Chapter 8

My neurons were firing slowly from the sex. The amazing sex. But I stared at Cain for a good ten seconds before the implication of what he was saying sank in. “Wait. That means there is no way to know who is the biological father.”

“Ding, ding, ding.” Cain gave me a smirk. “Glad I didn’t have to spell it out for you. You’d be amazed at how many people have no idea twins have identical DNA.”

I was stunned. “Cain. That’s horrible.” I started to apologize but stopped myself. He didn’t want that. It was obvious. Written all over his face.

“Yep. It’s the town gossip. Good times.”

I thought about the pain that betrayal must have caused him, and his barstool bravado made a lot more sense. “I fully appreciate now why you hate your brother. I hate him, too, on your behalf.” I didn’t understand that. How could someone do that to his own brother? “That’s just bullshit. I seriously doubt that if he wanted to fuck someone, he couldn’t have found a hookup. Tourist or local. It’s just not that hard.”

That was what always bewildered me when people behaved in ways so clearly designed to hurt others. It wasn’t just selfishness. There had to be a certain malicious quality to it as well.

My words made Cain laugh. “Right? Well said, Sophie. But I doubt shit like this is ever really about sex. It’s about power or revenge or whatever fucked-up reason people have for being horrible human beings.”

I laced my fingers through his, wanting to comfort him, but knowing that wasn’t my place. I wasn’t his girlfriend, or even his friend. “And it’s a child who gets caught in the crossfire.” I wanted to ask why Christian got to claim the right to be his father but I was hesitant. I didn’t want to find myself thrown out of Cain’s house. I was enjoying lying naked with him, our bodies still warm and sticky with our mutual pleasure.

My tears had been somewhat embarrassing but I had been honest with him. The intensity of the physical pleasure had just overwhelmed me.

Cain ran his fingers idly through my hair and caught my gaze. “You’re kind of fucking perfect, do you know that?”

That made me give an involuntarily scoff. “Whatever.” Intelligent, yes. Perfect? Far from it.

He gave my ass a light smack. “Don’t ‘whatever’ me.”

“Why not?” I asked, genuinely curious.

“Because I don’t want you to be that girl who can’t take a compliment. That’s not you.”

“That wasn’t a compliment. That was an outrageous blanket statement.”

He laughed. “Smart-ass. Fine. But here’s the thing—I don’t talk about my brother, okay? And I don’t know why I did just now. But I do know that you didn’t make me regret it.”

“Good,” I said sincerely. “Sometimes it’s easier to talk about things with a total stranger.”

The look Cain gave me made my toes curl. “I don’t think I can say you’re a total stranger.” His hand was resting on my hip.

My leg was still lazily thrown over his. “I guess not,” I said, feeling warm and sore in very intimate places. “But you know what I mean.”

“Yeah. I do.” He started stroking between my thighs.

I was amazed that I could still get aroused. Maybe I had years to make up for. But I did reach down and stop him. “I think my clit has had enough for one night.” It felt a little overstimulated.

His eyebrows rose but he dropped his hand back onto my thigh. “Disappointing, but I respect that.” Then he surprised me by kissing me hard.

I was toying with the idea of letting him continue anyway, despite my swollen and sore body, but he pulled away and gave a very predictable, “I’m thirsty. You want some water or anything?”

“Sure.”

I started to sit up but Cain said, “Stay there. I’ll get it.”

Feeling physically drained, in the best way possible, I was perfectly willing to do just that. “Okay, thanks.” I idly watched him leave, appreciating again how fantastic he looked without clothes.

I figured I had to absorb the view and lock it into my memory banks because when was I ever going to get to see a guy this muscular naked again? Sure, there were doctors and physicists and chemists who worked out, but in my experience they were the exception more than the norm. And the ones that were? They had hot girlfriends, those women somehow blessed with both intelligence and beauty. I’d studied those girls. Wondered at their ability to flirt and laugh and do makeup and be a rational girlfriend all while doing advanced genomics.

Maybe not every woman wanted to be like those chicks, but I did. I wanted it all. Not the fashion sense or the long legs. But to be socially savvy. To have a hot man slipping me the D a few times a week. My nipples tightened. Or every night. That would be even better.

