Billion Dollar Man

by Ali Parker

  It wasn’t that I wasn’t able to do my duties or take care of my patients, but still, feeling like death-warmed-over wasn’t great when I needed to be sharp and ready to save lives.

  I had to stop drinking so much. It wasn’t that I had a reason to drown myself in alcohol – every time I had gotten so drunk it was because I was out with Ben and having a good time. It was more like I was relaxed and able to let go of all the pressure at work completely when I was around Ben. I had never been able to do that before, which was saying something. When I was with Ben, I felt like I could just be calm.

  Now, all I had to do was be relaxed and let go without so much alcohol in my system. The only time I had done that with Ben, without drinking myself into a stupor, we had fucked. Not a bad alternative, I had to admit.

  I left the hospital at seven in the evening and drove home. I wanted a warm meal, a hot shower, and my bed to sleep off the last of my hangover. When I walked to the front door of my building, Jerrod was waiting for me on the steps.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “I wanted to talk to you.”

  “You’re waiting outside like an idiot. Why didn’t you just call? What if I worked a double?”

  Jerrod merely shrugged. I shook my head and unlocked the door, letting Jerrod in, too. He followed me to my floor and then into my apartment when I opened the door. I closed the door behind him, but Jerrod didn’t walk to the living room and plop down on the couch the way he usually did. He stood between the living room and the kitchen instead, looking unsure of himself.

  “What’s on your mind?” I asked when Jerrod still stood in the middle of the apartment after I’d gotten rid of my coat and bag. I was starting to get nervous. It wasn’t strange for Jerrod to come over uninvited, but he was acting differently. I worried that maybe this was about Ben. But that couldn’t be, could it? We’d been careful. Except for last night, of course. Maybe we hadn’t been so good at hiding what was going on when we were drinking so much.

  Shit.

  I was suddenly panicked.

  “Do you want something to drink? Coffee? I don’t have a beer to offer you.”

  “I’m fine,” Jerrod said tightly.

  “Let’s sit down,” I said. “We’re standing in the middle of nowhere.”

  Jerrod nodded and followed me to the living room, but he stayed standing when I sat down on the couch.

  “Don’t you want to sit down?” I asked. He was being weird, and I was officially freaked out.

  “Are you seeing Ben?” Jerrod blurted out.

  It was about Ben. We’d really fucked up last night, hadn’t we?

  “What are you talking about? I see him whenever we go out.”

  Jerrod made a face. He was pissed off. “Don’t act dumb, Mila. It doesn’t suit you. You know what I mean.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Come on. It’s plain as day. You’re practically swooning over the guy when I just speak his name. Don’t bullshit me.”

  “If you’re so sure about the truth, then why are you here, asking me?” I asked. I was upset. It was easier than being freaked out about where the conversation was going, which was the only other option. Jerrod knew, and I felt like I was pushed into a corner. I hadn’t expected this, and I wasn’t ready. He had caught me off guard.

  Which had been his plan because he hadn’t let me know he was coming. There had been a reason for that. I should have known.

  “I’m asking you because I want you to be honest with me and tell me what’s going on. Do you think I like finding this shit out without you or Ben saying anything to me? Ben is my best friend, for fuck’s sake. And you’re my sister. And you’ve both made a fool out of me.”

  I shook my head. I was going to keep denying it. But Jerrod gave me a look that pulled me up short. It was a combination between anger that we hadn’t told him and sorrow. It was the latter that got me.

  So, instead of denying it, I nodded.

  “I’m in love with him.”

  Jerrod made a disgusted face. “I knew it.”

  “And he feels the same about me,” I carried on. “We tried not to let this happen. God knows, we did. But we can’t help how we feel.”

  “You have to stop this,” Jerrod said. He was angry. It only made me angry, too.

  “And who are you to tell me what to do?” I asked, my fury matching Jerrod’s. “I’m old enough to make my own choices. I’ll do whatever the hell I want.”

  “Yeah, evidently so. And you’ll lie about it.”

  “We lied about it because we were sure you were going to react like this.”

  Jerrod rolled his eyes. His fists were clenched, and he leaned forward a little as if he was going to strike. I stood up so that I could match him in our fight. It wouldn’t be physical, but I wasn’t going to take this sitting down.

  “Stop saying ‘we’ like you’re one entity,” he spat. “Yeah, I’m pissed off. And I have every right to be. This is fucking ridiculous. I can’t believe you would fuck me over like that.”

  He was starting to swear. It was an indication of how angry my brother was. The more he swore, the angrier he was.

  “I thought we were close,” Jerrod said.

  “We are.”

  “No, we’re not. If we were, you would have talked to me about what was going on. Instead, you snuck around behind my back, and you’re dating my best friend. It’s disgusting.”

  We had been wrong, and Jerrod had every right to be upset. But he had come to me without warning, and he was challenging me in my own home. Naturally, my temper was going to rise to match his, and there was no way we were going to be able to talk about this like adults.

  Jerrod walked to the couch opposite me and sank down into the cushions. Finally, I sat down, too. It was as if the anger had left Jerrod and now he was deflated.

