Page 23 of Brenna, Brat

“That’s not helpful,” JuJu echoed. “I’ll have groceries delivered.”

“I’ll send her some job listings. I thought childcare might work,” Sophie chimed in. “She’s always talking about more grandkids.”

That all sounded like a fine plan to me, but everyone argued a little more before we agreed to it—not that it mattered if we agreed, since we were adults (in age, for sure) and could do whatever we wanted. Sophie also added that she would try to talk to Dad to figure out how they were handling their finances. “He’ll say it’s none of our business,” she pointed out, and Addie wrote that it was our business, because Mom was also our responsibility.

“No, she isn’t,” I stated, which earned me another round of comments about unhelpful remarks and how we needed to pull together.

Then I got a separate message from Juliet: “Beckett said you wrote to him and asked how he’s doing. Thanks, Bren.” She didn’t call me by that nickname very often.

She was correct that I had texted her fiancé to check in. It wasn’t like I deserved a medal or something, it was just a hello. I didn’t answer but continued on my way to the suburbs, which was part two of my plan for the day.

“I feel like I’m more of a neon guy, but you just don’t see many fun colors on the slopes,” Campbell said as we walked between the racks of ski clothes. “The contrast of that pink and yellow-green against the snow is really something.”

“No one wants their retinas burned as they enjoy winter recreation,” I answered, and examined one of the coats. “The markup on outerwear is incredible. This consists of less than ten dollars of raw materials and look at how poorly the zippers are sewn.”

“It might look good on me, though,” he said, and held it under his chin. “What do you think?”

I thought that all of this would look good on him, because he looked good himself. It was an objective opinion that was apparently shared by another woman browsing in this store. She made her thoughts clear as she looked at him and smiled.

“Do you work here?” I asked her, and she said no. “Can we help you with something, then?” I continued. She said no again, and moved away to the women’s section.

Campbell hadn’t noticed that interaction. He had picked up another ski coat, a navy blue that was truly wonderful with his coloring. “Not bad,” he commented.

“I thought you knew how to ski,” I said.

“I’ve been skiing since I could walk. My dad loved it and we went out west every year at least twice, usually more.”

“So, why don’t you already have stuff to wear?” I asked, picking up a dark green hat. This would look very nice on him, I thought. It would have made me resemble a cadaver.

“I do,” he said. “We always got new stuff every season, so I was doing the same thing, I guess.”

“You got new ski clothes even if you hadn’t grown out of what you had before?” I asked. I put down the hat because obviously, he didn’t need it.

“Maybe it’s like turning in the leased cars every two years,” he suggested. “It’s just trading around.”

“It’s wasteful,” I corrected. “It’s silly.”

He hung the navy coat back onto the rack, and walked to another part of the store.

Were we done? I caught up, although it took a moment because he had moved quickly. “I don’t care if you’re wasteful,” I said. “It’s your money. Do what you want with it.”

He had picked up a football from a big bin and was gripping it in one hand. “I do,” he said. “I do what I want.”

“Then why do you seem angry?” Not that I particularly cared, because his emotions were his to manage, and I was neither his mother nor his therapist. I was…a friend? I guessed that I was. Since he’d sent me the beautiful flowers, we’d seen each other a few times. Once, we’d gone back to the same restaurant for dinner and once we’d met for drinks after work. It was just weeknight stuff. But it had been fun to do something different and I realized that I didn’t want him to be angry at me. I still thought I was right about what I’d said, but I didn’t want him to stop talking to me or sending dumb little texts like he did sometimes.

“I’m not angry,” he answered, but he was going to pop the football in his hand. “I never thought about it too much.”

“About ski clothes? Me neither. It’s not a very important topic.”

“No, I mean about buying new shit all the time. You’re right and I don’t need it. There’s nothing wrong with what I had last year.”

“Good, then you’ll save some money.” But he didn’t need that mindset, the guard-every-penny way of thinking, because he had plenty of money if he wanted to throw it away. I remembered the list of gifts that he’d given to his sister Carrington, and when I’d been casually browsing and had inadvertently found him online, I’d gathered more information about his financial situation. Yes, I’d seen several posts with him and women, different women over the years. But the majority of his mentions had been through his sister and his mom and I’d thoroughly examined both of those women. They self-published incredible displays of wealth, with their jewelry, clothes, trips, cars…it was in every picture they took of their amazing lives.

“Spend it if you want to,” I said, shrugging.

“I will,” he said, and then told me, “I do. You know, I work pretty hard.”

“Ok.”

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