It occurred to me this might be it. My last orgasm at the hands of someone else for a while. Why had I turned Cain down? That was stupid. After tonight I was going to be drowning in wedding events, then back to school. Back to celibacy.

Maybe that was why I was idly brushing the back of my hand over my nipple when Cain walked back into the room. He growled.

“Sophie. That is not fucking fair.” He had two bottles of water.

I was surprised. I had thought he meant he was getting himself a beer. Maybe he liked being sober with me. Not that it mattered. I wasn’t a solution to Cain’s problems, any more than he was to mine. Though mine suddenly seemed insignificant next to his. I knew how to navigate my life with my quirks and tics. I hadn’t had someone betray me the way he had.

His own brother.

Geez, that was crap.

“I realized something,” I told him, trailing my fingers down my stomach and over the small patch of curls I had tamed but hadn’t bothered to eradicate. I wasn’t sure why I was shifting my hand up and down other than my skin felt so alive and it just felt good. It was instinctive, not a calculated maneuver.

He handed me the bottle of water, the cap twisted loose for me. “What’s that, you little tease?”

I took a sip and set the water on the nightstand. “After tonight I’m going to be sexless again, at least for a while, so I was stupid to turn your earlier offer down.”

“Why sexless after tonight? You leaving town tomorrow? I thought your sister was getting married here.” Leaning over the bed, his hand covered mine and he traced the path with me, his blue eyes narrowed with desire.

“She is.” His touch was very distracting. Intimate. Sensual. He was steering my caresses now, taking over, and guiding me into the depths of my inner thighs. “But Saturday my mom and dad arrive and then I won’t have any free time.”

My breath hitched when he used his index finger to push mine inside of me. Right into that moist heat.

“That means I have you tomorrow still though. And maybe even Friday.” He stroked our fingers together with a slow, steady rhythm.

I wanted to sit up, feeling exposed, overwhelmed. But I didn’t. Because it also felt damn good. Freeing. Intoxicating. “Is that an invitation?” I asked. It probably sounded flirty, but I really was asking a genuine question.

“Yes. Only I want to fuck you tomorrow in your pretty princess room in your big house.”

“I don’t have a princess room. I have a very generic guest bedroom.” I was breathy and distracted because the obvious reality was that with both of our fingers stroking inside me, it was double capacity. Which felt fantastic. “I’m twenty-four years old, not twelve.”

“I’m very aware of how old you are.”

I tried not to squirm under both his stare and his touch. “How old are you?” I realized I had never actually asked him that. He seemed older than I was. But younger than thirty.

“Twenty-six.”

My guess had been accurate, then. “How long have you been a lobster fisherman?”

He removed his finger and mine and teased them both over my clit. “You’ve picked the worst fucking time to ask polite ‘getting to know you’ questions, Sophie Bigelow. You can’t possibly give a shit right now about my career path. I know right now I don’t care about yours.”

I wasn’t sure that at precisely that moment I needed extensive details on his career. That was true. But I was genuinely curious. I had to concede though because when he raised his hand with mine to his lips and sucked on our dual fingers I was shocked into complete silence.

He was tasting me.

Clearly, he had already, on several occasions, but…this was different. This was so intentional. So dirty. “Why are you doing that?” I asked.

He sucked a little harder, then spoke around our fingers. “Because you taste good.”

That wasn’t exactly a satisfactory answer, in my opinion. I didn’t quite see the logic in it. But maybe there was no logic in sex because even though it was based on chemistry and pheromones and the science of attraction, it was a touch and tease that had no base in the urge to procreate. It was…emotion. Right along with the physical.

It was a startling feeling to think I felt this connection with Cain, the lobster fisherman. The stranger. The hookup. How could I be comfortable doing this, right here, right now? But I was. He was teaching me. And I was learning.

So when he brought our fingers back to tease at me again, I shuttered my thoughts and just enjoyed the sensation of complete and utter sensual abandonment.

As he flicked his finger and mine up and down, up and down, it reminded me of my need to flip light switches. Will it work? Yes. Are you sure? Yes. Until I came, bursting forth like an electrical surge.

“See?” Cain said, moving in on top of me. “Perfect.”

