Page 9 of Smooth Moves
As he toured through the place, he found Angela’s bedroom as it had been back when he’d left more than a decade ago, chockful of VCR tapes, two old TVs—the kind with the cathode-ray tubes, making them super bulky—and rows upon rows of books, tchotchkes, and creepy dolls. Not the collectible kind but the one-plastic-eye-is-half-open kind.
With his parents deceased, the house felt both empty and tainted by the haunting notes of apathy. The shadow of neglect continued to cling to the present, a testament that as much as he tried, he hadn’t yet outrun the past.
He continued through the hallway beyond his mother’s bedroom. To his surprise, Reid’s room retained his stamp, filled with trophies, old jerseys, and clear containers of his old toys. As if his brother had never left. Yet a door down, Cash’s room had been wiped clean of his presence and stuffed full of Angela’s fantasy life in fictional media—piled high with more books, videotapes, and boxes.
A pang of anger then grief filled him, having been erased from this house filled with bitter memories. Then he drew a deep breath and let it out. Time instead to focus on the present and, hopefully, the future.
He headed to the garage and found a bunch of cardboard boxes and a roll of heavy-duty trash bags. The garage itself remained, to his surprise, fairly empty except for an expected buildup of dust and dirt.
He returned to his old room and started packing. Because that room still belonged to him, deep down, and he reserved the right to do whatever the hell he wanted inhis room.
“Hell. Day or night, I’m on the job,” he mused. But this time he missed having a partner. If he’d had his choice, he’d have chosen the mouthy ex-Army soldier to help him pack. Jordan had a gift for making things fit. Her nimble hands tucked away treasures into containers with both respect and skill. That, and she made him laugh with that sarcastic sense of humor that always lightened his mood.
She’d have made this chore easier. And harder because being near her caused his heart to race for no good reason. She distracted him with that light floral scent that caused other parts of him to get as excited.
He sighed, knowing his life had to pale in comparison to hers. No doubt she was hanging with a bunch of friends or sharing a meal with her family while he packed away his dead mother’s most prized possessions.
Well, at least one of them would enjoy some peace before the workday began again in the morning.
* * *
Jordan glared at her younger brother, wishing her parents had done a little more to stick it out and help their youngest child instead of giving up at the first sign of trouble. Okay, not exactly fair. Rafi had been a major pain for months, but still. Maria and Carl Younger had a tendency to give up when the going got tough. Though she loved her mother and stepfather, sometimes she didn’t like them very much. And her sister… Jordan refused to think about Leanne at the moment, sure her head would explode if she did.
She glared at the sulky teenager, glad the handsome punk hadn’t yet gotten in trouble with girls. At this point, she could barely handle bad grades and an attitude, let alone the scare of teen pregnancy. “Really, Rafi? An F? You’re so much smarter than that!”
Her fifteen-year-old brother shrugged. “Simpson is a dick who doesn’t care if we learn or not.”
“The comments on your quiz show you didn’t do your homework to prepare. How is that him not caring?”
Rafi glared. “What the hell do you know about it? You’re not there.”
“No, because I’m a grown woman who did her time in school already,” she said slowly, praying she could manage to keep her hands from encircling his skinny neck.
Like Jordan, Rafi took after their mother, dark-haired and with a skin tone that always looked tan. When Jordan and Leanne’s father had died twenty years before, their mother had remarried a lovely man in Carl Younger. Carl, like Jordan and Leanne’s father, had Norwegian ancestry. Carl and Leanne looked more alike than the rest of them. Which might have accounted for the reason her parents treated Leanne as if she could do no wrong and Jordan and Rafi like problem children.
Jordan had been a typical teenager. Not a troublemaker, not really. But not exactly agreeable either. Jordan liked to ask questions, to disagree, to argue with things that didn’t make sense. So did Rafi. But her idiot brother took it a step further. He’d been hanging with a few boys of questionable reputation, getting in trouble at school, and not doing his work.
After blowing up a toilet in the boys’ bathroom months ago, he’d been suspended from school for a week. His grades, already teetering below average, had plummeted. By the end of the school year, he hadn’t managed to bring up his grades. Hence his stint in summer school to hopefully make up for his poor performance in his sophomore year. It was either that or the military academy her parents had researched. While Jordan thought the military might help her brother, she thought it should be his choice, not a mandate.
Thus she’d stepped in (because Princess Leanne certainly hadn’t). “Look, Rafi. You know the score. You either do well this summer at school or you go to that military academy. Mom and Dad aren’t playing.” She blew out a frustrated breath. “I’m trying to help you, sweetie.”
He glared, but she saw a suspicious shine in his eyes. “Yeah? Because I heard you on the phone. Oh sure, I know how much you’re helping. How much youdon’t want me here!”
“That’s not true.” Well, it wasn’t true when he acted like the baby brother who’d once hugged and kissed his bigger sister. This hormonal, angry teenager she didn’t know anymore. “I was arguing with Mom about you because you need more help than I can give you.” And more money, but her parents weren’t budging on that. If she wanted to help her brother, it was all on her, financially and emotionally, because they wanted him to get outside help, away from those who might “coddle him.” After only four weeks, she’d felt the strain. “I love you, Rafi, but—”
“Rafael. Not Rafi,” he corrected.
She took a deep breath and refused to be baited into a fight. “Rafael.Sorry. I love you and want what’s best for you. You don’t see it now because summer school sucks and you just want to party all day.”
He scoffed. “Party? Yeah, right. I just want to do what I’m good at.”
“Your art? You refused to take lessons.” Her brother had real artistic talent. Ever since he’d been little, he’d been able to recreate any image with a pencil and paper. His portraits were on par with those she’d seen in art exhibits, but when she tried to guide him toward embracing his talents, he shrugged them off as a silly hobby.
“Not that.” He snorted. “That’s just for fun.”
She groaned. “Not that stupid video game.”
“It’s not stupid. People make money live-streaming! My friend Daniel said he makes serious cash doing it.”
