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“I told you. My car keys are in Georgie’s office.”
“Take my car.” Bram had bought her a shiny new Honda Odyssey, but she didn’t like leaving the house unless she had to, so she didn’t use it for much except household errands. Otherwise, she stayed mostly in her apartment. Bram had let her furnish it the way she wanted. She’d chosen modern pieces in chocolate and light brown along with a basic black shelving unit, an angular reading chair, and a couple of simple black-and-white abstract prints. No clutter. No mess. Everything neat and peaceful. Everything except Aaron.
He rubbed his chest through his T-shirt. “My driver’s license is in my wallet, and that’s in Georgie’s office, too.”
“So what? I drove without a license for years.” She’d taught herself to drive at thirteen, figuring she posed less of a danger on the road than her drunken stepmother.
She and Aaron both had door keys, but neither of them was anxious to go back in the house right now. At least her garage apartment was on the opposite side of the house from the master bedroom. She couldn’t imagine having to listen to Bram and Georgie getting it on. She hated Georgie. Hated watching Bram laugh at some stupid thing she said, hated listening to them talk about movies Chaz had never seen. Chaz wanted to be the one who came first with him. Which was stupid.
He’d better have remembered to turn off the stove.
“You’re not sleeping here,” she said.
“Who said I was? I’ll give them some time, then go back in and get my stuff.” He got up and wandered over to her bookcase, which held a TV, cookbooks, and some other books Bram had given her, including some by this important food writer named Ruth Reichl, who talked about how she got interested in food and everything. They were the best books Chaz had ever read.
“You should stop acting like such a bitch around Georgie.” Aaron took one of the Reichl books off the shelf and flipped it over to read what was on the back. “You might as well hang a sign around your neck saying that you’re in love with Bram.”
“I’m not in love with him!” Chaz shot up, grabbed the book from Aaron, and shoved it back on the shelf. “I care about him, and I don’t like the way she treats him.”
“Just because she doesn’t kiss his ass like you do.”
“I don’t kiss his ass! I always tell him exactly what I think.”
“Yeah, and while you’re cussing at him, you’re running around making him special meals and ironing his T-shirts. Yesterday, I saw you jump up to brush some crumbs off a chair before he sat on it.”
“I take care of him because it’s my job, not because I’m in love with him.”
“It seems like more than a job. It seems like your whole life.”
“That’s bullshit. I just…owe him, that’s all.”
“For what?”
For everything.
She turned away from Aaron and went into her tiny galley kitchen. He was too stupid to know the difference between loving someone and being in love. Chaz loved Bram with all her heart, but it wasn’t sex-love. It was like he was the best brother in the universe, one she’d do anything for.
She rooted around in her refrigerator for a Mountain Dew. Aaron had told her he’d gotten addicted to Mountain Dew when he was in college, but she only poured a glass for herself. Chaz had wanted to go to culinary school, not college. After her stepmother died, she’d saved up enough money to come to L.A., but jobs were harder to find than she’d imagined for someone without a high school diploma, and her plan to earn tuition money by working at an expensive restaurant quickly disappeared. She ended up washing dishes and busing tables at a couple of cheap Mexican places, but L.A. was expensive, and even working sixteen-hour days, she still had to dip into her savings to get by.
One day she came home from work and discovered somebody had broken into her crappy rented room and stolen everything she had, including her savings. She told herself not to panic. She might have to cut out a meal here and there, and she wouldn’t be able to buy a car for a while, but she could still make the rent if she worked some extra hours.
She might have done it, too, if she hadn’t gotten struck by a hit-and-run driver as she was crossing the street to the Laundromat. She didn’t suffer anything more serious than some cracked ribs and a broken hand, but she lost both jobs because she couldn’t wash dishes with a cast on. Within a month she was living on the streets.
Aaron came into the kitchen behind her. “Do you have anything to eat? I haven’t had anything since lunch.”
She had a cabinet full of junk food she wasn’t going to tell him about. “Only cereal and some fruit.” She nudged her glass of Mountain Dew behind her toaster where he couldn’t see it, not because she was being mean, but because it wasn’t diet.
“I guess it’s better than nothing,” he said.
She pulled out the cereal box and shoved some fresh strawberries at him, but he started tossing them in the bowl without slicing them, so she pushed him out of the way and did the job herself. She wished she had Special K to give him instead of Frosted Flakes.
The kitchen had a tiny, built-in eating counter. She wiped out her silverware drawer while he ate. She’d already noticed he had good table manners, and she thought his neighbor Becky might like that if she ever noticed him. As he finished his last bite, she pulled the cereal bowl out from under him. “I’m going to cut your hair.”
“You are not. My hair’s fine.”
“It looks like a shrub. Do you want Becky to notice you or not?”
“If she’s so shallow that all she cares about is looks, then I’m not interested in her.” He took in her jeans and black T-shirt. “You’re not exactly an expert on fashion?”