He thrust inside.

Yes. Yes, it was.

---

Staying sober the night before with Sophie had been fucking amazing. But by the time I waved to my captain and got off the boat in dock the next day, I was craving booze like nobody’s business. Like an addict. I had the tremor in my hand and while I was pulling up traps with the hydraulic lift I was grateful I wasn’t emptying them. It would have been hell to get the damn bands on them. It was a longer day than I expected but the traps were hot so we stayed out hauling them all in.

Now I was off the boat and headed straight to the bar. Do not pass go. Go directly to jail. The one I had created for myself.

My stool at the Thirsty Moose.

I sank onto it with a sigh and raised my hand to Darryl. He must have just come on duty. It was only five o’clock and it wasn’t busy. Too early for the tourist dinner crowd, too early for drinking.

Unless you were me.

“Rough day?” my cousin asked, pushing a glass over to me.

I sighed, already feeling better just seeing that amber liquid. “No, not really. Just a long one. And I haven’t been getting much sleep.”

His eyebrows rose. “You weren’t in here last night. So it’s not late nights at the bar robbing your sleep. Is it a certain tourist girl?”

For a second I considered denying it. I didn’t want to share Sophie. She was mine. All mine. A sexy little seductive escape from the fucked-up catastrophe of my life. But my cousin had seen me with Sophie. So had Brian. There was no point in denying it. But I didn’t want to share any details. So I just nodded.

“You being nice to her?”

I threw back my whiskey. I was already on edge and his question pissed me off. “No. I’m treating her like shit because she’s one of those girls who likes an asshole.” I was a lot of things. Unreliable. Emotionally detached. Quick to anger. But I was honest with women, and I wasn’t charming, and I didn’t make any promises I couldn’t keep. I had been decent with Sophie. I was pretty damn sure of that.

“You’re a mess,” was Darryl’s opinion.

“Whatever. I make more money than you.” It was a childish thing to say, but probably the truth.

He scoffed. “Dick.” Then he moved down the bar.

I got to thinking about why I was a dick. And I got to thinking about how I had told Sophie about Camp. Shared some of my feelings. She had given me the best possible response. She had been outraged on my behalf but she hadn’t appeared to feel sorry for me. Nothing worse than pity. But she also hadn’t insisted on asking stupid questions like “how did that make you feel?” like one girl had. Like what the fuck? How did it make me feel? Like shit. Like fucking rotten-ass shit baking in the sun in August. Festering, nasty, gruesome, oozing shit.

When I gave her that answer she had gotten scared and had left my bed and my house and I had never heard from her again. What was her name? Nicki? Sammy? I shoved my empty glass to the end of the bar. It didn’t matter. She was one of them. The many girls I had taken home who had all been the same. Bouncy and smiling and confident and a little bit naïve.

So there was them.

And then there was Sophie.

She had her own category.

Just her. She was the only one who hadn’t made me angry or uncomfortable and filled with regret or impatient to be alone again. Some girls got on my nerves so damn bad it took everything I had not to toss them out of my house so I could sit in the dark in silence. Sophie was the opposite. I didn’t want her to leave. I’d let her go reluctantly the night before, after fucking her yet again, and had done the very boyfriend thing of insisting she text me when she got home.

Today I had spent the majority of the day thinking about her. Sure, I was thinking about her tits, her ass, her pussy, that funny little look she got when something sexual was new and unexpected to her. But I was also thinking about her smile and her solemn blinking and her straightforward, no-bullshit honesty.

Far too much time spent thinking about her.

“Where’s my fucking drink?” I called out to Darryl. He wasn’t doing anything. He was just standing there watching the Red Sox on TV.

For a second I thought he was going to ignore me. Then I thought he was going to throw the rag he used to wipe the countertop down with at me. But what he actually did was worse than either of those.

“Get out,” Darryl said, striding toward me, his expression fierce, his finger pointing toward the door.

For a second I just stared at him, shocked. “What?”

“Get out. You’re done here today.”

“You’re throwing me out? What the fuck did I do?” I had been there five minutes, had one drink. Asked for a second. “Is this because of that money crack? I’m just messing with you because I don’t want to talk about Sophie.”

