Better Off Dead (16 page)

So much for the two of them getting along.

Abbey shot him through with an acid gaze, and then she jumped off the picnic table and landed on the cracked cement of the driveway, just inches from where Seth stood.  His mouth fell open, as did Lucy’s.  Abbey had landed without a slip or a bobble.  Perfect balance—
she must live in those roller blades!

Seth gulped as Abbey looked down on him like an angry punk rock goddess, her hands balled in fists on her hips.  Seth’s eyes bugged out when she smiled.

“Glass houses,” Abbey said in a sing-song voice.

“W-what?” Seth stammered.

“Well, you just called us freaks.”

“He’s just my creepy little br—” Lucy tried to say, but Abbey cut across her.

“You’ve heard that casting stones when you live in a glass house isn’t smart?”

“I’m not a—”

“Freak?” Abbey finished for him.  “Then what are you?”  She rolled forward, making him scamper backwards, tripping over his own feet.

“I’m just…just…”

“Just a kid with a big bad secret?”

Lucy stepped down from her perch on the picnic table and walked toward the two of them.  The look on her brother’s face was bothering her.  He suddenly looked terrified.

“What are you talking about?” he said, his voice cracking.

“You know.  That secret you’ve been praying no one would find out about.  The one you’ve been praying would just go away.”

“You don’t know shit!”  Seth sounded angry now instead of scared.  Lucy was about to tell Abbey to let it go, but then Abbey looked around at the air around Seth’s head like she was reading something only she could see.  The smile that crossed her lips wasn’t pleasant at all.  Her hand came up and she snatched something from the air, her eyes closing as delight radiated all over her face.

“Josh,” Abbey said rapturously.

Seth turned so white the freckles on his cheeks and nose stood out like ink.

Abbey opened her eyes and smiled down at Seth, genuine empathy in her eyes.  “He doesn’t even know, does he?”
             

Seth started shaking his head violently.

“More like he doesn’t even know you exist, right stone-boy?”

Seth looked about to puke when he spun around and ran for the house like he was being chased by a pack of wolves.

When the back door slammed shut behind him, Abbey turned and smiled her beautiful, brilliant smile again.  “Sorry,” she said.  “I just can’t stand people calling me a freak.”

“Yeah,” Lucy said, still looking after Seth with amazement.  “I got that.”

“Funny thing to get bent out of shape about,” Abbey said as she rolled toward the picnic table again.  “Especially when you dress and look like this.”  She flourished her hands around her indicating her ensemble.

Lucy just stood there, still shocked to see her brother looking so afraid, and the actual gist of the conversation Abbey and he had just had. Was Seth gay?

Lucy looked at Abbey and shook her head.  “Are you some sort of psychic or something?”

“Witch, actually.”

“Oh,” She was starting to feel pretty stupid saying that over and over.

“But I didn’t need any magic powers to see through him.”

“Really?” Lucy shook her head again and looked after her brother again.  “
I
had no idea.”

“Sometimes strangers can see things clearer than people close to you.”  Abbey’s expression turned, only for a moment, very sad.  “And he had Josh’s name written on the inside of his palm, with a heart framing it.”

Lucy raised an eyebrow, smiling.  “So, you’re a grifter?”  Lucy had always wanted to use that word in conversation.

Abbey shot her a cocky smile.  “I’ve picked up a lot just watching people at school, on the bus…wherever I am.  One good thing about not having any friends, you get to really pay attention to those around you.”

Lucy sighed.  “Too bad.  Having a witch as a friend could come in handy.”

Abbey set a level gaze at Lucy, the smile drifting from her face.  “You must think I’m crazy.  There can’t really be witches…magic…it’s just too crazy…”
             

“I didn’t say that.”  Lucy plopped back down on the picnic table.  “I’m just saying it’s not stupid or lame to believe in stuff.  I’m sure witches and a ton of other things are actually real…except for the Easter Bunny.”

