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I haul ass back to the marina, gritting my teeth at the stabbing headache caused by the boat’s bumping. Once I’m there, I pay a freshman from my school to rinse it down and dock it for me.
“Are you okay?” he asks me.
“Fine.”
In my car, I’ve got a spare set of clothes. I crawl into the backseat and slowly change. Then I pull a camo ball cap down over my aching forehead. I still feel dizzy and off-kilter by the time I park in front of my house. Walking up to the porch, I feel like the ground is just a little tilted.
I take a deep breath, gripping my dead cell phone in one hand. I’ve got my keys in my other hand, positioned to unlock the door, when the thing opens.
My mom’s in the doorway, wearing her red apron and a strange, wide-eyed look.
"Josh, I’m glad you’re back,” she whisper-hisses. “Your stepbrother is here."
Two
Josh
Of all the things I thought I might come home to, this one wasn’t on the list.
“He’s here?”
"Yes." Her voice lowers. "He’s in the kitchen with Carl. Ezra, you remember."
I can't help a soft laugh, which hurts my head. "Yeah, Mom. I remember his name."
"His talks with Coach Nix went very well, and apparently they want him here a few weeks early. So he can start practice."
"Okay." I nod, gritting my molars as I try to keep my face from looking headachy.
"He's been quiet,” she murmurs. “Very polite. Having you here will break the ice." She smiles brightly, and her hand comes up to touch my ball cap. "One blond and one brunette."
"Is his hair blond?" Ezra didn't come down when my mom and Carl got married last year at a nice old house here in town. Carl doesn’t have a ton of pictures of the guy, and in most of them, Ezra is wearing a football helmet.
"Well, dark blond," she says. "You'll see."
She waves me into the foyer, and I set my keys atop the shelf to the right. I glance up the carpeted stairs. Empty. Then I blink around the family room to my left.
"C'mon." A wave of nausea hits me as Mom leads me past the cozy, tan suede couch and Carl’s burgundy armchair in the family room, and then on through the dining room. A swinging door adjoins the dining room and kitchen, and as soon as she pushes it open, I hear a male voice.
Something happens as I move through the doorway. I don't even know what. Like my neck and head are buzzing with heat. I step into the kitchen, and my mom looks back at me.
"I'm surprised you guys weren't out there today," she's saying to me over her shoulder. She shifts her weight, moving out of my line of sight, and my eyes lock onto him.
He's standing on the other side of the granite-topped island, holding one of the glasses my mom and Carl bought when they got married. And his lake water eyes are staring a hole in me.
OH MY MOTHERFUCK, IT’S BRIDGE GUY. The crazy, ungrateful fucker who threw me off the trestle bridge is right here in my fucking kitchen. I can’t speak or move as my brain struggles to connect things.
"Josh," my mother prompts.
I mutter, "Hey." I hold my hand up in a weird, robotic wave. "I'm Josh. Miller."
"Josh Miller," Carl says, smiling from across the island, where he's scooping cheese dip out of a pewter dish thing. "Josh Miller is a pretty good guy," he tells Ezra. "He'll hook you up. Introduce you to the cool kids. He knows all the girls, too."
Something flickers on the guy’s face. It's there then gone, and then he's nodding, his mouth pressed flat, his mouth looking like I kind of want to bite it.
I blink, nodding lamely.
Now his mouth twists into a smirk, one cheek tugging upward so he looks amused...or maybe derisive.
"That's good," he says, and his voice is raspy—like he just choked on lake water, smoked a cigarette, and maybe jumped back in again.
Mom says, "I figured if Ezra drove over to look out on the lake, he’d see the lot of you boys under the trestle bridge or at Snake Island, with your boats all tied together like you do, playing that music…”
I nod, barely looking at my mother. "We weren't down there."
There it is—I see his relief. Something his brows do.
"He went swimming by the point. Dove right in. Isn't that right, Ezra?" Carl arches his brows, looking fatherly.
"That's right." Ezra gives my mom a smile that somehow actually looks charming.
"You two boys will have to go together sometime,” Mom says.
Yeah, right. Maybe next time, we’ll both get run over by a train.
I blink, and my mom is looking at me like I should say something. "Yeah,” I manage. “That'd be great."
Mom smiles in a very mom-like way. As if she's proud of all of us, for doing nothing but standing here in the kitchen.