“It’s not about the money comment. It’s about the fact that you’ve been off work for what, twenty minutes, and you’re settling in for a big old nasty night of feeling bitter, and I don’t feel like watching it.”

That made me snort. “I have plans at eight, just so you know. I wasn’t planning on getting sloppy.”

“No one plans on getting sloppy.”

Then he didn’t know me as well as he claimed to. “This is crap. I’m not leaving.”

“Get out or I’m calling the cops.” Darryl looked stubborn, stone-faced.

Rage filled my gut. My lungs. He was my cousin. My family. I didn’t do anything wrong. It felt like a betrayal. Just a kick in the fucking teeth. This was my sanctuary. My happy place. He couldn’t ruin this for me.

“Are you serious?” I asked, my voice deadly calm. Quiet.

He nodded. “Look, man, it’s for your own good.”

I stood up and threw a ten-dollar bill in the general direction of the bar top. It fluttered to the floor instead and I didn’t bother to pick it up. Then for whatever reason I grabbed my empty glass and took it with me.

“You’re stealing the glass?” he asked, sounding pissed off.

No. Because stealing a glass was stupid. I had no idea why I did that. I just wanted to make some kind of statement. But his words reminded me that it was a stupid gesture and the glass was going to stay empty, whether I took it with me or not. So I acted like I was taking the final sip from it and then set it down on a table on my way out.

I took a deep breath and headed down the sidewalk. That wasn’t the only bar. Darryl knew me. Other bartenders knew me too, but they appreciated that I drank like a fish and tipped well. I wouldn’t get that judgment bullshit from them.

Mina was one of those bartenders. She thought I was hot. I thought she was hot. We had even hooked up, twice, to mutual satisfaction. But then she had started dating someone and seemed happy and we were back to bartender and customer. But she still liked to flirt, just a little, and she wouldn’t give me a hard time.

“Dude, you stink,” she said. “Fresh off the boat, huh?”

There was a particular odor that clung to me during and after work. It was a briny, salty scent, most of it from the splash of the bay waters and from hooking the bait. I had taken off my waders but there was a real possibility I still smelled. I was used to it. “No, I woke up like this.” I sat down and added, “Make it a double.”

She had on a tank top and denim shorts that barely covered her ass. Normally, when she moved around the bar and bent over to grab beers from the tub, I checked out her ass. I stared at her tits in appreciation when she handed me my drink. Today I had no such inclination. I had another body crowding my thoughts. Another girl.

“So what’s new?” I asked her.

“Not much here. How about you?” Mina gave me a grin. “Causing trouble?”

“Nope.” I conveniently ignored being thrown out of the Moose. “I’ve been a saint.” You could even say I was taking on the role of mentor. That thought made me smile grimly. My mood was spiraling into dark and dangerous places. Down the rabbit hole of would have, could have, should have.

“Glad to hear it.” She put my drink on a cocktail napkin. “Cheers, my friend.”

“Cheers.”

An hour later I was well and truly buzzed, and I knew I should eat something but once I start drinking, food becomes unimportant to me. Unappealing. So I just drink more. When I stood up I was aware of my current state. I wasn’t so far gone that I was sloppy. But I was flying high, feeling powerful. In charge. Feeling righteous.

Which was why I was stupid enough to decide to take a walk to my mom’s house. I had promised her I would see her. Obviously, she wasn’t going to want to see me loaded, but I figured I wasn’t loaded. Just pleasantly buzzed. That’s all.

The house I grew up in was a ramshackle farmhouse on a small lot. No driveway. If my mother ever listed it for sale, the agent would have to write something like, “Needs TLC,” or “Is waiting for your design touch.” It was seventies paneling, a wood-burning stove, ancient carpet, and a fake rustic vibe in the kitchen. I was thirteen before I figured out the exposed brick chimney in the kitchen was actually sheets of plastic designed to look like brick. That was an ancient decorating mind fuck. Who did that?

As a kid, I didn’t think anything of what the house looked like. It was similar to my friends’ houses and my mother had always cooked and cleaned and kept a decent home for us. I remembered my dad popping in and out, but oddly enough when he showed up, it was never a contentious thing. My mother would welcome him home and he was a fun guy. Boisterous, charming, a good-time boy without a care in the world. At seven I hadn’t seen the problem with that. Now I resented his inability to put his family first.

