by Box Set
“Liz and Felicity filled me in. I guess they weren’t exaggerating for once. Come here, Townsey,” Hearst said, putting his arm under my shoulders and pulling me up against his chest. “You need some cuddles.”
As usual, I couldn’t help smiling at my friend saying cuddles. He was such the bad boy. Hard, cold, aloof. Felicity and Liz never saw this side of him. Only I knew the truth, that he was the kindest, gentlest soul on the planet. I snuggled into his chest. “You gonna tell me what happened with your parents?”
“Not yet,” he said. “You need this.”
I knew he needed it as much as I did, but I didn’t argue. The tension in my neck and shoulders eased and I drifted off to sleep.
* * *
“I thought my weekend couldn’t get any worse. Townsey, tell me my weekend didn’t just get worse.” My brother’s voice barely penetrated the fog of my sleep.
“Towns!” He snapped. “Wake up!”
I opened my eyes to find my brother’s graffiti-covered face a few inches from me. “Graham!” I squealed. “What are you doing?”
He backed away and stood with his arms crossed.
I tried to roll away from him, but a large, hard lump blocked my way. I reached down and found Hearst’s arm and wrist, with his spiked leather cuff, slung over my hip. I tossed his arm off of me and sat up.
“Hearst!” I said. Now my brother’s irritated expression was starting to make sense. Somehow, during our nap, I’d ended up with my friend spooning me.
“Townsey, what’s going on here exactly? You aren’t dating, or talking, or whatever you guys call it these days, are you?”
Wow. He was doing a better version of protective father than our Dad ever had.
I held my hands out in front of me. “You know we’re just friends. Geez, Graham. Relax. You just got out of the hospital.”
The bed lurched as Hearst scrambled off the other side.
“Man,” Hearst said. “What’s going on?”
I started to speak, but Graham stopped me.
“Hush, Townsey,” my brother said. He turned his full focus to Hearst.
I glanced behind me as my friend blanched under Graham’s glare.
“Gra—” I started.
“I want to hear it from him,” my brother said. He pointed at Hearst. “You. You tell me if you and my sister are more than friends.”
“No way,” Hearst said, shaking his head. “I promise you. We are friends. That’s it.”
“That’s it?” Graham asked.
“Well, no actually.” He ran his hand through his hair and glanced around as if searching for an escape. “She’s my best friend. Really the only friend I’ve ever had.”
My heart melted a little as he shared something so personal with Graham.
I turned to my brother. He frowned and then raised a brow. “So you only see her as a friend. You don’t want anything else from her?”
“Graham,” I snapped. “Seriously. Enough already.”
“Let him answer, Townsey,” my brother said.
I knew what he was going to say. That we were friends and that we’d never be more than friends. I knew it, but I didn’t really want to hear it.
“Actually, with all due respect, Graham,” Hearst said, “I’m not going to answer your question.”
I turned around in horror. My brother barely tolerated him as it was.
“You see I’m pretty sure the only answers you want to hear are that I wouldn’t touch her with a ten-foot pole, or that I think she has cooties, or that she’s like a sister to me. I’m not going to say any of those things because they aren’t true. I can tell you, with all sincerity, that Townsey and I are nothing more than friends. You can trust us.”
Wait. What? He’d either said a whole lot of nothing with as many words as possible or he’d said something sweet. My head was spinning too fast to figure out which.
My brother held Hearst’s gaze. “Then I can be assured you’ll come to me if your intentions change?”
With a gulp at the tension in the room, I looked back at Hearst.
“Yes,” he said. “You have my word.”
Was this really happening?
They stared, or maybe glared, at each other for a few minutes.
Finally my brother spoke. “Your parents must be missing you by now. Maybe you should get on home.”
My friend didn’t even flinch, but I did. Graham had no idea how bad Hearst’s home life was. I hadn’t exactly shared that he was always alone at home. I didn’t want my brother to forbid me from going over there. I spent a lot of time in the summers swimming in Hearst’s pool.
“Yeah,” Hearst said now. “I should get going.”
Chapter 3
After I walked Hearst out, I went back to my room to avoid my brother for as long as possible. The smell of food finally lured me from my room.
Graham was cooking some eggs when I went into the kitchen. I grabbed a sports drink and took a sip. “Your face looks better,” I said. “How long did that take?”
He sighed and turned off the burner. “Forever. Do you mind trying for a while?”
I reached up and touched his cheek. I recoiled at the rough feel of it. “Your skin is really dry from all the chemicals. Maybe you should just wait.”
“I shouldn’t have shaved my beard,” he said. “There would have been less skin for them to work with.”
I grimaced. He was probably right. I looked more closely at his cheeks and chin. “How fast will your beard grow back? Maybe we can leave the parts that will be covered. I don’t want to poison you with nail polish remover.”
My brother closed his eyes for a moment. Then he opened them and looked at me. “I am trying not to go back over there and tase every last one of them until they wet themselves.”
I grinned up at him, glad to finally have some good news. “I took down two of them for you.”
