Page 42 of Always Been His

“My bad,” I mutter, shoving the piece into his hand.

“What is going on with you?” The creeper rolls out into the light and he sits up, dragging his forearm across his face, leaving a streak of black grease from his cheekbone to his jaw. He watches me with the look he’s had since we pledged the Hawthorne Society together at Brown, the one that says he already knows the answer and is giving me the opportunity to say it first. He has been watching me like this since Sunday morning when he showed up at seven to find me three hours into a fuel line job that wasn’t urgent.

“Nothing is going on,” I say, my thumb tapping the hood of the Hummer we pulled in this morning.

“I can hear your jaw grinding from under the car, Gray.” He stands and drags the rag from his back pocket, his eyes steady on my face. “And you’ve been here before me every single morning this week. I open at seven. Yesterday when Bud checked in he said you’ve been setting off the alarm sneaking in. He can see you on the cameras.”

“Dom,” I warn, setting the pump down on the bench.

“I know, I know.” He holds the rag up between us. “I’m not going to push you. But listen. I’ve been trying to speak to you for a couple of days now. There’s something you need to know, and I haven’t found the right⁠—”

The side bay door rattles.

“Yo! Dom!” A raspy feminine voice cuts through from the other side, and I thank every ounce of luck I have for the interruption.

“Kendall?” Dom’s face scrunches as he crosses the bay and yanks the door open.

Kendall Russo is not supposed to be here. She is supposed to be in Boston for the rest of the summer, back in their mother’s apartment because she refused Dom’s offer to move out here for her senior year. She stayed because their mother was trying to get sober for the fifth time, and Kendall couldn’t bring herself to leave her alone with it. Her father,she and Dom have different dads,has been gone for 13 years. If Kendall is standing in this doorway with a duffel bag over her shoulder, then the fifth attempt went the same way the other four did.

She slides in past Dom, her tight black curls pulled into a bun on top of her head, dark brown skin catching the light from the bay, the beginning of a tattoo sleeve crawling up her right forearm that Dom has not stopped complaining about since March. She’s in dark jeans and a white wife beater, her sneakers knotted at the toe, and there’s a purple bruise blossoming under her right eye, still dark and new at the edges.

“Hi, Dommy,” she says sweetly, dropping the duffel onto the concrete with a thud.

“Kendall.” Dom pulls her in by the shoulders before she can step further, his hands tight on her arms. “What are you doing here? And what the hell happened to your eye?”

“A girl can’t visit her favorite older brother?” She pushes her sunglasses up into her bun and tips her chin at him, a smile on her face that doesn’t reach anywhere near the bruise.

“Kendall Imani Russo.” He takes her face in both hands and tilts her chin up toward the light, his eyes going straight to the bruise under her eye. “What the fuck. Look at me. Who did this? Was it mom? Or Freddy?”

“Dominic Anthony,” she says, her voice dropping into the same register he just used on her. “Stop.”

“Are. You. Okay?” he asks, each word landing separately.

“I’m okay.” She tips her face up at him on her own this time, holding his eyes steady. “Promise. We’ll talk about it later.” They exchange glances before her gaze finds me over his shoulder. “Hi, Gray.”

“Hey, kid.” I’m already crossing the bay toward her, my arms open before I’ve finished deciding.

She steps into my arms and tucks her chin into my shoulder the way she did when she was younger. She smells like the gardenia perfume she has worn since she was fourteen years old, and the part of me that has been her honorary older brother since I met Dom freshman year softens for half a second before I lock it back down.

“You good?” I murmur into the top of her bun.

“I’m good, Gray.” Her voice comes muffled through my shirt.

She pulls back and hooks her pinky around mine before I can respond, her eyes holding mine without blinking.

“Go grab a Snapple from the break room,” I tell her, releasing her hand and tilting my chin toward the back. “We got your favorite flavor.”

“Now that is how you welcome a girl home.” She grins, then winces when it pulls the skin near the bruise, her fingertips coming up to press lightly against her cheek. “Can we have seafood soon, Gray, from the bay place. Please?”

“Go,” I say, and she goes, the break room door clicking shut behind her.

Dom drags both hands down the front of his face.

“Dom,” I say, crossing my arms.

“I know,” he groans into his palms. “Look. I’ll deal with her, but⁠—”

“Don’t worry about it.” I raise both hands in a gesture of surrender and turn toward the bay door. “I’ll get out of your hair.”