Today is a great day to start.
From across my desk, Casey sits in the chair, scribbling words down on her notebook. She’s taking this whole Thanksgiving dinner seriously. Ever since I mentioned it a couple of days ago, she’s downloaded recipes and started making a grocery list. For someone who suffers from ADHD, she can certainly focus when it interests her. It reminds me so much of Torin, I can’t help but smile at her.
“You’ve been here a week now. We should celebrate,” I tell her.
She looks up from her notebook and regards me with a curious expression. “Celebrate how?”
“Order pizza and watch movies later?” I suggest.
Her lips quirk on one side. “As long as we watch something super scary, I’m game. Also, if you put bell peppers on my pizza, you die.”
I chuckle. “Noted, princess. Any other requests?”
She lifts her chin and chews on the end of her pencil. Today, she’s cute as can be in an oversized pink hoodie and messy blond hair. It was, at one point, pulled into a bun, but now the hairs have fallen from their place and frame her face. Sometimes, like a damn creeper, I find myself lost in staring at her. I have such hope when I look at her. I see a future. A wife, children, a successful woman. My heart, broken and hollowed out most days, throbs back to life. The kindness that shines in her eyes is addictive. I want to drink straight from the source.
“Yo, creeper, you’re doing that weird staring thing again,” she says, her tone filled with amusement.
I blink away my daze. “Yeah, sorry. We’ll order pizza later. I actually wanted to show you something today.”
She perks up, her undivided attention on me.
“Roll your chair over here so you can see my computer,” I instruct.
Curious, she drags the chair until she’s beside me. “Now what?”
“This is a map of the property we’re buying in Oklahoma.” I point out three locations. “We’ll drill here, here, and here.”
“Your fortune,” she says, remembering our conversation a few days ago.
“Exactly.”
“Cool, man. Do you like pecan pie with chocolate chips in it? I saw a recipe for it and it looks to die for. Not gonna lie.” Her attention is back on her notebook, clearly bored already.
“Sure. Now look at this.”
Frowning, she glances at me in confusion before looking at the screen. I flit through mountains of documentation. Spreadsheets with geological and historical data on it. Land records from previous owners. Seismic activity graphs.
“It’s overwhelming, I know,” I tell her. “But I wanted to let you know Torin compiled this for me.”
She drops her pencil on the table. “What?” Now I have her attention.
“Torin and I are business partners.”
“But…he…”
“Doesn’t seem intelligent?” I quip. I’m not faulting her. It’s a common misconception. No different than the people who assume she’s disrespectful white trash because of the way she dresses or acts. People don’t know what goes on inside their heads. They are complicated individuals.
“I didn’t mean it that way,” she mutters. “He just…I honestly don’t know what to think about him.”
I reach for her hand and clutch it. “It’s fine. He’s a hard nut to crack. I get it. I just wanted you to know he’s smart. A helluva lot smarter than I am.”
Popping open my email, I find an unopened one from Torin. It’s one of the few things that keeps me sane—me being able to correspond with him in this way.
Ty—I read over the appraisal. Aside from an easement issue that might cause an annoyance later down the road for aesthetic purposes if they choose to plant down some powerlines, I’d say it looks fine. Land value is well over asking price and it’s not in a flood zone. I’m glad you found it before anyone else did. I’ve run the numbers. We’ll make a fuck-ton of money once we start drilling.—Torin
“Torin wrote that?” she asks, her voice small and unsure.
“He just doesn’t verbalize himself well.”
“I know you evaded the question before,” she says slowly, carefully considering her words. “Is he diagnosed with anything?”
I grit my teeth and nod. “He’s considered a high-functioning autistic individual. Torin could live out on his own if he wished. He can work and take care of himself. But he doesn’t have to because he has me.” I scrub at my face with my palm before regarding her with a sad stare. Those aren’t the only reasons I selfishly keep him here with me. “Certain therapies work better than others. It’s all about trial and error. Torin goes through spells. Sometimes, he’s rather talkative and seems in control. I can almost read his emotions on his features then. Other times, his body traps his mind. Like he’s a prisoner and can’t escape. When he was a kid, he was difficult to understand and handle. Dad bounced around from doctor to doctor after Mom died, trying to help my brother. Over the years, Torin got better when we started seeing Dr. McCarthy. His doctor retired, though, right around the time Dad passed away. We’ve been with Dr. Cohen ever since, but he’s progressively gone downhill.”
“Dr. Cohen is an idiot,” she tells me, her voice clipped. “Just saying.”
I let out a sigh. “I’ve been looking into others. I’ll make it my utmost priority, though. Maybe once you turn eighteen, if you don’t like her, you could switch also.”
She starts tapping her pencil on the desk. Taptaptaptaptaptaptap. “Nope. When I turn eighteen, I’m out of here.”
I stiffen at her words. “Out of where?”
Her eyes flicker to mine. Guilt dances in her blues. “Forget it.”
I want to beg her to promise me she’ll stay, but I don’t. Ignoring the tension creeping up the back of my neck and snaking its tentacles around my skull, I respond to my brother.
Thanks for the info. Send me any new details. Now that the Oklahoma property is rolling, I think I’m going to look at the North Dakota land again. The contract who beat out our bid fell through. What do you think?
He responds quickly.
I’ll run new numbers. Keep your finger off the trigger. I didn’t feel good about it before and I’m not overly excited about it now.
