Page 38 of Her Brother's Keeper

Me: Don’t u worry about me, Angel. I’ll try and get things taken care of by the end of next week.

Maren: You’re too good to me. You know that?

Me: I ain’t even got started yet.

***

I asked Maren how her day was, and practically grilled her on asshat’s behavior every day for the rest of the week. Between my work schedule and her work schedule, I wouldn’t be seeing her until Sunday night, which was a major bummer. With Sage’s best friend’s mom being the twat of the century, Maren was worried about what she’d do with Sage on Sunday during the day when she put in another ten-hour shift, so I volunteered to spend some time with him.

I went over and made it about an hour after she’d left for the Douglas Street Wally World. Sage opened up the door and glared at me.

“She’s lying to you,” he said by way of greeting and I felt myself scowl.

“Spill,” I told him and he sighed, stepping aside to let me into the house for our great superhero movie spree.

“I hear her talk to you, she says it’s not bad, and that everything is fine but I hear her cry herself to sleep at night. I don’t care if you hurt him. Iwantyou to hurt him, or at least scare the piss out of him.”

“Now Sage,” I said, dropping a hand on the kid’s shoulder. “You know that violence doesn’t always solve problems, right? That Maren has it right, just because he’s mean to her, doesn’t necessarily mean that he needs to be hurt for it.”

Sage jerked his shoulder out from under my hand and sighed, he went over to the couch and flopped down on it dramatically.

“Yeah, I get that, but it’s not just him being mean to her, he’s gotall of themdoing it. I’m tired of her crying all the time and being all stressed out. It’s bullshit.”

“Language,” I said sternly and he arched an eyebrow at me and it was so like his sister I had a real tough time not laughing.

“You swear all the time.”

“I’m over the age of eighteen.”

“Yeah,way over,” he said rolling his eyes.

I couldn’t help it. I did laugh at that. I went around and dropped onto the other end of the couch and faced Maren’s kid brother. He was a skinny kid, lanky; a real beanpole. He was going to be tall, and probably a basketball player if he had any interest in the sport, which judging by the fact he’d asked if we could put the hoop up in front of the garage? I was betting there was at least something there. He had dark hair, just like his sister, and chocolate brown eyes. He was just about old enough to start hitting the weights and I thought about that for a minute. He’d be an unlikely work out partner, but it might keep him out of trouble.

“What do you mean when you say he’s got all of ‘em doing it?” I asked.

Sage rolled his eyes, “He’s like the star quarterback or something. Mr. Popular all the way, he’s got like the entire school making fun of her and doing things to her. It’s stupid.”

I considered him, trying to judge if he was being melodramatic or what, but after searching his oh-so-serious face, I decided even if he was exaggerating it wasn’t by much.

“Why you narcing on your sister?” I asked him finally, and he jerked his head back.

“I’m not. I thought you wanted to know what was up, so you could do something about it.”

I shook my head, “I’m gonna do something about it regardless, but don’t you think if she’d wanted me to know what’s up, she would have told me?”

Sage huffed out a really big sigh, “My sister thinks she’s gotta do all of everything all of the time. She’s turned into a real control freak. She can’t though, can she?”

“Can’t what?”

“Do all of the things all of the time, I mean, no one can do itallalone, can they?”

I shook my head, “I used to think that, but then I met your sister. She does a pretty good job of it, don’t you think?”

“If she does such a good job of it why’s she crying all the time?” he asked.

I shrugged, he had me there, of course, there was also… “Girls are like that,” I said wisely, “They get overwhelmed and sh-stuff, and they melt down and cry it out and before you know it they’re back at it again, stronger and harder than before. Girls are kind of amazing that way. Dudes give up, girls just have a cry and go at whatever’s in front of them again and again and again until they beat it. I ain’t seen nothing like it anywhere else.”

Sage gave me a look like he wasn’t impressed, “Are you saying girls are better than boys?” he asked.

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