  “This is so fucked up,” Jerrod said, and instead of sounding angry, Jerrod only sounded tired. There was nothing I could say to that. He was right. It was fucked up.

  “What made you think we’re together in the first place?” I asked.

  Jerrod sat back and scrubbed his hands over his face. He tipped his head backward, his eyes closed for a second. When he looked at me again, his eyes were vacant. He had switched off. Jerrod did that when he was past being pissed off.

  “At the bar last night, I looked for you to see why you guys were taking so long. You two were all over each other as if it was all perfectly fine and you didn’t care who saw you. After Ben was here on your couch, I put two and two together.”

  My brother wasn’t stupid. I should have known he would be hard to fool. Ben and I had assumed he was an idiot, and that was on us. We should have been a lot more careful.

  “Are you sleeping with him?” Jerrod asked.

  I was shocked that he would ask something so straightforward.

  “That’s none of your business,” I said.

  “Just like you dating him is none of my business,” Jerrod said sarcastically.

  The calm was over. I was angry again.

  “Just because we did something wrong and you found out doesn’t give you the right to demand answers about things that don’t concern you.”

  Jerrod was calm this time, despite my rising anger.

  “You realize the more you get upset about me asking, the more you only show me that it’s true.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t need to sit here and be judged by you. I’m an adult, and I am perfectly capable of making my own choices. I’m sorry we didn’t tell you. That was probably wrong, and you have a right to be upset about that. But that’s it. The rest of my life is not your concern.”

  Jerrod sat across from me, looking at me with those lifeless eyes. I was too angry now to worry about it. Later, I knew I would panic that he was looking at me that way. Jerrod had a way of shutting people out of his life when they hurt him too much and he usually got that look. But right now, I was furious that he was treating me
as if I was still a teenager and he had to run my life for me.

  “Get out,” I said.

  “You lie to me and date my best friend behind my back, and you’re the one with the nerve to kick me out?” he asked.

  “I. Said. Leave.”

  I pointed at the door. Jerrod stood and pulled up his shoulders as if he didn’t give a shit that I was booting him out the door. Either he really didn’t care, which was bad news for our relationship, or he pretended that he didn’t care so that I wouldn’t see how much I was hurting him. Either way, I needed him gone. I wasn’t able to do damage control, so this was the next best thing.

  When Jerrod left, I sagged against the front door as soon as I closed it. All the fight had gone out of me, and I felt like crying. We were in so much shit. I had gone from deliriously happy to panicked and upset in such a short time.

  I had to warn Ben. No doubt, Jerrod would go to him, too. Ben would have called me if Jerrod had gone to him, first.

  I dialed Ben’s number.

  “Hello, beautiful,” he answered. I didn’t feel butterflies the way I usually did when he called me that.

  “Jerrod knows,” I said.

  “What? Are you sure?”

  “He was just here, letting me have it for not being honest with him. He’ll come to you, too. I know he will.”

  Ben was silent.

  “Ben?”

  “I’ll be ready for him.”

  “What are we going to do?” I asked, and my voice quivered with tears. I was on the verge of crying, and I didn’t know how to pull it together.

  “We’re going to stand for what’s important to us,” Ben said. “And we’re going to get through this together.”

  “What if you lose your friendship over this?” I asked.

  “We’ll cross that bridge when we get there,” Ben said.

  How was he so calm and reassuring about this? Wasn’t he worried that his friendship was ruined? They had been friends for so long they were practically brothers. And we had potentially screwed that up.

  “I’m sorry,” I said in a thin voice.

  “Don’t be sorry, sweetheart,” Ben said. “We’ll get through this.”

  Ben was being very sweet and reassuring, but I knew my brother. I knew Ben knew him, too. This wasn’t just going to go away. Maybe we would get through this, but I couldn’t see how we wouldn’t lose my brother if we stayed together.

  Either we would lose Jerrod, or we would lose each other.

  Chapter 36

  Ben

  I had expected to hear from Jerrod the moment Mila had let me know he’d been to her place to confront her about our relationship. I couldn’t believe it had come to this. I had been an idiot to think that our being together wouldn’t come out somehow.

  I had no doubt that it was our stupidity at the bar. We had been flaunting it, all over each other. And Jerrod had been so different when Mila and I had come back from the bar. I had thought it was because he was drunk, but I knew Jerrod almost as well as I knew myself. I knew what he was like when he was drunk, and that hadn’t been it.

  The only reason I hadn’t realized something was up right away was because I had been arrogant enough to think that just because we wanted it to be a secret, no one would find out, no matter what we did.

  We had been fools.

  Jerrod had already confronted Mila, and I was upset that I hadn’t been there to protect her. No doubt, Jerrod had not been pleasant with her. Jerrod had a short temper on a good day, and he was serious about what he thought was right and wrong. Jerrod was all black or white. There were no gray areas for him, and a relationship between his best friend and little sister wasn’t going to fall into a category that worked for all of us.

  Mila had been an emotional mess when she’d phoned me.

  Jerrod hadn’t called me or come to see me. Yet.

  On Monday afternoon, I got the call. The moment Jerrod’s name flashed on my caller ID, I knew it was coming.

  “Can we talk?” Jerrod asked.