I reply back.
I’ll await your analysis. We’re having pizza and watching movies tonight. Casey wants to watch something scary.
Immediately, he responds.
The Boy. Annabel. IT. The Conjuring. Sinister. It Follows. Saw. The Ring. Poltergeist. 28 Days Later. Those will scare the shit out of her.
She giggles. “This is so weird.”
“It’s how I talk to my brother.”
“Can I talk to him too?”
My chest is on the verge of exploding. “I thought you’d never ask.”
“I see,” I mutter into the line. The private investigator I’d hired—a longtime friend of my father’s—is doing his job well. I paid a lot of money for him to look into certain things. He’s not just looking into them, he’s dissecting them piece by piece. I don’t like the pieces, but I need them. He handed over an old file the day we ran into Casey—the day Torin truly looked at her. I’d been shocked about her poor life, but it just solidified how much we need her. How much she needed us.
Protect her. Protect her. You must protect her.
“What do you want me to do now?” he asks with a grunt.
“Keep watching.”
“I’m pretty expensive to pay to just sit around.”
I grit my teeth. “I’m not paying you to sit around. I’m paying you to keep watching.”
He chuckles, his voice raspy from years of smoking. “Too bad my other clients aren’t this easy.”
“I want every single dirty piece of information. I want it all.”
“What will you do with this information?”
I scrub at my jaw with my hand. “I’ll save it for a rainy day.”
I programmed Torin’s number into Casey’s phone, but she still hasn’t messaged him. We’d gone on to discuss Thanksgiving in great detail until I had to lie down to get rid of the migraine I was dealing with. Now, after a handful of pain pills and pizza in my belly, all is right again in my world. A horror flick plays on the screen. Casey watches with wide eyes under a blanket on the end of the couch, and Torin stares at her.
I stare at Torin.
His hood—or armor as I like to tease—is in place. He grits his teeth and his nostrils flare. Unusual for my brother, he’s completely still. No moving or twitching or fussing.
Just staring.
“Gross,” Casey groans as she pops another Skittle in her mouth. “That’s nasty.”
I smirk, giving the movie, Saw, three seconds of my attention before regarding my brother again. His features have softened almost imperceptibly, but of course I notice. I can tell by the way he darts his gaze all over her that he’s trying to understand her.
“Want some?” she questions as she pours some into her hand and offers them to me.
“I’m good. Torin might want some.” A little push, just to see.
She rises from the couch and waltzes over to Torin, her attention still on the screen. When he seizes her wrist, lightning quick, she cries out in surprise. Her entire body is tense as though she wants to bolt from his grasp. But instead of pulling away, she allows him to turn her wrist to pour the Tropical Skittles into his palm.
“Yellow and blue.”
She nods and plucks the other colors from his palm, leaving only the colors he requested. Torin doesn’t even like Skittles. I wonder what his play is. It’s times like these I wish I could understand his brain. She walks back over to the couch and settles before pulling the blanket back into her lap. Torin watches her like a hawk, his palm still held out with the blue and yellow candies in it. I pick up my phone and text him.
Me: Blue and yellow? I thought you were a Fireball fan, not Skittles.
Upon realizing his phone is buzzing, he pockets the candy before looking at his phone. His expression remains the same. Cool. Emotionless. Empty.
Torin: Blue like her eyes. Yellow like her hair. Fireball is still my favorite candy.
I arch a brow at him, but he never looks my way. His eyes are on his screen as if he’s desperately awaiting my response.
Me: She’s pretty.
Torin: I wouldn’t say that.
Disappointment surges through me before I realize just because I describe her one way it doesn’t mean he would describe her the same.
Me: What WOULD you say then, brother?
She laughs at the movie. “Oh my God, she seriously did not just fall.”
Torin: I’d say her laugh is soft like a feather fluttering along a porch floor. You want to pick it up and touch it, but you don’t want to ruin its journey. It’s perfect as it moves along, undisturbed. The sound is one that can’t be described. It just is. A sound that finds its way down into the very marrow of your bones. Roots inside and lives there. Quivers and quakes—a constant reminder that it’s there.
My chest squeezes at his words.
Me: And still, you avoid the question. Do you think she’s pretty?
When I look up, he’s staring at her once more. His hand is fisted and the muscles in his neck flex. Finally, he turns his attention to his phone to reply.
Torin: Pretty is one word and she is many. Beautiful. Alluring. Appealing. Charming. Cute. Dazzling. Delicate. Delightful. Elegant. Exquisite. Fascinating. Fine. Gorgeous. Graceful. Lovely. Magnificent. Marvelous. Pleasing. Splendid. Stunning. Wonderful. Superb. Angelic. Bewitching. Classy. Divine. Excellent. Enticing. Foxy. Fair. Pulchritudinous. Radiant. Ravishing. Resplendent. Shapely. Beautiful.
I laugh and Casey shoots me a shy smile before turning back to the movie.
Me: You said beautiful twice.
Torin: It needed to be said twice.
“Casey-Casey,” he blurts out, his glare on her despite the inferno of attraction swirling inside of him.
Her flinch is slight, but I know Torin sees it. It breaks my heart for him. With abrupt movements, he rises to his feet and stalks over to her. He shoves his hand into his pocket and plucks out a penny, offering it to her.
The smile she gives him lights up our windowless house like nothing else can.
And then he’s gone.