Page 8 of The Older Brother
UNKNOWN: And don’t worry about getting anything . . . wet.
I bite my bottom lip, unable to hold back the smile or stop the heat that rushes to my cheeks.Fuck. Me.In fact, I almost type that in response. Thankfully, though, I have enough sense to think before texting. I wait until Rowan pulls away before I finally hit send.
ME: I’m keeping the shirt.
I hold my breath while I wait for him to respond. And when a few minutes pass, I remind myself that he’s driving. After thirty minutes, however, I give up and tuck my phone in the pocket of his sweatpants and resolve to quit indulging in something that’s clearly played out as far as it’s going to go.
Chapter 3
The last thingI want to do is have a meal with my father and his protégé, Caleb. Yeah, yeah, he’s my brother. Blood is thicker than water. All that shit. And I might have believed in that cliche before my brother stabbed me in the back. Not now, though. He chose sides. He chose our father.
He chose wrong.
Naturally, Caleb’s sitting at the table alone as I walk into the posh lakeside restaurant. I’m sure our dad is running late. He’s never on time, especially for his family. We come last.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Ander?—”
I lift my hand before Rob, the maître d, can finish my last name. It always makes me feel like that guy in the Matrix movies when he greets me that way.
“I see my brother. Thanks.” I pat Rob’s shoulder twice as I pass the hostess stand, and his shoulders drop the invisible bags of cement that were likely resting on them. That’s how people are around my father—knotted, messy, stressed-out wrecks. Even when he’s not directly their boss. My dad’s been coming to Patrick’s by Lakeside for years, and for Rob, he may as well be on the Anderson payroll. The amount of shady shit I bet that guyhas overheard and had to bury deep down and try to forget must be epic. One of these days, I’m going to offer him a job far away from this place and pay for his therapy.
Caleb swivels his chair and leans back as I approach, stretching his legs out to force me to walk around them on my way to my seat. He’s wearing gray dress slacks and a fitted white button-down, the standard summer corporate attire for my dad’s company. I threw this denim button-down over my T-shirt and swapped my jeans for a clean pair of Dickie’s out of respect for Rob. He shouldn’t have to track down a coat for me to fit in with the clientele in this joint.
“Rowan.” Caleb nods, still chewing the roll he stuffed down his face as I walked in.
“Hey, baby brother. Happy graduation, blah blah blah.” I snag a roll from the silver bowl in the center of the table and slink down to match his disrespectful posture. I don’t really love seafood, so I may as well fill up on carbs while I can. And Caleb doesn’t like it when I call himbaby, so I figure we both may as well not like something about this lunch date.
“Hey, thanks for parking cars for my party. Real classy of you.” He snaps off another bite from a roll and smirks at me as he chews.
“Yeah, well . . . you know me. I never turn down an opportunity to case a lot full of high-end cars.” I mimic him with my own bite, and we spend the next several seconds in a death stare while chewing.
It’s been more than a year since I called on my brother to be a character witness after a con man dropped off a stolen Bentley at our shop, as if it were his own. I was too eager to make our shop succeed, too naïve, and I leapt at the chance to work on something rare. When the guy dipped from the country, though, we were left holding the bags, or wheels in this case. An unsealed juvenile arson record meant I took the hit. I wouldn’t let it touchMiguel, so I pleaded my way out of things and wore an ankle bracelet until last week, since my brother refused to put his name on the line. My dad paid for the shitty lawyer, so now, I’m working off that debt by giving him my time, something I swore I wouldn’t let him have when I walked out of the house six years ago.
Caleb breaks our standoff first with a laugh, dropping the half-eaten roll on the small plate in front of him, then leaning into the table, resting his elbows on either side while he rubs his palms together.
“You’re the one running a chop shop, Rowan. Don’t act so high and mighty.” His mouth falls into a straight, emotionless line while I fight to keep my pulse in check. I’d like to deck him across this table, but that won’t accomplish anything.
“Believe me, Caleb. I don’t set foot near you high and mighty folks if I can help it,” I say, not even bothering to correct his smear. My business is legit. Always has been. I know it. Miguel knows it. And the real collectors and gearheads who come to us know it. That’s all that matters.
I’m not sure what I prefer, sitting here alone with my brother or making it a three-top with our dad. The choice is out of my hands, though, as my dad walks into the restaurant, his phone pressed against his right ear while he nods at us and points with his right finger to a table he would apparently prefer.
Caleb scrambles on command. I sigh as I pick up the bowl of bread and move three tables to our left, closer to the water and farther away from the staff. I wonder what kinds of things dear old dad doesn’t want others to hear.
“Listen, Jack. I’ve gotta go. I just got to my appointment, but this all sounds great. Let’s talk it through over drinks tonight.” My dad ends the call after that, and I hope Jack,whoever that was,is used to his typical abruptness.
“Sorry for making you wait. Did you guys order?” My dad flips open one of the menus Caleb carried over from our first table, as if he needs to study it. I’m sure he has it memorized, and besides, the chef will make him anything he wants.
“We waited for you,” Caleb says, sitting up straight and dropping his cloth napkin in his lap to protect his stupid fucking slacks.
“We waited for you,” I mutter in a hushed, mocking tone as I snag a menu to scan.
“Fuck off,” Caleb fires back, his voice low but not exactly quiet.
“Knock it off,” our father grunts without looking up from his menu.
“Sorry,” Caleb is quick to apologize. I roll my eyes, owning the childish way I baited him just now. It’s so easy to get under his skin. It was playful when we were kids, but now I do it purely out of spite.
I don’t know why Caleb tries so hard to impress our dad, honestly. I’m clearly the outcast in the family. I’m the black sheep. Everyone knows it. All he needs to do is breathe and stay out of jail, and he’ll forever remain the golden child. And if it’s an inheritance thing, I think I’ve made it abundantly clear that I don’t want a single penny of my father’s money. That’s why Miguel and I took out a business loan on our own. I’d rather climb out of debt for a few years than feel obligated to that man, or worse, make him feel entitled to our shop. He already lives to take jabs at me and what I do.
