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Jude had argued and tried to come up with solutions, but reluctantly he’d had to agree. They didn’t have more coming in, and another car would need money for gas, insurance, and inevitable upkeep. It killed him, but he wouldn’t be getting his own car until he was out of school and could work more hours.
But Jordan saw a solution for him. Ask Santa.
His heart ached at the sweet gesture, and it felt like the first time he truly noticed Jordan as a real person. Sure, he loved Jordan when he was born because he was his brother. But until that moment, he was just noise around the house and another mouth to feed. Someone to keep from getting underfoot.
The little kid had to feel like an only child. There were thirteen years between himself and Jude, while twelve years separated Jordan and Carrick. Neither one of them spent much time playing with him. He almost always played alone or maybe with some cousins closer to his age when they were over for a visit.
He missed or couldn’t remember the rest of what Jordan and Santa talked about. The three kids got into position with Santa for the picture, and then they were free. But Jude couldn’t walk away.
“Hey, Mana…I’ll take Jordan,” Jude found himself offering that afternoon.
Anna blinked at him in surprise. “Really?”
“Yeah, we’ll go hang out at the toy store for a while,” he said. He extended his open hand to Jordan and the little boy ran to him, his face lighting up. Carrick was already gone to troll the food court to look for his friends.
He couldn’t remember the time they spent in that toy store other than to know that Jordan had been happy. They’d both been happy. He’d almost missed that moment with his brother. To treat him like a brother. To be there for him and to laugh with him. So their baby brother wouldn’t feel like an only child. So he knew that he had two older brothers he could always turn to.
What the fuck had happened to him?
Jude knew the attack could have been entirely random. Jordan could have been in the wrong neighborhood, grabbed, beaten, stripped, and shot for no reason, but Jude’s mind rebelled against that idea. It was too extreme not to be personal. If that was the case, he didn’t know where to begin searching for Jordan’s attacker. He didn’t feel sure that he could ever locate that motherfucker. That was why he had to be sure that there was nothing going on in Jordan’s life that could have led him down this dangerous road.
In truth, neither option was good or let him sleep at night, but he had to try something, do something, while they waited for Jordan to wake up from his coma.
“Jude?” Snow’s deep voice pulled him from his swirling, destructive thoughts and the warm memories of his little brother.
“Yeah, let’s go,” he murmured, leading the way around the center railing to continue across the mall.
Snow was largely a silent shadow following him at all times, like he expected Jude to suddenly fracture into a million pieces. He could hold it together. He would hold it together for Jordan, for his mother, for his family.
The store they were looking for was a narrow little place with ball caps lined up along three walls from floor to ceiling. The area was empty except for a young man sitting on a high stool behind the counter. He was playing on his phone like most of the mall occupants, but his head popped up quickly when their footsteps echoed across the fake hardwood floor of the shop.
“Jude!” the guy cried out. He immediately jumped to his feet and shoved his phone into the back pocket of his dark jeans.
Brian Perkins had been one of Jordan’s closest friends all through middle and high school. He’d been a somewhat regular at their dinner table over the years, though Jude had started seeing far less of him after Jordan moved out of his mother’s house. Last he heard, Brian was taking computer science classes over at Northern Kentucky University.
He could never understand why Jordan hadn’t wanted to go to college. Jude hadn’t been fond of school, but he’d seen it as a necessity to achieving his dream of becoming a paramedic. Carrick had always been more into learning and only recently completed his MBA at Xavier University.
But when Jordan graduated, there was no talk of going to college or even a trade school. He just wanted to work for their uncle’s construction company. Jude knew that some people weren’t made for college, but a part of him hoped that Jordan would at least go to a trade school at some point. Maybe he should have pushed harder. Talked to him about it more.
