Chapter 4 Four

Julia

He leads me through Mrs. Cooper's yard and for some stupid, inexplicable reason I feel like I'm being bad. I tell myself that it's because we're not supposed to do this. Cut through her yard. She hates it. And if she saw us, she'd open a window, shake her fist, and complain that the neighborhood was going to hell.

I laugh out loud.

"What's funny?" Trent asks, swiping a stray branch from the old apple tree aside so I can slip through the low hedge that surrounds the back edge of the property and leads to the back alley behind the Jeep shop.

Safely on the other side, I feel a wave of relief. Some leftover emotion from twenty-five years ago. "Mrs. Cooper would kill us if she caught us."

"Oh," Trent says. "You don't know?"

"Know what?"

"She died a couple of years back. Paul and Billie Freeman live here now."

"Oh," I say, stopping in my tracks. For some reason, this hits me hard. Maybe because I didn't know and I should've. Should've shown up for her funeral, at least. Or maybe because it's a symptom of why I'm standing here in this alley with Trent, on my way to his apartment, when I should be at my parents' house celebrating my twin brother's life.

"What's wrong?" Trent asks.

"I dunno," I say, letting go of his hand and turning my back to him. "Maybe we shouldn't do this?"

"What are we doing?" he asks.

I turn back to him and shrug. "What are we doing?"

"Hmm," he says, rubbing his jaw with his hand. He does that a lot. It's something I like about him. And usually there's some stubble there so there's a very faint, very soft, scratching noise.

But not tonight.

"We could get drunk," he offers. "We could get shit-faced drunk and talk about old times." He pauses for a moment, then adds, "Have we ever gotten drunk together?"

I shake my head. "No," I say. "Eric... you know."

Eric would never let me get drunk in front of him. In fact, after we graduated high school and went our separate ways, it was never the same again. It was never the three of us anymore. It was those two, and then me, off to the side.

"Yeah. OK. You want me to drive you home?" he asks. Smiling, but for the first time I can ever remember, there are no teeth. Not a real smile.

"Yeah," I say. "That's probably a good idea."

He nods. He understands. Then sighs and looks at my shoes in my hand. "You should put those on. Lots of stones in the alley."

I look down at them too, then back at him. I shrug. "How about another ride?" I say. "For old times' sake?"

He says, "Hmmm," because he knows damn well that he was never the one to carry me on his back. Eric was. "Yeah, why not."

He turns his back to me and I jump on, laughing again. The sad memories fade a little.

I feel guilty about that, but you know what? Eric should feel guilty too. For liking that stupid rock crawling. For making a mistake. For getting crushed to death by a goddamned Jeep.

See, Eric? I say silently. This is what you get for leaving me.

Because in those few moments, it takes to walk down the alley to the back door of Hill Top Custom Jeeps, I change my mind again. Because if I get in Trent's car and let him drop me off at mine, I will probably go back to the city and never see him again. It's a stupid idea because I'll come home for holidays and stuff and Trent's parents live right across the greenspace from mine. But I'll never really have another reason to see Trent again. I'll never be able to stop by the shop and steal secret glances at him while pretending to be there to talk to Eric. Not that I've done that over the years, but it was always a possibility and now it's not.

"You know what?" I say once Trent sets me down so he can find his keys.

"What?" he says, only half listening as he sticks the key in the lock and opens the door.

"I changed my mind. I would like to get drunk."

This time the smile does have teeth. And maybe in more ways than one. "Yeah?" he asks. And I feel like this has been our conversation the whole night. Feeling things, then forgetting things, then feeling things again. Not really certain we know what we're doing, but then again, not really caring.

I nod anyway. "Yup," I say, so we can change the dialog from uncertainty to certainty. "Get me good and drunk, Trent Turner. Because tonight, of all nights, I need it."

I need you too, I don't add. Because that feels like crossing a line and I'm not ready to go there.

Yet.