He laughed. “Of course you did.”
“I had to. They needed some convincing to help us carry you out to the car.”
“Tell me you got the president of the frat. He was wearing a t-shirt that said, er, something really crude.”
“What did it say?” I asked. I didn’t remember anything. I hadn’t had time to read any t-shirts.
“Words I will never say to anyone, especially my sister.” He thought for a moment. “He had hair that was short on the sides and puffier on top, and it was highlighted.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know, Graham. I was pretty focused on getting you and getting out. I just tased the first two who started to be trouble.”
“That’s okay. It will be enough to get him arrested and expelled from the university.” He got two plates from the overhead cabinet and scooped some eggs onto each. Then he reached over and pushed the lever on the toaster.
I wasn’t sure I believed him. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that my brother found another way to get some revenge. Like freezing the guy’s bank accounts or adding some undesirable diagnoses to his health records. My brother was a good guy, but nobody was perfect. And the truth was… the creep deserved it.
“I don’t want to poison myself or rot my skin,” he said. “Maybe just help with the Narc on my forehead, and I’ll leave the rest for now.”
“Good plan,” I said. “We don’t want the clients thinking you’ve turned into a zombie if your skin starts rotting off.”
“They wouldn’t.” He stopped for a moment, and then admitted, “Okay, some of them would.”
Some of our clients were entirely normal. Others, well, the unstable personality types had their own reasons for investigating people. My father had always tried to screen those out, and Graham tried as well, but once in a while, somebody sneaked past us. The people we investigated could be dangerous, but we had to be leery of the people we worked for as well.
The toast popped up and he put a piece on each plate.
I grabbed two forks out of the drawer and handed him one. “Thanks for breakfast,” I said.
“Whatever. I’m starving, so thanks.” I took my plate over to the island and climbed onto a stool.
My brother sat down at the end and reached for the butter. He liberally buttered his toast, and then took a bite.
I piled my eggs onto the toast and folded it in half.
“You’re so weird,” he said.
“Next time I’m putting ketchup on my eggs,” I threatened.
“Please don’t. I don’t think I could watch that.”
“Hearst does it.”
“No surprise there. Hearse likes his gore.”
I shouldn’t have brought him up. Now I’d opened the door for more questions. He’d start expounding on his theory that Hearst was going to be a serial killer when he grew up. Or worse, he’d grill me about our friendship. I couldn’t believe I’d fallen asleep all cuddled up in his warmth. It was kind of nice.
“You’re blushing.”
Darn it. “No, I’m not.” I so totally was. But admitting it wouldn’t help.
“Townsey, do you like Hearse? Like him like him, I mean.”
My poor brother with his graffiti-covered face.
I made eye contact with him and held steady. “I really don’t. I promise.”
“Why are you blushing then?”
Think. Think. “It’s embarrassing to talk about this stuff with my brother.”
His eyes narrowed.
He wasn’t quite buying it.
“Because I’ve only had one boyfriend ever, and you’re…” Then the lightbulb came on in my head. “You’re kind of a player, Graham. It’s just weird.”
He frowned, and concern replaced the flicker of doubt in his eyes. “I’m not… a player, Towns. You don’t really believe that do you?”
Score one for distracting my bro. “You’ve had a lot of girlfriends,” I said.
“I’m a lot older than you,” he said. “And there haven’t been that many. I’ve gone out on dates, but that’s not a big deal. It doesn’t make me a player.” He shook his head. “Calling me a player suggests that I’m a heartless user who dates lots of women. I’m a good guy. I’m not some kind of player.”
Distraction accomplished.
“Sure. Whatever you say. I didn’t mean to insult you.”
Graham opened his mouth to say something else, and I decided to head him off at the pass. I stood. “Where’s the nail polish remover? We should get that mess off your forehead.”
He reached up to touch his forehead. “Definitely. I left it in my bathroom.” He started to push back his stool.
“I’ll get it,” I said “Be right back.”
My brother’s room was on the opposite side of the loft from mine. There was also a third bedroom next to his. We used it for storage.
As I walked into his room, I realized he didn’t have a single thing up on his walls. The room was depressing with his dark comforter and the brick covering two walls. I thought back to his room in our house. Growing up, he’d had posters on his walls. When he moved back though, after Dad first got sick, he had taken them all down. What did men put on their bedroom walls? I had no idea, but he needed something.
His room was fairly neat. The bed wasn’t made, but he didn’t have stuff thrown everywhere like Hearst did in his room. Once I’d stepped on a spiked belt on Hearst’s floor and limped for a week. My brother’s bathroom had most of the mess. He had a pile of dirty clothes by the counter. I spotted the nail polish remover and grabbed it.
The bottle of antacids gave me pause. My poor stressed-out brother. But the bottle next to that caught my attention and drew me in. The small prescription bottle practically screamed for me to pick it up. To snoop further. To read the label. I didn’t want to violate his privacy. I didn’t. I really had no choice. My first thought was that he could be sick of course. I had lost my dad to cancer. But if he were sick, he would have more than one prescription bottle. He would be taking three medicines. Or four. My father had been taking eight by the time he passed away.
