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I see the lanterns flickering at the end of my parents’ driveway and pull over to the side of the road, turning off the car.
I get out and gaze across the street at the house my dad grew up in and his kids grew up in. A light dims and brightens again on the second floor, A.J. probably watching TV, while more rooms glow downstairs.
Kade’s truck is parked in the driveway. It was ours, but it was always his. My parents are probably home, but they tuck their cars away in the garage.
Taking out my phone, I dial my brother.
It rings three times, and I think he might avoid me, but then the line picks up.
He doesn’t say anything.
Neither do I. For a moment.
When I do, my voice is calm. “Sorry we missed you tonight,” I tell him.
“That’s okay.” His tone is steady. Sincere. “You were busy.”
I wait. Kade is almost always cocky. Full of words and a tone that leaves no room for mistake that he’s on top.
Now, he sounds like he did when we were younger. When we used to make tents with our blankets in the basement and work on our superhero gadgets, just the two of us.
We were nine. But it was great.
“You need to talk to Dad to make sure Dylan doesn’t get into trouble for what your friends did in the school tonight.”
“No need,” I reply. “Farrow took care of it.”
“Green Street.”
“Yeah.”
Rumor is that a Shelburne Falls cop is the true leader of Weston’s gang, and Farrow has his ear. The police will chalk it up to Rivalry Week shenanigans.
But the Pirates are coming. Kade won’t warn me. He won’t goad me. He’ll just come.
I hate to admit it, because the football game is more important, but I want him to. I want to see him.
Just then, a figure appears in his bedroom window, and I don’t know if he knows I’m outside, but I doubt he can see me in the dark.
“You know,” he says. “I can’t see you doing it in the shower.”
I blink, looking down for a moment. For a few minutes, I’d forgotten about the picture Calvin posted.
“I’m actually impressed,” he tells me. “I always thought you’d arrange a fancy hotel room and give them flowers and shit before a monotonous two-minute missionary fuck on starched sheets.”
Watching his dark form standing in the window, I breathe in the night air. Slow. And steady.
“She’s pretty, isn’t she?”
His voice turns taunting.
“It’s easy to forget when she starts talking,” he teases, “but she always comes when she’s called. That’s what I love about Dylan.”
I bite down, hard.
“Thanks for those handcuffs, by the way.” I almost hear him grin. “That was a fun night.”
He’s lying.
