Page 53 of The Handoff

Chapter 27

Dane

Davidcametosee me this morning. Stuart, the guy that I'd been staying with, the vice captain of the team, woke me up to tell me that someone was here to see me even if as usual Stuart was hungover. David was standing in the living room with his arms crossed ready for another fight. David has his disguise of a hoody and sunglasses. Stuart was probably too drunk to notice we looked exactly alike.

All, I kept thinking was that I just wasn't in the mood.

"What are you doing here now?"

He replied, “I came to see you. I thought that we could talk. This thing has to stop. Us fighting like this. Mom stayed at a friend's last night and so did I. I think the problem is that we all need our own space at times. I think everything’s just getting out of hand. I don’t know if it’s Lisa or what, but something’s got to change.”

I figured out that we were all getting on top of each other, this is why I was staying here, as far away from them as possible.

"Give me a minute. I'll shower. Coffee and then we can talk."

I couldn’t think on an empty stomach, or with the hangover that was lurking in my head. I scratched my head, checking to see if it was still attached to my neck. I didn't wait for him to react or even give me permission to do what I needed to do. This was one of the things that I hated about going on a drinking binge. Stuart drank because playing ball at college was a luxury for him. He had nothing riding on staying in college, it was just time that he was killing until he graduated, so he could run his dad’s company. Even if he didn't graduate, it was clear that this was his path in life.

I listened to him go on about his dad, complaining about the path set out for him. He didn't know how lucky he was, he didn't have a fucking clue. And part of me wondered if the real reason I hung around him, was to escape my miserable existence. As if hanging out with the rich, unappreciative jocks made me feel as if I was one of them, just so I didn't have to face up to my reality.

I headed to the shower, turned on the tap, with one eye half-open, and closed the door. I'd been staying here for three weeks. Stuart didn't share with anyone. He even had a spare room, for when his brother came to visit, which wasn't often.

The cold water ran, and I dropped my boxers and stepped in. Every part of my body tingled as my hairs turned to tiny spikes and reacted to the coldness. This hangover slowly started to freeze away and turned into little ice droplets the more I dug my head into the coldness and turned to make sure no part of my body escaped it.

When I felt nearly human again, I opened both my eyes widely and turned off the tap. The point of the shower wasn't to get clean, but simply to be awake and aware again.

I grabbed a towel, dried myself. Then, I brushed my teeth slowly as the effects of the drinking binge started to fade away. I walked to the spare room and saw that David was seated on the sofa in the living room with his head buried in his hands. I ignored him, and he did the same as he didn't look up, and then once I reached the room, I closed the door and got dressed. I was ready to leave the room, but I hesitated as I thought about David, and looking at the time to realize that it was only seven. Who went to discuss anything with anyone at this time?

"Don't you think it's a little early?"

I asked him as I stormed out of the room and entered the living room.

"Yeah, but I couldn't sleep. I thought that you wouldn't be feeling great either, and probably couldn’t sleep. So I figured why wait it out, just go and see him. Yet, I can see I got it wrong, because this place looks as if you had a party last night."

I looked around and spotted the empty cans, the empty vodka bottle on the floor and pizza boxes. Sure, it appeared as if we had people over, but it was only Stuart and me. I didn't have to explain myself to David. Besides I didn't feel like it. He didn't come over to find out what I'd been up to, he came to talk.

"Mom?"

He stood up.

"She's making plans to go to London for the funeral."

I said, "I hope that she doesn't think that we're going with her."

He shook his head, "No. I think we made that clear, but we need to get through this year. We need to do what we've been doing for the last three years and pretend to be Dane aka you. Then after that, we can do whatever we like."

I nodded my head in agreement. I knew that he was right, but I couldn't get over the fact that he slept with Lisa. When I specifically told him not to do it.

"But what you did with Lisa…”

"Shit! I have needs too. Do you think this life has been easy? When we agreed to it we were only kids. It was fun. A game. We all hopped on the wagon and enjoyed the ride. Shit, we even laughed when we kissed Zoe, remember that one time we decided to pretend to be each other as a dare.”

I choked, "Yeah, only one time back in middle school and the party of that boy. Don’t even remember his name now. It was a game back then, which was fine, because we were kids."

"Now, we're men and we need to start acting like it. Deal?"

I stretched out my hand to shake his. "Deal."

"Good, now that you two have kissed and made-up, can you get out of here so that I can catch up on some zee's!" Stuart said, as he opened his bedroom door and then closed it back again.

I grabbed my jacket, David headed to the door. We had to go back to the apartment, where we assumed Daxon was so that we could have the same conversation with him. David was right, we needed to do what we'd been doing for so long. What about Lisa in this big mess?

There was only one thing to do in my eye and that was to come clean. We could all pretend to be me, but I had no intention of giving her up. Not now I'd had a taste of her. We would have to be men and come to an agreement about it, but my brothers would have to keep their hands off my girl. I wasn't sharing her with anyone, especially not my brothers.

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