The other possibility worried me too. The most likely reason for Graham taking medicine and not telling me.
I picked up the bottle, praying it wouldn’t be some fancy drug for erectile dysfunction, something I could never un-see and never ever wanted to know about.
I’d heard the name before. On a commercial even. But this one didn’t feature a middle-aged couple looking all lovey-dovey. This one showed some people who looked happy but talked about a time when they weren’t. This medicine was an antidepressant.
For a normal person, this wouldn’t be a big deal. People got depressed. They got treatment. They felt better. No stigma. No problem.
My brother wasn’t a normal person. Even though as far as I knew, he’d never struggled with depression in the past. The issue wasn’t my brother. The issue was my mother. My mother had left us when I was four. She’d committed suicide less than a year later.
I pushed down the rush of pain and nausea that hit whenever I thought about my mother’s death.
The important thing right now was the statistics. Children whose parent committed suicide were three times more likely to die the same way. Studies also indicated that the risks increased if the parent was the mother and if the children were under eighteen at the time. And there was a gender component. Technically, I was at higher risk than Graham.
My brother and I had talked about depression. With Dad and with just the two of us. We had both gone to a counselor for six months after Dad died. We had promised each other that we would get help if things got bad, and we promised to be honest with each other. To communicate. Graham had broken his promise by hiding this from me. Taking the medicine, getting help, that was all good. Failing to share with me… not good.
I was still holding the bottle, staring down at the label, when my brother cleared his throat behind me. I looked up and caught his gaze in the large mirror over the counter.
“I’m sorry. I should have told you.” He took a step forward and placed his hand on my shoulder. “Please don’t be mad. Or worried. I went to the doctor a few months back. I was feeling a little down. They diagnosed me with adjustment disorder. The medicine is helping.”
“Months?” He’d been taking this for months? “Where was I that I didn’t notice?”
Graham gave my shoulder a squeeze. “You were starting your junior year. You were doing exactly what you needed to do.”
“You broke your promise to me.”
He wrapped his arms around my waist and bent down to rest his chin on my shoulder. “I’m sorry, sweetie. I’ll do better.”
I nodded. “You promise that you are feeling better?”
“I am. I promise.”
I couldn’t handle the intensity of the conversation or the depths of my worry for my brother. I needed an out. I needed to buy time to process my panic and my fear. I swiped at the tear that ran down my cheek. “Okay,” I said. “Let’s get that junk off your face.”
* * *
An hour later, my brother stood in front of the same mirror, frowning. “How am I going to work tomorrow? I was supposed to keep an eye on a possibly errant spouse while she ate at Naples allegedly with ‘the girls.’”
Air quotes might have been passé to the rest of the world, but they were often essential for clear communication in the PI world. At least, they were for our family.
I had an idea, but I wasn’t sure he was going to like it. “I have some makeup I could use on you.”
My brother closed his eyes as if summoning patience. “Fine,” he said. “Let’s see if it covers permanent black marker.”
I went to my room for the sample of the Kat Von D Lock It Foundation and returned. “It’s designed to cover tattoos,” I said. “It should work.”
My brother narrowed his eyes. “Why do you have it?”
I smiled at him. “I don’t have a tattoo. I haven’t decided which tattoo I want to get. I don’t plan on g
etting one any time soon.”
“Then why do you have it?”
I shrugged. “I like samples.”
He frowned.
“You know, I don’t use foundation all that much. I can probably put in on you, but Felicity would be much better at it.”
Graham’s face twisted into a scowl. “Over my dead body.”
With a laugh, I said, “Scared of a high school junior?”
“Terrified,” he admitted. “The last thing I want is to have her all up in my face like that.” He moved toward the couch.
“Not there. I think it would be better if you were upright. Why don’t you sit here?” I pulled out a stool and turned it to face me. “This might work.”
He sat down and sighed. “I can’t believe I’m going to have to wear makeup.”
“You’ve worn disguises before. It’s not that different.”
“It is different. It’s just makeup to make me look better.”
“Not better,” I said, opening the small pack. “Just more normal.”
“Stupid frat house,” he grumbled.
“You probably saved a lot of girls from getting hurt by going in there.”
I put a large dot on his forehead, nose, chin and each cheek. “I think the color will work.”
The prickly hairs on his chin poked at my fingers. “You’ll have to shave though for it to look right. Otherwise, the stubble will get coated with makeup.”
“I want my beard back,” he said. “I don’t want to shave.”
“Suck it up, brother. You have to shave tomorrow. After that, maybe you can stop.”
Graham’s skin tone was darker than mine, but the beard had kept his skin out of the sunlight. As I blended the makeup, the results weren’t too bad. I stepped back to take a look.
“I don’t have a big line along my chin, do I? I don’t want to look like I’m wearing makeup.”
I laughed. “Geez, Graham. Who knew you’d be such a diva?”