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said nothing.
He’d worked on cars before he could race them, then he’d turned to the illegal side of things. Michael’s mother had turned her back on what Mal was up to, both the crowd he was running with and the unlawful betting and racing he was doing, but Michael hadn’t been able to. That had been yet another bone of contention between them, and had driven one more wedge. Eventually, there had been too many of them to count them all.
They’d stopped talking to each other shortly after Mal’s high school graduation. He’d moved out practically the second he turned eighteen, and in the years since, they’d rarely spoken. They had conversations now and then at family events and on holidays, along with the even more occasional text. Michael had come to terms with the fact he’d lost the older brother he’d once idolized, just as he’d dealt with the fact his parents were both batshit crazy.
But now with him standing beside him, looking both so fucking familiar and so different than his teeth ached, Michael realized he hadn’t dealt with shit.
“Christ, you came over here for some reason. Say something, why don’t you?”
“What do you expect me to say? That you were right all along?” Mal flexed his fingers around the balled-up piece of paper. “Neither of them gives a crap about us.”
“What was your first clue?” Michael asked, regretting the sarcastic question as soon as it was out. He pushed a hand through his damp hair. “Look, I’m not mad at you. I’m mad at them. Both of them put way too much on our shoulders when we should’ve been focused on our own stuff. Their love lives are some fucked up BS, man.”
“Dad having another baby, and another on the way. Jesus, the first is barely a year old.”
Michael blinked. “Say what?”
“Oh yeah.” Mal let out a dry laugh. “Didn’t hear that tidbit? Guy should be getting ready to plan his upcoming retirement and instead he’s having newborns.”
“I haven’t seen Dad since not long after the band signed with Ripper.” Michael gripped a handful of his own hair. “Guess that’s a good thing.”
“Ripper. Ah yeah, about that. Congratulations and all that.” Mal cleared his throat. “You guys have been doing good. Or it seems that way, from what I’ve seen.”
“Thanks.” Mal had texted him a few congrats along the way after different milestones, usually when Michael had clued him in to the latest. But hearing him say it in person unprompted was different—and nice. “You’ve seen stuff about us?”
“Here and there. Can’t say I really keep up with the magazines or TV, but I catch what I can.”
Classic Mal there. He cared about pop culture not at all. Celebrities? Fuck that shit. Even if the celebrity was his little brother.
Hell, at times that would’ve been an even bigger deterrent.
“What have you been up to?” Michael asked.
“Workin’ on cars. What else do I do? Not a flashy type like you or Dad. Or fuck, like Mom for that matter.” Mal rubbed a hand over his gleaming bald head and shoved the invitation into his back pocket with the other. “Some of us aren’t meant for the limelight.”
“Says who? You were the one who got me into playing.”
Mal raised a brow. “You call the messing around we used to do playing? We were worse than a garage band. More like a basement outfit.”
“Yeah, and what we were is what led to me hooking up with Ryan and West when you weren’t into it anymore.”
“You always wanted more. Music’s in your blood.” The corner of Mal’s mouth lifted. “Only thing Dad gave us worth having.”
“Not true. They both gave me a kickass older brother. Even if he tried to sell me for sixteen dollars online when I was nine.”
Mal shocked him by letting out a laugh. “Twenty-six dollars, bartered down from fifty. And I could only get that much because you came with your guitar. Besides, you counter-sold me for thirteen, and that included my fucking glorious Sonor drum set. Damn steal that guy would’ve gotten if our auctions hadn’t been shut down.”
“Your drums.” A buzz skipped along the back of Michael’s neck as he turned toward his brother. “Do you still play?”
Malachi rasped out a sound that wasn’t quite a laugh. “I work at a chop shop. It’d be kind of idiotic for me to whale around on those when I get home every night, wouldn’t it?”
“You still do. Holy shit.”
“How you got that from what I just said, I don’t know.” Mal shook his head. “I play now and then. Mostly keep going over the same songs we used to play.”
“What about ‘In The Air Tonight’?” Michael questioned. “You still play that?”
His brother jerked a beefy shoulder. “I guess.”
