Page 9 of Best Friend Burden

And they were hot. Also, I knew myself and my style of cooking. If I wasn't careful, I was going to stain them. So I took them off until I was down to my skivvies and threw them on the couch, figuring I'd worry about hanging them so they didn't wrinkle later.

This is what I meant about me being in “the zone.” If I had even a single brain cell not fixated on the task at hand, I might have remembered that I was not in my own kitchen. In fact, I was in the kitchen of an old friend with my coot hanging out. And I was dancing like an idiot to music so loud that I practically made myself deaf in one ear.

It was then that I dropped the spatula on the floor and leaned over to pick it up, while I was twerking my butt so hard along with the alt-country sounds pumped straight into my ears. I did a little shimmy backwards, pretty impressive moves if I do say so myself, into what I assumed was the wall.

It was not the wall.

In fact, I was one thousand percent grinding my pantied-ass right up against the crotch of the man who I had not seen since high school — the guy I’d once called my best friend — and who had been so kind as to let me stay with him.

The second I understood what was going on, I bolted forward and pulled one of the earbuds out, slipping forward and putting my hands forward just in time to stop the fall, watching the earbud fly out of my hand and below the counter. But I hadn’t hurt myself, so I allowed myself a half second to breathe a sigh of relief before realizing I had my ass right up in the air downward doggin’ it and basically presenting myself to him. I let the rest of my body relax and flopped flat against the floor.

“What the hell have you done to my kitchen?!” he yelled. It was impossible to tell if he was screaming only because he was furious or if he'd been yelling for some time and this was the first time I'd heard him.

“Oh, it's not so bad,” I said, but as I did so, I looked around.

He was right to be angry. It was an absolute disaster in there.

Me and my queso covered unmentionables could’ve crawled into a hole and died.

CHAPTER4

***KIEFER***

As I was driving home, my phone rang. I glanced over, assuming it was going to be spam or a telemarketer or something about renewing the warranty on my car, but it wasn’t. There is almost nobody on the planet who I will actually answer my phone for. My brother, Jackson, is the exception. For one thing, it's possible it could be important (though it almost never is), but for another, it always felt like my obligation as his older brother to be there for him no matter what.

And that’s who was calling. I answered right away.

“What's up?” I asked.

It was noisy on his end, like he was driving or something, but he spoke loud enough that I could still mostly get what he was saying. “Not much,” he said, “do you have a minute?”

Jackson was usually the one who didn’t have a minute to talk. With his day job handling contract law, he was constantly drowning in piles and piles of papers that needed initials, signatures, and dates, along with amendments and edits. It all sounded tremendously tedious to me, but it paid the bills for him and allowed him to be self-sufficient to lead his wild life, jumping from one relationship to the next. It was the kind of dream that every twelve year old boy had, but most men grew out of by the time they reached their early to mid-20s. Jackson was 28.

“I’m stuck on the 10,” I told him, holding the phone closer to my ear to drown out the sound of the traffic and honking. “I have all the time in the world.”

I could have predicted the next four words. In fact, I did. I mouthed them as he said them.

“I need a favor.”

Of course he did. Why else would he be calling? Just to shoot the shit with his older brother? Nah, that's what texting was for. A phone call meant he needed something.

"Okay,” I said, making sure to stay as neutral as possible lest I commit to something I didn't want to actually do. Eventually, I was sure I'd end up doing the thing because that's who I was to him, but I wanted to wait to hear what it was first.

“So I'm seeing this new girl.”

It took all the energy in the world not to let out an audible groan, but I rolled my eyes so hard that he might have heard it. There's always a new girl. Jackson could never commit. He always fell hard head over heels and then got bored in a month or so. It's not the way I worked, but it was his journey, and I tried not to judge. At least not too much.

“And she wants to break into the music business.”

“She a singer?”

“Yeah,” Jackson said. They were all singers. And none of them could hit a note to save their lives. But even if they could, auto-tune leveled the playing field.

“Does she play an instrument?” They almost never did. Or if they did, it was a ukulele and maybe some open chords on an acoustic guitar.

“Yeah.”

“Which instruments does she play?” I asked.

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