kitchen. And even though nobody’s watching, my friend and I, I feel it now. This place isn’t for me anymore.
We come from different worlds.
“Fine, but you’re driving.” My friend rolls into the corner of the sofa and pats her thigh, probably searching for a pocket with keys. She’s still drunk. She’s not wearing pants.
“Cami, you’re naked, and . . .” I clear my throat and tug on the hem of the familiar Seton Prep football jersey.
Cami manages to peel one eye open enough to glance down at her body and promptly covers her face with her palm.
“Shit. I fucked up.” She pushes herself up into a sitting position as I scan the floor around the sofa, then glance out the open glass panels to the pile of clothing near the hot tub.
“Just a little,” I say, trying to appease her while I skip out to the patio and grab her bikini and cover-up.
I guide her feet into her bikini bottoms, then dial her number to track down her phone and keys when it begins to buzz.
“I feel it,” she says, wobbling into a stand and pulling up one of the cushions.
She grabs her phone, then hands her keys to me just as Caleb steps into the room. He’s carrying a bowl of cereal, and he pauses his spoonful of fruit-flavored loops a few inches from his mouth when our eyes meet.
“You get her pants on?” He gestures toward my friend with his spoon.
“Fuck you, Caleb,” Cami bites. My ex fails at holding in his cocky laughter, so I swoop my shoulder under my friend’s arm and guide her toward the door before he has a chance to pick a fight.
Cami throws up in the middle of the circular driveway, so I pop the trunk on her car and dump out the workout clothes from her sports pack, handing them to her in case she gets sick during our drive home. We’re nearly there when her phone begins buzzing in the cupholder of her center console.
“Shit,” she mutters when she flips the screen over to face her. “It’s my brother. I forgot I have his spare key for his truck that he’s selling today. Can we swing by the garage?”
“Uh,” I stammer as she answers her brother Miguel’s call and promises him we’ll be there soon.
“Sorry about this,” she says to me after ending the call.
“It’s fine,” I say, though the way my insides are bubbling says otherwise.
Miguel and Rowan are partners in a vehicle restoration business. It’s been Rowan’s dream for as long as I can remember. His grandfather on his mom’s side was an Army mechanic with a passion for older cars, and Rowan would tinker with engines alongside him any time they visited his grandparents in California. Miguel has the same eye for detail, but where Rowan’s expertise is on the precision under the hood, Miguel’s is all about the body. In two years, they’ve flipped enough junkers to buy prime garage space right off the highway.
This little pitstop would have been fine yesterday. But today? I’m trying to make sense of what happened by the pool last night. I’d fill Cami in, but she’s still drunk enough to lose her shit in front of Rowan and her brother. And I’m certainly not in the mood to take that on.
It takes us twenty minutes to get to the garage, and after not seeing Rowan in person for a year, I ready myself to come face-to-face with him for the second time in a dozen hours. My eyes instantly go to the historic license plate on the back of his seventy-four Camero. The RJ007 brings a smirk to my face. His middle name is James, and for a few weeks of high school, he tried to get everyone on board with calling him James. Because boys are, well, boys . . . he became James Bond instead.
The doors are both rolled up when we park, and Cami waits for a few seconds in the passenger seat as I get out and round the vehicle to open her door.
“Ah shit, is my sister hungover?” Miguel’s familiar laugh brings a smile to my face, and I turn toward him as Cami pushes her door open with her foot. I wrap my arms around his neck in a hug, looking into the garage over his shoulder. Rowan’sjean-covered legs shift along the ground as he scoots his body underneath a rusty Bronco.
“Yes, she is. Do you have anything to drink in that place?” Cami whines. She fans her still clean backpack toward the garage.
“We got beer,” Miguel answers, reaching a hand to his sister. She grasps it, but he quickly shakes her off.
“My keys, you pain in the ass.” His lips purse as his sister glowers at him, but she eventually pulls the spare key from her console and places it in his palm.
“Now help me to your couch,” she says, waving her hand at her brother until he gives in and helps his sister to her feet.
“Don’t you dare puke on me,” he warns, bracing her until she seems to find her balance.
I hang back as the two of them wade toward the garage, just a few extra seconds to myself so I can suck in some air and brace myself for whatever’s to come.