Abbey snorted.  “And Santa Claus.”  She plopped down on the picnic bench right beside Lucy.  “They’re both just capitalistic propaganda.”

Lucy smiled, remembering back to a certain Christmas present she found under the foot of her bed when she was eight.  A present that no one in the world knew she wanted: a harmonica.  Her mother wrapped everything in glossy paper with sparkly ribbons and bows.  That package was covered in plain red paper, no bows or ribbons.  She’d known immediately that it had come from Santa Clause.

“No.  There really is a Santa Clause.”

Abbey looked at her like
she
was crazy now, and then shook her head.  “Okay, there’s a Santa Clause.”

Lucy smiled. “But definitely no Easter Bunny.  A giant Bunny hiding candy and pastel colored hardboiled eggs around the house.  It’s just too creepy!”

They nodded their heads in agreement.

THOUGH
it had been almost two years since Gabriel walked the scarred wood of the docks, and breathed the salty air of the sea, it still felt like home.  And with hardly a second thought he wound his way through the maze of the marina.  He and his brother had never liked the sanitized country club docks.  It was here in the real world of those who spent their lives on boats that they had found their place.

And with a rush of sadness Gabriel realized his brother was still free—yet he’d left him to be alone.  He’d abandoned him.

He picked out the gleaming red mast of
The Belt-Buckle
.  Micah had thought up the name, and Gabriel had been so drawn into their new, short-lived freedom that he had agreed. 

A forty-foot wooden sailboat called The Belt-Buckle…it still made Gabriel smile.  Mostly because he knew his horn-dog of a younger brother well enough that he knew he used the ship’s name as a pickup line, and that it worked with eerie consistency. 

Gabriel turned the corner and saw the boat for the first time in forever, and the longing for the sea, and for his brother’s company tore at him.  But then he caught sight of his brother, shirtless of course, saying goodbye to his latest conquest. 

A red head—Gabriel remembered Micah had always wanted a redhead—with short cropped, spiky hair, maybe four inches or more shorter than Micah, and built thinner and sleeker than his hulking brother.  The redhead was shirtless also, and his shoulders and arms were speckled with light freckles.

Micah grabbed the redhead and pulled him to him in a startlingly deep, passionate kiss.  That surprised Gabriel.  Usually when the bedroom antics were at an end, his brother wanted mostly to be alone again.  Now he seemed to be begging, with his entire body, for the redhead to stay…or at least to come back soon.

After a good two minutes of blocking out and erasing the memory of his brother’s vigorous use of his tongue, Gabriel finally saw the redhead stagger off the boat and drunkenly make his way down the dock in the opposite direction.  Gabriel and Micah met eyes at the exact same instant, and both shared a rueful smile.

“Well fuck me, if it isn’t the elusive corporate shark!”  Gabriel winced at his brother and Lucy using the exact same words.  “Didn’t think I’d ever see you here again.”

Gabriel walked over to the side of the boat and squinted up into the afternoon sun at his hulking brother.  “So can I come aboard?”

Micah scowled and tilted his head.  “It is your boat too…or did you forget that?”

Gabriel smiled as Micah held out his massive hand to him, yanking Gabriel up onto the deck like he was just some stuffed toy.  Micah gave him a big grizzly-bear hug, then held him at arm’s length for a moment, his eyes happy—
Lucy had been right…he was missing me.  

“I can’t fucking believe you’re here, bro.”  And Micah crushed him to him again. 

Gabriel was having trouble breathing, but he instantly felt the comfort and bond being close to his brother invoked—the feel of him, the smell…the colossally juvenile essence of his brother.

A burning seared the backs of his eyeballs, and he blinked back an unwelcomed wetness.  He wasn’t fooling himself.  He’d missed his brother all too much too.

“Wanna beer?”  Micah chortled when he let Gabriel out of his crushing embrace and gave him a playful, painful swipe in the arm.

“Sure,” Gabriel said, rubbing his now numb arm as he followed his brother to the cabin, where the beers lived.