The yard had bushes that had grown to the sloped roofline and scraggly grass. There was no garage, only a shed that looked like it had shifted so dramatically on its footings that the door most likely didn’t open anymore. I wouldn’t know. I didn’t come here often. The swing set in the yard kept me away.

“Hey, Mom, what’s up?” I said after she opened the door to my knock.

Initially, she smiled but then when I came forward into the house she gave me that look. Of concern. “Are you drunk?”

“Nope.” I kissed her forehead. “Just had a drink after work, but I’m far from drunk. It’s good to see you.”

She clucked and sighed, but she didn’t say anything further. “It’s good to see you too.”

My mother did not like conflict. She gave me crap in only the mildest way possible. Just like she had never really called Christian out for sticking his dick in my girlfriend. Lorraine liked everyone happy. Sometimes I wondered if she was happy, given what she’d been saddled with, but she seemed determined to be cheerful and pretend her family was well-adjusted.

“Your sister is here.”

“Oh, goody.” I rolled my eyes. I really didn’t mind my sister, but it was my right as her big brother to tweak her.

My mother reached back and slapped my arm. “Be nice.”

Charlie, my sister, was in the kitchen with Camp. She was monitoring his consumption of a banana. It hurt my heart the way it always did when I saw him. He pointed a chunk of fruit at me.

“Dada.” Then he held his arms out, wanting to be picked up.

Yeah, that was a fucking knife to the heart. Of course I looked like the man he thought was his father. Poor little guy had every right to be confused.

My sister fluttered her hands, nervous as hell, probably that I would lose my shit. “Oh, no, Campy, that’s Uncle Cainy.”

Cainy? “Charlie, don’t confuse the kid even further by calling me Cainy.” Or uncle. “By the way, we’re drowning in C names. Thanks, Mom.”

“I didn’t name Camp.” My mother waved to him and smiled. “But I’m so glad he’s a C name too. There’s my cute, sweet baby.”

My heart squeezed, and I felt like I couldn’t swallow unless I had something to pour down my throat. “You got any liquor in the house?” I asked.

Charlie stood up and made a face at me. “You stink.”

“Like literally? Or my character?” I asked.

My sister was three years younger than I was and had the Jordan attitude. Especially being the youngest of five and the only girl.

“Literally.”

Charlie was wearing the shortest denim shorts I’d ever seen in my life and a Patriots T-shirt that I could swear was mine when I was in the seventh grade.

“I just got off work. And what, are you shopping in the kids’ department? Are those Camp’s clothes? That shirt and shorts look ridiculous on you.”

She was showing way too much skin for a brother’s taste.

But then again, Charlie was a stripper, so basically every guy in town except for me and my brothers had seen the bulk of her. Or excuse me. Exotic dancer. She got testy about the stripper label.

“Can we all just have a nice time together?” my mother huffed. “And sorry, Cain. I don’t have any whiskey, but I have some nice Riunite.”

“He doesn’t need any alcohol,” Charlie said as she came back to the table with a damp paper towel and started wiping Camp’s face. “He already reeks of it.”

Irritation started to grow. “Should I just leave? I didn’t come here to get attitude. I already got shit from Darryl tonight. I don’t need it from you too.”

Charlie snorted.

My mother sighed. “Why was Darryl fussing at you? Did you forget to pay your tab?”

“No, I always pay my tab. Give me some credit.” I tried to find somewhere to look that wasn’t at Ali’s son but the kitchen was small, with low ceilings. The table and the high chair were crowding the space. Crowding me. I needed air. I needed a drink.

I wanted to just scoop that kid up and hold him to me. I wanted to breathe in his scent and bury my lips in his soft, white-blond hair. I wanted to go back in time and have Ali and Christian not be the shittiest human beings ever and not fuck. So that this baby could be mine.

