Page 78 of The Sun
“Which one?”
“Elias.”
“Yeah.” Atlas stepped to the side, and Brandon ducked inside, barely setting foot into the living room. I expected his face to be red, jaw tight, but he looked the way I felt—broken as shit.
He wet his lips and scratched over the back of his head a few times. “Can I talk to you?”
I held my hands palm up and shrugged.
“I’m not trying to start anything.” Brandon shifted his weight on his feet. “I just need to talk to you. Alone.”
“Man, I’m not trying to do this right now.”
“Look, I get you don’t like me, all right? I’m not a huge fan of you, either, if you can’t tell. But Sunny means a lot to me, and I just. . .” He exhaled. “I’m just trying to make this right. Okay?”
He knew Sunny was my weakness, and he used it against me.
Atlas shuffled past, giving me an I-don’t-know-man brow lift before resuming his spot on the recliner, chips in hand. A shrill scream broke the silence as the masked man sank a knife into a girl’s chest.
Brandon glanced at the TV. “Scream?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s pretty lame,” he said.
I stared at him, wondering why in the hell he would need to talk to me about Sunny, and then came the worry. “Wanna talk outside?”
With a nod, he stepped back through the door, and I pushed up from the couch. Cold, dry leaves crunched underneath my bare feet as I followed him down the steps and into the yard.
He stopped halfway down the drive, shoved his hands in his pockets, and stared at the ground.
“All right.” My breath turned to fog in the cool night air. “What did you want?”
“Sorry about today in the hall.”
I lifted a shoulder. “Shit happens. I shouldn’t have fucked around with your girlfriend.” That title felt like acid on my tongue.
“She’s not my girlfriend.”
I couldn’t say I was disappointed. “What do you want me to say? Sorry?”
He glanced up, wiping a slow hand down his face. I knew distress when I saw it, and that guy was spinning in turmoil. But I wasn’t surprised. Loving Sunny would do that to any guy.
“God,” he said. “I love her, or I wouldn’t be doing this.” He moved toward me, and I clenched my fist, prepping for the brawl I felt coming. “And I hope you love her as much as I think you do because if not, I’m really screwing up here.”
I fought the bewilderment tightening my face.
He took a hard breath like he was struggling. “She was never really my girlfriend. She uh. . . She basically pretended to date me to take some of the heat off me. When Travis got beat up, she was trying to make sure that didn’t happen to me.” He choked up a little. “Because she’s a good person.”
I paused. I had to be missing something—didn’t I? Surely, I was. Before I even realized I’d said it, I mumbled, “What are you saying, man?”
“I’m saying,” he hesitated, shaking his head and kicking at the gravel. “The guy Travis was seeing was me.”
Shit.It fell silent with the exception of the crickets and the random whirr of a passing car on the highway.
Finally, Brandon kicked at the rocks again. “Can you say something? I’m not in the habit of outing myself to complete fucking strangers. And you not saying anything is freaking me out.”
He was serious. “You uh, you must really care about her if you’re telling me this.”