When Micah opened the fridge Gabriel’s mouth fell open.  There was a whole shelf of food—real food: vegetables, steaks, cheeses and even some fruit—right in the middle of all the frosty bottles of beer.  Gabriel’s jaw dropped. 

Micah didn’t cook, microwave, slice, stir or even make the occasional sandwich.  He ordered out, or ate out.

Micah cleared his throat, and then wrangled two beers from the top shelf.  He closed the door and shoved a beer into Gabriel’s gut, making him wince.  Gabriel was about to say something, something rude and probably about Micah turning into Martha Stewart since he’d moved out, but then he caught sight of what was sitting by the sink in the galley.

A plate rack with a draining board under it.  And in the rack, clean, sparkling dishes.  Gabriel’s eyes bugged out.

“What the hell’s going on?”

Micah took a gulp of his beer and sauntered back toward the deck, ignoring Gabriel’s question. 

“Micah!”  Gabriel followed his brother out onto the deck, but not before he caught a look at Gabriel’s bed—it had been made, not a wrinkle in sight. 

Micah was already standing at the bow of the ship when Gabriel caught up with him.  He was shaking his head and stammering.  Gabriel was about to smack him in the back of the head when Micah said: “I love him.”

The air blew right out of Gabriel’s chest, and he felt his entire body sag.  It was as if Micah was speaking to him in Chinese, and he’d grown an extra head.

Gabriel stood there, shocked and silent, for over a minute.  He didn’t know what to say, and what’s more, he couldn’t force the words out of his mouth.  Finally he said, “The red-head?”

Gabriel Smiled shyly.  “Ian.  Ian Granger.  He’s a doctor and he has a sweet little boat on the other side of the docks.”

“Oh.”  Gabriel tried mulling this over in his head.  His horn-dog, perpetual bachelor brother was in love.  And with a doctor?  Micah wasn’t known for his thinking, so it must be true that opposites attract.

“At least Mom will be happy.  You know, about him being a doctor.”

Micah snorted and took another pull from his beer.

“So, you…cook for him?”

Micah spit out the beer he had in his mouth and turned outraged eyes on his brother.

Gabriel smiled as he pushed that button again.  “I mean, it’s great that you’re the little woman in the relationship.”  He ducked just as Micah threw a punch at his nose.

“Asshole!  Ian does the cooking.”

“Right, right…I’m sure he does the dishes too.”

Micah’s expression didn’t change, but there was a change in his eyes, something minute that anyone but his brother may not have picked up on.  But Gabriel read it like the bluff it was.

“You do the dishes…really?”

“He makes me help.”  Micah’s tone was a little bitter. 

“I like this Ian already.  When are you bringing him to dinner with the family?”  Gabriel sounded cocky, and he knew just the thought of going to a family dinner filled his brother with dread.  That’s why he so seldom attended one.

But there was a smirk on Micah’s lips, and a glint in his eyes.  “About the time you bring your
fiancée
to one.”

Shit, he knows.
  “How did you find out?  And who else knows?”      

“The hyena twins made sure every single person in the family knows about your girl.”

Gabriel closed his eyes and gritted his teeth.  If Sophie and Olivia knew, that meant that his Uncle Remy knew.  He was just looking for a way to bring Gabriel down.  He hoped Dante would be careful not to paint too pristine a picture with the background check.  Nothing like no flaws to make someone look suspicious.

“So what’s she like?”

“Like?”  It hadn’t been the question Gabriel had been expecting from his brother.  Maybe
Is she good in bed
, or
does she have a website on Go-Daddy.com?

“Yeah, bro, what’s this Lucy of yours like?”  He moved in on his brother, getting right in his face with a shit-eating grin plastered on his face.

Gabriel shook his head and turned away from him, suddenly lost in thought.  It wasn’t that she wasn’t great.  He really liked her spunk…no, her moxy.  And her determination and practically preternatural gift for getting what she wanted had earned her a great amount of respect in his book.  But none of that was anything he could say about the woman he was supposed to be in love with.