Page 62 of Her Ex-Husband's Brother

God, that tears at me. Doesn’t she know all I want is to pull her back into my arms? I’m trying so damn hard to be strong for both our sakes.

I’m about to make some lame excuse about needing to get some sleep, when she swallows hard and asks, looking towards the little kitchenette, “Do you have anything to drink?”

Her request startles me a little; I’ve been so lost in my black, spiraling thoughts. “Oh. Of course. Shit. I should’ve offered when we came in. Do you want some water? Orange juice? Hot cocoa?”

The last suggestion makes her giggle. “Hot cocoa? Hell yeah I want cocoa.”

SIXTEEN

AUGUST

She swipesat her tear-stained cheeks and I rush to the kitchenette and start the kettle.

Hot cocoa? What was I thinking? It’s the most juvenile thing that could have popped out of my mouth.

She probably meant tequila, dumbass. Fuck, I’m spending too much time around a four-year-old.

But also, hot chocolate is much safer than tequila. Really, it’s the perfect solution. Comfort via cocoa.Notby making more mistakes getting sweaty and licking each other’s bodies all over till we howl at the moon. My eyes inadvertently glance over at the full-size bed at the back of the RV, before I jerk them back to the task at hand. At least I made the bed this morning, Jesus.

While I pull out the cocoa packets and get the water going, Lennon wanders around my RV. Sketches cover all available wall space. I’m always working out new ideas and sometimes it helps to just have them saturating my space while I’m working on something.

But now, glancing around, fuck, it looks like some obsessive crazy-guy conspiracy theory shit. I haven’t had anyone in my space in more than a minute.

But Lennon’s mouth just drops open, like the sketches briefly distract from her upset as she walks around, hands occasionally lifting but always stopping before actually touching anything.

“God, you’re so talented, August.”

Okay, well, that’s not the reaction I expected.

“You gotta stop with all that,” I joke, shaking my head, because she’s always unexpected, isn’t she? “Else I’m gonna get fat-headed with ego.”

“Never,” she smiles back. “You’re too gifted. You deserve a big ego.”

Warmth flushes through my whole body. Mack tells me my sketches are good sometimes, but Lennon’s unabashed praise makes me glow in an entirely different way.

I glance at the electric kettle. Almost boiling. “You’re pretty damn amazing yourself, you know that?”

Understatement of the year.

But she scoffs. “Me?”

Is she serious? “Are you kidding? The way you stood up to Jake out there?” I reach for the coffee cups in my high cupboard. “I’ve never been able to—” I blow out a big expulsion of air. “He was always just so…big.”

I hear how ridiculous it sounds as soon as it’s out of my mouth. And yet it’s the only way I know how to explain it. He was my big brother. And what he said about the world always made sense… until it didn’t. And then everything just got so scrambled up, nothing made sense anymore.

Lennon slips into the little booth seat at the table in the kitchenette. “Can I ask what happened with you two? What was it like growing up?” Then she looks down at the table. “God, I’m sorry. You’ve had a long night. You don’t have to tell me.”

“No,” I suck in a deep breath as I set her cup down in front of her along with her cocoa packet and sit down myself, ripping off the top and tipping the powder into mine. She does the same with hers while we wait for the kettle to finish heating the water.

“At first, I think it was like anybody else’s childhood. I mean, Jake was six years older, so we weren’t exactly close. But I still idolized him, ya know? The way little brothers do.”

My thumb runs over the ceramic rim of the coffee mug. “I was definitely anoopsiesbaby. Mom clearly wasn’t interested in having another kid. I think Dad talked her into it. Or maybe it was that classic flawed logic of, maybe a baby will save the marriage and make us happy again.”

“But it didn’t,” Lennon states the obvious.

“Naw. And Dad…” I stand back up restlessly and go pull out extra marshmallows from one of the cabinets as the kettle starts whistling. “It didn’t make Dad any better.”

“He was sick?”