"I can't think of a single fucking thing I'd rather do right now, Julia Anderson. Now be careful, this place is a fucking mess."

And then he takes my hand and doesn't turn on the lights. Just leads me through the shop, pretending to carefully pick his way around massive tool chests, and Jeeps up on lifts, and all that other stuff that comes with a garage like this.

But there's a part of me that knows better. Knows that this place is spotless and he knows it just as well in the dark as he does in the light. That he just wants to keep hold of my hand and lead me.

Of course, I don't say any of that. Because that's what I want too.

His apartment is on the second floor and to get to it you have to go down a long hallway away from the garage. If we'd come to the shop from the front we'd have entered through a separate entrance on the outside. But we didn't.

He stops at the stairs and says, "You go first. That way if you fall I can catch you."

I huff out a laugh. Because I'm quite capable of walking up steps. But then I realize two things.

One. I've never been up here before. And two. The steps are steep. Like whoever built them did so a hundred years ago before there were regulations.

They're also narrow. But there are two handrails on either side and I grip them going up. Trent is very close behind me. Almost touching me. In fact, I can feel his knees brushing up against the hem of my dress with each step. He grips the rails too, because every few steps I leave my hands in place a moment too long, and his fingers brush against mine.

These small things send a shiver up my spine and make my skin burst out in goosebumps. Like I'm sixteen again and not thirty-four.

Has he always affected me this way? Or am I feeling this way because Eric is gone now and Trent is all I have left?

Hard to tell. A part of me has always dreamed about being with Trent. But the other part knew that came with consequences. So maybe there were a few daydreams. A few what-if scenarios. But until now I knew that's all they'd ever be.

Until now Trent wasn't all I had left. But do I care if that's why I'm doing this?

Not really.

The landing at the top of the stairs is very small and cramped. Trent has to reach past me to unlock his door. And I wonder for a second if this is his typical move when he brings girls home to his apartment.

You go first, I imagine him telling these interloper girls. So I can push you up against the door a little before we even get inside.

I let out a breath just as Trent opened the door, and said, "You OK?"

"Yup." I lie. I'm not OK but I really want to be.

"Let me find a light."

He pushes past me, hands on my hips as he maneuvers. And I think... Yup. This is Trent Turner's little one-night-stand move number one.

But then his hands are gone and I miss them. I want them back.

The lights flick on and he's got his back to me, looking down at his feet.

"You OK?" It's my turn to ask.

He turns and smiles. With teeth. So a normal one, and I take his word on that. "What do you drink, Julia? I have no idea."

"Why... martinis and mimosas, of course."

He belts out a laugh that's too loud, but also too genuine to care. "Whiskey it is."

"Hmm." I laugh too. Lips pressed together. "I guess you do know me."

He walks over to the kitchen, taking his suit coat off as he goes. Tossing it over the back of a chair. "Not as well as I'd like," he quips.

Then he sucks in a deep breath and pauses for a moment as he's reaching to open a cabinet.

He looks over his shoulder and says, "That's not why you're here."

"Why am I here?" I ask.

He shrugs, grabs the bottle, then two short glasses, and says, "Lots of reasons."

"Name a few, "I say. Because I don't know why I'm really here and I desperately want to know. And I also want to know if I'm reading him right.

I think we're going to have sex tonight. I wouldn't call it planned, but it's not gonna be spontaneous either.

"Memories," he says, pouring some whiskey into a glass. Then he pauses. "I don't really know you anymore, Julia. And for some reason that really fucking bothers me tonight." He pours the other glass, turns and walks over to me, then hands me mine. "Cheers," he says. "To Eric. Not just a best friend, but a brother."

I just stare at him for a second. Because that was a loaded statement.

Did he say that because I'm his sister and he's my best friend?

Or did he say that because he's like a brother to me too, and what we're going to do tonight is wrong on many levels?

But once I take a sip I decide I don't care.

I hate this day and I want Trent Turner to be the person who wipes it all away.