Page 81 of Wicked Player

“Damn,” I said, blowing into my own hands. “It’s cold out there.”

“I couldn’t tell if it was the weather or my own sad heart.”

I knew what she meant. I might have been ready to talk about us, but Brandon would take awhile. I rubbed my hands together again to warm them and threw the car into drive.

I lived north of downtown Raleigh, almost on the outskirts, and in good traffic, it took about forty minutes to get to.

That car ride was the longest lasting forty minutes I’d ever felt. We didn’t say much, but we are both thinking a lot. Elizabeth pressed her head to the window almost as soon as we pulled out of the cemetery and more than once I caught her drawing little shapes with her fingertip on the glass.

She sighed a few times and closed her eyes.

Had I not been driving I would have done the same thing.

The whole thing sucked and there were no eloquent words to put into the life of a child ending in the way Brandon’s had done. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. Unfortunately, those of us left behind never got the answers that made sense.

Which meant the only way to move on was to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

I’d remember Brandon as often as I remembered Harrison. Which sucked, but more than once over the last few days I’d prayed and asked my brother to look after the new kid. I didn’t know if God worked like that. If where the boys were worked like that, but it never hurt to ask, and if they were together, I could smile imagining them running routes and catching passes, happy and healthy and pain-free for the rest of their days.

“We’re here,” I said, slowing down at the private gates to my driveway. I didn’t exactly like living like I had a stick up my ass, but my privacy and security was important.

“Wow.” Elizabeth lifted her head off the window like it took effort and she blinked slowly, head swiveling to take in the land in front of her. You could see my house from the end of the driveway. It wasn’t that far back and as she took it all in, her jaw went slack, her eyes wide. “You live in a palace.”

I wished. But the house was huge. Ten thousand square feet of space that went empty most of the time and even if I ever did get married and have kids, it’d still be way too big.

“Yeah, but I liked the privacy and I didn’t buy the house for the building, but the backyard.” I punched in the code. “Code is four-five-four-five. Use it whenever you like.”

“Do the numbers mean anything?”

“Harrison’s youth jersey number.” The gates opened and I punched the gas.

“I’m sorry. I can’t imagine how difficult this day is for you. What kind of memories it brings back.”

I drove up the driveway, not bothering to make the curve that would take me to the garage. It was closer to my room if we went in the front door anyway. Parking, I faced her. “Bad ones. Really bad ones. But mixed with those there’s a lot of good ones and I try usually to focus on those.”

Her lips twitched, slowly rose at the corners. “You’re smart.”

“Sometimes.” I shrugged and pulled the keys out of the ignition, opening my door. “Sometimes I’m an idiot.”

I hopped down and closed my door, but the glimpse I got through the windshield before she opened her door was her fighting a grin.

I met her at her side and reached for her hand. “All men are,” she said.

“Comes with having a dick, I figure. Too much blood rushes to one part and cuts off the other.”

“Can’t always think when you want to?” Her words were teasing, the thinly veiled meaning behind them not. She yawned then, and while the teasing was good, rest would give us a clear mind.

I hit the buttons on the alarm, kicked the door closed, and reset the panel. “Come on. My room’s upstairs. Let’s sleep and then we’ll pick up that conversation, okay?”

“Yeah,” she said around another yawn. Her shoes clattered to the floor and she took my hand. “That’d be good.”

We climbed the stairs together. Her hand slid on the banister. The exhaustion set in with each step as we trudged down the hallway, the air heavy, the mood somber, and yet through it all, she held my hand, leaned her weight against my arm and when we reached my room, she wore her dress, stockings, and a smile.

“What’s the smile for?”

“Your house is really pretty. Huge but I like all the dark wood. Makes it feel cozy.”

“I’ll give you a tour later.” I went to my closet and to the dresser-sized island that sat in the middle. Swear to God, my own closet was bigger than my dorm room in college, or any bedroom I’d had growing up.

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