  “Just tell me where.”

  Jerrod didn’t want me to come to his place, which was understandable. I was still staying with my mom, so coming to me wasn’t possible, either. We ended meeting in a nearby park.

  When I arrived, Jerrod was already sitting on a park bench. He rested his elbows on his thighs, back rounded, looking out over the park without really seeing anything.

  “Hey, man,” I said. I held my hand out, but Jerrod didn’t take it.

  So, this was how it was going to be.

  I sat down next to Jerrod, but we sat so far apart there was space for another person between us.

  “Do you want to tell me what’s going on, or should I confront you and drag it out of you the way I had to do with my sister?” Jerrod asked.

  I sighed. “I don’t want to fight with you.”

  “You should have thought about that when you decided to fuck her behind my back.”

  “Hey now,” I said, pissed off immediately that he was talking about her that way. “I didn’t fuck her behind your back.”

  Jerrod glared at me. “You want to tell me you haven’t slept with her?”

  I shook my head. “I like her, man. I can’t deny it. But I didn’t sleep with her.”

  Jerrod barked a laugh. “You’re just as bad as she is. You both seem to think I’m fucking stupid. Do you think I don’t see what’s really going on? You guys were way too fucking close at the bar for your relationship to be only emotional. There’s a hell of a lot of physical going on, there.”

  “Seriously? If you’re so sure, why are you asking?”

  Jerrod laughed again. This time, it was bitter.

  “You use exactly the same lines she uses,” he said. “I wish you could both hear how pathetic you sound, trying to answer a question with a question like I can’t tell you’re just avoiding telling me the truth.”

  I had forgotten what Jerrod was like when he was pissed off. I had seen him angry many times growing up. And we’d had our differences; we’d fought it out often enough. But it had never been this serious. He’d never turned his anger on me the way he was doing, now.

  “I asked her if you were sleeping together,” Jerrod said.

  My stomach dropped. What had Mila said to him?

  “It was written all over her face,” he continued. He turned his brown eyes to me. They had always looked a lot like Mila’s, but today it was like looking at someone completely unrelated. Jerrod had already distanced himself from me. “How can you do this to me?”

  Mila hadn’t told Jerrod, then. I was relieved. I should have believed that she wouldn’t tell Jerrod, though. But this was such a strange situation. I had no idea how to handle it. I had been ready for Jerrod to come to see me and I still felt out of my depth.

  “Why is this such a big deal?” I asked. “Why can’t I be with your sister?”

  “Because she’s my sister, Ben. What happened to the fucking bro code? Besides, you’re a hell of a lot older than she is, and I know what you’re like. You’ve told me about every piece of ass you’ve had while you were away living the life in New York. You’re just here to take advantage of her.”

  I had felt bad until now, but I was suddenly pissed off. All the apologies I had started preparing in my mind flew out of the window.

  “That’s not fair,” I said. “If you finally find someone you love, are we going to assume that you’re only there to fuck her like you fucked all the others? It’s not the same thing with Mila.”

  “She’s my baby sister, Ben. How can you think I’m going to let you do this?”

  I shook my head. “You’re not letting me do anything. And you’re not going to let her do anything, either. We’re both adults, and we can make our own decisions. She’s your little sister, but she’s far from being a baby. She’s twenty-five. Or did you forget she’s not in high school anymore?”

  “Would it have made a difference to you?” Jerrod asked.

  “Fuck you, man,�
� I said. “You know this has nothing to do with her age. I know you’re pissed off, but you don’t have to be such a dick about.”

  Jerrod’s arm shot out, closing the gap between us as he grabbed me by the shirt. He pulled me closer. If it weren’t for the space between us, he would have been right in my face.

  “It’s my sister, Ben.”

  “I know,” I said. I wasn’t going to lose my shit. I didn’t want us to come to blows. We had fought before, but it had never been a full-on fight. This time, we wouldn’t stop. If it came to blows now, we would fight until one of us put the other down. I didn’t want to do that to my best friend.

  When I didn’t respond with the same aggression, Jerrod let go of my shirt. His anger faded a little.

  “Do you love her?” he asked in a quiet voice.

  I nodded. I didn’t even have to think about it.

  “I do.”

  Jerrod glanced at me. He looked like he wanted to say something but decided against it. I waited for him to speak. We sat together in silence for what felt like the longest time. I wished I could ask him what he was thinking about. I wanted to talk this through. But Jerrod would say what he needed to say when he was ready to say it.

  “I don’t think I can talk to either of you,” Jerrod finally said.

  It was the last thing I had expected.

  “Jerrod,” I started, but Jerrod shook his head.

  “I can’t even look at you,” he said and stood up. He walked away from me without letting me say another word.

  I could have run after him. I could have called him back. I could have begged him for a chance to explain how this had happened, how I felt about her, how fighting it hadn’t worked for us. There was so much that was still left to be said, and I could have apologized.

  But that wasn’t going to happen. I stayed right where I was on the bench, thinking it might be best to let Jerrod think about things and calm down, first. I didn’t know how long I stayed on that park bench after Jerrod had left. When I finally got home, my mom had just returned from the store, and I helped her carry the groceries into the house.