Blindly, I turned to the fridge. Rosé wasn’t my normal style but shit, I would take anything right then. It was actually wine in a box. Perfect. I yanked it out and set it on the counter. I went for a glass. My mother hadn’t rearranged the cupboards since Charlie had been born, and in fact, hadn’t gotten new glasses in that time either. There was something both so tired and faded about this house, and yet, so damn comfortable and familiar. I could count on opening that cupboard and finding the chipped souvenir glass from a childhood trip to Portland. My second-oldest brother Cord was the one who put the chip in it, slamming it into his front tooth when he was running to get to the TV remote first.

Camp was crying now, yelling, “Dada” even louder. A pounding started behind my eyes and my mouth felt hot and dry. I pushed the spigot on the wine and listened to the liquid hitting the glass, trying to focus my ears on that instead of the wail of my maybe-son.

“Cain, can you just hold him for a second?” my mother asked. “He wants to be held by his father.”

“I’m not his father, Mom,” I said, refusing to turn around. My heart was pounding in my ears, those cries ricocheting off the walls, around the room, slamming into me. The sound seemed to swell and surround me, to pierce through my chest cavity and crash and collide with the beat of my heart, like cymbals in the hands of an enthusiastic musician. Crash.

“He thinks you’re Christian. Just hold him until he calms down.” My mother’s voice was soothing, calm. Like she had no idea what she was asking of me.

Like she wasn’t ripping my heart out of my chest and feeding it to Ali.

“Mom,” Charlie said, her voice brimming with warning. “Don’t.”

At least I could be grateful to my sister for that. I swallowed the sweet wine, wanting to gag on the acrid sugar flavor. But then I set the glass down and turned. Steeling myself, I held out my arms. “I’ll take him.”

I don’t know why I did. Maybe it was just that I couldn’t stand the pain in his voice. It wasn’t his fault that his mother was a selfish bitch and his father a cheating whore. Or that I might be his father.

Maybe it was because the cries seemed to be settling into my soul, lacerating me even more, and I wanted the loud wail to stop, at any cost. Or maybe I wanted to pretend, for just a split second of indulgence, that this was all different. Whatever the reason, I reached out my arms, and he reacted in kind.

“Don’t drop him,” Charlie said in warning as my mother handed me Camp.

His face was streaked with tears and there was snot pooling under his nostrils. As I took his weight into my arms, I settled him onto my hip and gave him a smile. “It’s okay, you’re fine. No big deal.”

I took the bottom of my T-shirt and wiped tears first, snot second. He was startled and reared back, eyes going wide. “I think he’s figured out I’m not Christian,” I said.

“I think you smell like bait,” Charlie said. “And booze. You’re like a pickled herring.”

That almost made me want to laugh. Maybe she was right. Maybe my scent was strong and unfamiliar to him.

Camp stared up at me, solemn now, sniffling a little as his tears quieted down. He had the same blue eyes as Christian and me, but his mother’s tiny button nose. I didn’t understand how Ali could have left him. But then again, maybe I had left him too. The thought made me both angry and ashamed.

His little fists were gripping the front of my T-shirt. His legs had gotten longer since I had last held him, his weight more substantial. “What’s wrong, little man?” I asked him.

He didn’t say anything. He just laid his head against my chest.

Oh, God. I wanted to die. I wanted the earth to open and swallow me and take this pain away from me. His sweet, heavy body against mine, his trust implicit, his innocence so difficult to preserve. I loved everything about the way he felt in my arms, yet I hated the reality of my life. My fucking life.

My hand brushed over the back of his soft, downy hair. I knew from pictures that mine and Christian’s hair had once been this light. Almost white. I tried to visualize Camp in fifteen years. How he would feel about his life, his parents. I couldn’t imagine. It all seemed like a continuous trail of fucked-up that he couldn’t escape. I could get away from this and I imagined I would eventually. But Camp was stuck with his conception reality forever and for that reason, I held him just a little tighter, bouncing him to reassure him.

But then my mother peeled him away from me. “There. That did the trick. Everybody’s happy now.”

Was she for fucking real? I cleared my throat. There was a giant lump in it. I needed a drink to push that down. I refilled my glass and took the wine down in one swallow. Then refilled it again.

“Do you want something to eat?” my mother asked again.

“No, thanks.”

“Did you drive here?” Charlie asked.

