AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Are you serious right now?” I demanded. “I explicitly asked you to do something, you agreed, then went around my back to do the exact opposite. AndI’mthe bad guy here?”
“You are if you don’t listen to me!”
The line went nearly silent again, although I could hear the sound of his breathing. Another classmate walked in for a cup of water, so I stalked out, past the cubicles, through the reception area, and to the street where I didn’t have to be quiet any longer.
“What the fuck, Brandon!” I yelled. “Are we back to square one here? Trips to Paris and throwing money around to make me like you? Completely disregarding any of my basic preferences for our relationship?”
“Goddamn it, Skylar, can you just take your head out of your ass and listen?”
His rising voice only made my blood simmer. I yanked on my ponytail and paced around the corner toward the T- stop.
“What the hell were you thinking?” I asked through clenched teeth. “You can’t get involved here. Why would you do something like this?”
“Because it was the fucking decent thing to do!”
Brandon’s voice roared through the speaker, forcing me to hold it away from my ear, even on the street. I sat down on a bus stop bench, ignoring the man next to me currently digging into a box of very fragrant fried chicken. Several cars drove by blasting bachata music. I barely registered any of it.
“Your dad owed money. I have money,” Brandon was saying. “I could pay it off myself, which is a fucking drop in the bucket for me. Or I could let a septuagenarian take on a thirty-year mortgage. Maybe I should have talked to you about this first, but honestly, Skylar, you know that you’re way too stubborn to say yes. And what the fuck kind of man would I be if I didn’t do the easiest, simplest thing I could to protect the family of the woman I love?”
Suddenly every bit of anger flowed from my brain like blood from a wound. My heart rose about six inches into my throat. “The woman you…what?”
Brandon sighed. “Just come over tonight, all right? We can fight properly and make up then. I’ve got some things to say, and I’d rather say them to your face.”
I bit my lip, unable to form words. He loved me? I wanted to say it back more than anything, but all I could do was stare at the gum-lined ceiling of the bus shelter.
“Okay,” I said finally. “Okay, I’ll be there.”
“Seven,” said Brandon, and he hung up before I could reply.
Thirty-Five
Istood outside of Brandon’s door for close to ten minutes, just watching the light bounce off the prismed glass windows while I talked my temper down again and again. It had continued to resurface throughout the rest of the afternoon and evening. I felt like an emotional yo-yo, back and forth and back and forth between my love for Brandon and his sweet words and my hatred of the situation and his actions.
It wasn’t just as simple as being mad, either. Iwasmad, of course, but not just at him. The truth was, when Bubbe had first told me the debt had been resolved, my initial reaction was relief. It was a major weight off to know that a dangerous gangster wasn’t waiting around the corner to beat the shit out of my father again, just as it was good to know my grandmother wouldn’t have to accumulate her own debt at seventy-two or that I wouldn’t potentially be disbarred for giving the man illegal gambling funds.
And for that feeling, I couldn’t forgive myself.
Just as I was about to ring the bell, one of the massive double doors swung open. Brandon stood there in bare feet, black suit pants, and a white undershirt that hugged every one of his toned muscles. He was on the phone.
“Hey,” he mouthed, stepping aside so I could enter.
The voice on the other end of the phone was loud and insistent. He closed the door, then put a hand over the phone’s speaker.
“What were you doing out there?” he asked. “I was getting worried.”
I shook my head and stood still next to the console like a statue. Brandon looked at me curiously, then leaned in for a kiss. I turned my face. He frowned, and then his expression turned cautious.
“I have to go, Kieran,” he said, setting off a flurry of yelling on the other end. He turned away from me, speaking quietly though I could hear him just fine. “Just move it to next week. I said I can’t make it tomorrow. No, Ican’t.”
Kieran’s voice kept yelling, but I couldn’t make out what she was saying.
Brandon drew a hand through his hair. “I already told you, I’m not coming. Not gonna happen,” he said again, this time more forcefully. “Just deal with it. That’s what I pay you for.”
Without waiting for an answer, he disconnected the phone and set it down on the console next to me. He pushed a hand through his hair again, which looked as if it had been getting that treatment a lot today. Then he expelled a long sigh.
“She sounded mad,” I remarked. “Is everything okay?”
Brandon shook his head, but more as if to dispel the conversation than to answer my question. “It’s fine, just a deal that’s causing a lot of headaches. She’s overreacting.”
