Page 30 of Unsaid Things

Chapter Thirteen

“So you haven’t been over there yet?”

Lance shook his head. It was the day after New Year’s. It had been over a week since Aaron had shown up out of the blue, crashing with Abby’s mom. “No. Abby’s been keeping in touch with her mom, but says she doesn’t want to go there again while her brother’s still around.” He stood over Chris, spotting him on the bench press.

Chris finished his set and placed the bar back on the holders, sitting up and wiping his face with a towel. “I can’t blame her. It wasn’t a happy reunion from what I could tell.”

They switched places, Lance lying back on the bench after Chris wiped his sweat from the vinyl. Chris adjusted the weights on the ends of the bar, making sure the pins were secure. He tried not to let it show, but it bothered Lance that Chris had been there when Abby went home to confront her brother for the first time since he’d left. Even though he knew that Chris had stayed outside, like Lance had the first time he’d been to her mom’s place.

He eased the bar down to his chest, pushing it back up smoothly. Chris stood behind his head, more out of safety precaution than actual necessity. Lance was lifting for maintenance, not to beat a personal record or anything. Chris, on the other hand, was pushing himself, working hard to get ready for the NFL Regional Combines coming up in less than two months.

Lance waited until he’d finished his set before continuing the conversation. “No. She wasn’t happy to see him. And she’s not happy that he’s staying with their mom, but apparently her mom has been in touch with him for a while before now.”

Chris racked their weights before they moved to the dumbbells. “That seems kind of fucked up.”

“No kidding.”

“She ever figure out why he’s here?”

Lance shook his head as he selected a set of dumbbells, positioning himself in front of the wall-to-wall mirrors to ensure correct form. Chris joined him, and they finished off with a few miles on the treadmill.

On the way out, Chris slapped Lance on the shoulder. “Let me know if you need any more help with all of that, man. Whatever I can do, I’m there.”

“Thanks, man.” Lance shook his head, stuffing his hands in his pockets after pushing through the door. “There isn’t really anything to do right now. I’m just trying to be there for Abby, y’know? It sucks because I want to do something. Anything. Mostly I want to go over there and give her asshole brother a lesson in fraternal responsibility, but I’m pretty sure that’d just piss Abby off, which wouldn’t help anything.”

Chris laughed. “Fraternal responsibility.” He laughed some more. “That’s good. But yeah, I get where you’re coming from. I don’t have any siblings, so I don’t know from firsthand experience, but even I know you don’t just ditch your family like that. How’s Abby handling everything?”

“Stressed. School’s starting in a couple days, and she still doesn’t know what he’s doing here. And now she won’t be available all the time to go over there if she thinks she needs to. Her brother’s apparently been keeping up with the grocery shopping, but …” Lance let the sentence trail off, running a hand through his hair. “She’s worried about her mom, and she doesn’t know what to do. She’s worried about what it means if her brother stays, and what it means if he takes off again. It’s one of those shitty situations where there isn’t going to be a good outcome no matter what.”

Chris nodded, all his earlier laughter gone. “Yeah. Yeah it is.”

They said goodbye, each getting into their cars to head back to their respective women. How strange. If anyone had told him his life would look like this when he graduated, he’d have laughed. Both him and Chris with serious girlfriends? Him on the verge of proposing? And yet, here they were.

If they could get this situation with Abby’s brother figured out, he’d feel more settled. He’d had that ring for weeks. Abby should’ve had it on her finger a week ago. With everything going on now, he didn’t know if proposing would be a good thing or not. He felt pretty sure she’d say yes. But would planning a wedding on top of all her family drama just stress her out more? Knowing her, yes.

He sighed, starting the car and heading home. The last thing he wanted was to add more stress to her load. And with school starting, she’d be working for the foreign language department again, which meant even more stress. No, he’d wait, even though it killed him. Hopefully her brother would leave again soon, and once they were past that, he could propose. Then there’d be no doubt that she was his and he was hers. Forever.

Abby lounged on the couch readingCien Años de Soledadfor her Hispanic Literature class. Her professor launched them straight into the deep end, not warming up with something shorter or easier to read. Couldn’t they have started with some of García Márquez’s short stories? He wrote a bunch of those. And even if the writing was equally dense, she could get through one in a sitting. Only the fact that she’d read the book in English last year made it so she didn’t struggle with it as much as she would’ve. She didn’t remember all the details, but enough of the broad strokes that she wasn’t completely lost when she encountered words and phrases particular to Colombian Spanish that she hadn’t seen before, and weren’t always listed in her Spanish-English dictionary or the app she used on her phone.

A knock on the door pulled her out of the book. She was a quarter of the way through, and they were supposed to finish it next week. She needed to get cracking. Frowning at the clock and annoyed at the interruption, she got up and went to the door. It was a few minutes before five, so a little early for Lance to be home, and he wouldn’t knock. Megan always texted before coming over. Plus, Abby knew she would be busy this semester getting a show together. She’d already recruited Abby to model for her, and told her how she planned to enlist Chris and Matt’s help. Abby had laughed at that. “Good luck. You’re gonna need it.”

Megan had stuck out her tongue and changed the subject, happy to have gotten what she wanted out of Abby.

Abby checked her phone just to be sure she hadn’t missed a text from Megan or one of the other guys. Nope. Were they expecting a delivery? It was late for UPS or Fedex, but maybe?

Without bothering to check the peephole, Abby opened the door, and immediately regretted her oversight. The urge to slam the door again was almost overwhelming. “What are you doing here?”

His signature smirk came to Aaron’s face. “Is that how you greet your brother?”

Abby crossed her arms. “It is when he shows up at my apartment unannounced. How did you get my address anyway?”

He chuckled. “From Mom. How else?”

“What do you want, Aaron?”

“Can’t I come in? I just wanted to come check on my baby sister. Make sure the guy she’s living with is treating her right.”

Abby narrowed her eyes, but relented. “Fine. Come in. Tell me what you want, why you’re really back in town, and then you need to leave. Lance is going to be home soon, and we have plans tonight.” The lie came out stilted, the old habit of not giving him any ammunition to use against her harder than it used to be. But if Aaron knew her plans were to eat dinner with Lance and read some more he might try to stay longer. She’d created a schedule for herself to get through this book on time, and she needed to finish three more chapters today. Plus she had other homework. She didn’t have time for this interruption.

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