“Nope. Used the two legs God gave me.” I sounded flippant and a little crazy. Which was how I felt. I was desperate, the insides of me pushing at the outsides, everything struggling to stay contained. I felt explosive.

“I can give you a ride home.”

“Not going home. I have a date.”

Charlie’s boxy eyebrows shot up. “With who? Jack Daniel’s?”

Buzzing hard now, I refilled my glass a fourth time and shook the box. It was getting low. What the hell? “What, no. A real living and breathing girl. From away.”

That’s what my parents and grandparents had always said about someone not from Maine. They were from “away.” I knew they were skeptical because every local girl knew all about my drama and for the most part stayed away. But their faces cleared when they realized she was a tourist.

“How long is she here for?” Mom asked.

“A few weeks. Her sister is getting married here next weekend. She goes to Harvard,” I added, because nothing wrong with bragging on Sophie. She was a genius.

“The sister?”

“No, the girl. Sophie. She’s a math genius.”

“Then why is she going out with you?” Charlie said.

“My good looks.” I gave my sister a smirk. “You can’t argue with that since you look like me.”

Charlie eyed the glass in my hand. “Maybe you shouldn’t show up for a first date loaded. Maybe put down the wine.”

“It’s our third date,” I said, ignoring the suggestion. I shook the box. Nothing but droplets left. If the kid wasn’t in the room I would have lifted the box to my mouth and gotten every last sweet bit.

Instead, I just said, “I gotta go.” It hit me suddenly, when I realized I shouldn’t stay there any longer. That I might say or do something I would regret later, sober. I blindly set down the box and my glass. “Bye, Ma.”

“Cain, wait, is everything okay?”

Nope. That’s why I was leaving.

“Cain, I’ll drive you.” Charlie followed me.

I didn’t say anything until I got outside. It wasn’t a hot day and I breathed in deeply the cool evening air. I felt like I couldn’t get any air into my lungs. But once I could speak I whirled on Charlie and said, “Stop following me.”

“I’ll give you a ride.”

“Along with a lecture that I don’t need.” I didn’t want to hear it. I couldn’t hear it. I started walking.

“I won’t say a word, I promise.” Charlie reached out and grabbed my arm. “Please, Cain. I don’t want you walking down the road right now.”

When I was drunk. That’s what she meant. “Fine. Just keep your mouth shut.” I knew she worried about me and I appreciated that. But I worried about her too and I didn’t tell her to quit stripping. Her job was full of risks. Stalkers and creeps and people who knew she was carrying cash and might want to rob her. “For the record, I don’t tell you what to do with your life.”

Charlie hopped up into her giant truck. “You’re right. But I’m perfect.”

That made me laugh as I climbed into the passenger seat. “You’re joking, right? We put the ‘dys’ in dysfunctional. We’re the world’s most wacked-out family.”

“Nah. Plenty of people more jacked up than us. We just march to our drum. I mean, look at Cam. He’s living in New York City making bank.”

“Yeah, because he’s embarrassed by us.” I didn’t blame him for that.

“Where are we going?”

I gave her the street name and general directions.

Charlie kept her word and didn’t say much until we got there. Then she did murmur, “Damn,” as she pulled into the driveway. “This is some house, Cain.”

“Daddy has money.” I was regretting that I had told Sophie I would meet her here. It occurred to me her sister might be around and I didn’t want that. I wanted her alone.

“You mean like her actual father, not an old-man husband, right?”

I gave Charlie a long look. “Who the hell have you been hanging around with? Yes, I mean her literal father.”

Charlie turned beet-red. “Well. You know. Older men like younger women.”

If I hadn’t been loaded I might have asked her more questions about that but I was, so I didn’t. “See ya, sis.”

“I’m going to wait here a minute and make sure everything is okay.”

“You’re being weird,” I told her. “Don’t sit here like my mom dropping me off for the first day of school. It makes me look like a jackass.”

She flipped her dark hair over her shoulder and grinned. “You do that all on your own, big brother.”

“Fuck off.” I opened the door. “I love you, brat. Talk to you later.”

“Don’t stay out too late,” she said in a singsong voice.

I rolled my eyes and waved.

The front door to the house opened and Sophie was standing there. Beautiful, adorable Sophie.

Damn, I was glad to see her.