Page 61 of My Brother's Enemy
“Rain—”
“We fucked. Now get out.”
I left the room.
Only later did I realize I’d grabbed his hoodie.
39
TYLER
A week later
Iwas just leaving practice when my phone rang. I didn’t even need to look at the screen once I heard the Batman-theme ringtone. I swiped to answer, a big smile already coming to my face. “Nolan. My man.”
“Hey!”
He sounded good. Cheerful. It felt good to hear his voice again. I missed him. I missed my old team.
“It’s been a minute,” he added.
“Yeah.” I unlocked my truck and opened the door to toss my things inside. I rounded to the driver’s seat, and as I pulled out of my parking spot, the phone synced up with the dashboard. Nolan’s voice transferred to the speakers.
“—to catch up, but I was calling for a reason.”
I frowned. “Yeah, man. What’s up?”
It wasn’t that Nolan and I didn’t keep in touch. We texted and sent each other funny memes or reels, but we’d not had a discussion of all the details going on with our lives in a while. I’dbeen too busy with Skylar at first, then I was distracted by Rain, and now, well, I didn’t have a good reason.
“When’s the last time you talked to your sister?”
My gut churned. “Uh, it’s been a while. Why are you asking?”
Ski knew Nolan. When she and Zoey visited me in New York, Nolan was over all the time. He took to Skylar as if she were his sister, and Zoey was his niece.
“She’s been calling me.”
“What?”
“Yeah, buddy. I’m sorry. I wasn’t sure what to do at first. The first time she called, she cried almost the whole time. I just listened. At the end, I told her to let you know she’d called me. She said she would, but I never heard from you. I know you. You would’ve reached out. I meant to shoot you a message, let you know myself, but you know how it is. Hockey.”
Games were almost every other night. Traveling. Practices. We were busy.
“Anyway, it’s been a few weeks, and she’s still calling.”
I turned in to a parking lot and swung for the closest slot. Letting the engine idle, I sat back. “Ski’s giving me the silent treatment. She got pissed when I told her Zoey should go to a mental health clinic.”
He was quiet for a beat. “Interesting. She didn’t put it in those words.”
“How’d she put it?”
“She said you thought she and Zoey should be separated. When I asked her for the specific wording, she just started crying. Again, I know you, and I was reading between the lines, but she’s not doing so well.”
I pulled up the last few texts I’d sent my sister.
Tyler: Can we talk about this?
Tyler: Please.
