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“I…I just wish you hadn’t done that,” is all I can manage.
“When he comes back, it’ll all be together, so he can take them with him,” she says as though this is totally fucking normal. As though my heart isn’t breaking all over again.
Seven years. Too fucking long not to see one of the people I care about most in the world.
The back door opens, and Glen steps in.
When did he leave?
“Atlas has cooled down a bit. He’ll be in by the time dinner’s ready. Just another of his antics. What’s the matter with you, Troy? Did the Volunteers fumble?”
Glen throws his arm over me and guides me back into the family room, and I’m in a daze until we’re all around the table. Atlas hasn’t “cooled down.” He’s eating like that chicken Alfredo did something to him personally, while I fork my noodles around the plate so I’ll at least look like I’m enjoying the pasta.
Glen’s going on about something, and I’m barely paying attention until, “…you should come golfing with me again. Maybe next month.”
I look at Atlas, who doesn’t respond. Is he really giving his dad the silent treatment right now? This is so childish. So like him.
Atlas’s gaze shifts to me.
“Troy?” Mom asks.
“Huh?”
Glen snickers. “Where have you gone, son? I was just asking if you wanted to come golfing with me again.”
Me? Oh fuck.
“Yeah. Sure.” I wish I’d had my wits about me enough to turn him down. Last time I went golfing with him, he introduced me as his son who’s going to be a big player in engineering. The way he shows me off, like I’m some kind of prize he won, doesn’t feel good. But I’m too distracted to make an excuse to get out of it. Maybe I’ll think of one later, when he sets a date.
Of course, it isn’t lost on me that he invited me after Atlas made a big deal about the fact that his dad was more interested in what was going on with me than him. I’d say there was something vindictive about it, but having known Glen since freshman year of high school, I know that being vindictive would have required him to have given more thought to his son than he likely did when he extended the invitation.
I grit my way through the rest of the dinner, and I’m relieved when it finally comes to an end and Atlas and I are heading back to Peachtree Springs. I can hardly remember finishing dinner or helping Mom with the dishes or hugging our parents goodbye before I’m behind the wheel.
For a few minutes, neither of us says anything. Like we both just want to forget today ever happened. I feel Atlas’s gaze burrowing into my cheek, and he takes a breath before asking, “So what’s eating you?”
“What?”
“Did your team lose or something? I mean, I know you get into those games, but come on. For the guy who conned me into coming, you were totally out of it all through dinner.”
I’m surprised he caught on, since Mom and Glen hadn’t mentioned it. Like they were oblivious, getting on as if everything was totally normal and I wasn’t dying inside. Although, that was how they were when they dragged Atlas and me through their wedding, which was only three years after Dad left, a year after Brandon left. And Atlas’s mom had just died likea month before they started making plans. So not exactly out of character for either of them to do what was in their best interest.
“Fine. Don’t answer me,” Atlas says, his voice spearing into my ears.
I barely open my mouth to say, “You’re such a prick.”
“Asking how you are makes me a prick? That’s a new one.”
“No, suggesting that I’m just some blockhead who gets so overwhelmed by football games and that nothing else could be going on in my life—that’s what makes you a prick.”
“You were perfectly fine on the way there. What’s up? Are you worried Glen’s going to judge you because he wants you to climb the corporate ladder and you’d rather work at the shop? Oh no. What if he’s embarrassed to talk to his buddies about you when you’re on the eighth green?”
He’s trying to goad me into a fight. I know it. I should just drop it, but I’m so mad, I can’t help myself. Now I want a fucking fight.
“That’s a pretty glass house the kid born with a silver spoon in his ass is throwing a stone from,” I note.
“You think that’s so clever, don’t you? How long have you had that one in your head, waiting to spit it out at the right opportunity so you could sound smart?”
“You’re right. What sort of dumb jock could think of that off the top of his head? I guess I should come clean. You’ll find out sooner or later. When I’m at school, I actually have a notebook where I come up with clever retorts for when my asshole stepbrother starts talking shit. I don’t even do any of the work in my classes because I’m too busy trying to think of all the things I can say to make him think I’m clever because I care so much about his opinion of me.”
