“I’m not grumpy,” Tristan said in a decidedly grumpy voice, keeping his eyes trained at the TV mounted on the wall of the bar. A man of few words, my older brother was, but considering we lived together and worked together, I could read the non-verbals. Actually, consider me an aficionado of non-verbals.

Example one: The way he let out a long deep sigh when our waitress lingered at the table too long.

Example two: His hands tightened around his pint glass when I did something to make her laugh.

Example three: The slight shift in his seat when she brushed her shoulder against him. Or me.

Of course, she brushed her shoulder against mine more often, because I was reciprocating her attention.

In the humblest way possible, I could honestly say that one of my greatest talents in life was dealing with women. Granted, I wasn’t the manwhore that my friends thought I was. Think of me as the perpetual flirt, the guy who’s standing in front of all the candy bins in the grocery store and wants to take a small piece from every single bin. It didn’t make sense to me to just pick one thing, one sweet to let melt on your tongue.

What if I wanted something sour today? Something to make the edge of my jaws tighten with the delicious twinge. But I couldn’t live on that one sweet for my entire life. It didn’t make me fickle, not in my mind. Variety was a beautiful thing, especially if you didn’t gorge on it to excess. Some pieces of candy made me dip my hand back in a time or two, bring someone home when I might normally not. But for the most part, I just enjoyed enjoying.

She came back, leaning against our high-top table in a way that made her black shirt gap, and I kept my eyes on her face, never straying for a second. She liked that, I could tell in the way her eyes brightened by my gentlemanly attention.

“Can I get you guys anything else?” One deep dimple popped out in her tan cheek when she smiled.

Tristan gave a pointed glance down at our practically full pint glasses, but she missed it. Probably because she was still staring right at me.

“I think we’re all set on drinks,” I gave a pointed look at her strategically placed nametag, “Makayla. Thank you.” Then I leaned in, and she mirrored me, so close to me now that I could smell the sweet tang of her perfume. “But there is something that would make me very happy. Can you help me with that?”

Her eyelids blinked a few times and she sucked in a quick breath. “I’d love to.”

Tristan coughed into his hand and I ignored him, keeping my attention completely on her.

I leaned forward even further, and her eyes flicked down to my mouth. “It would make me so happy if you could change the channel on that TV. My brother hates baseball and he’d really love to get caught up on House Hunters.”

She breathed out a laugh and cut a glance to Tristan, whose jaw had just hardened imperceptibly. When he turned hard eyes at me, I knew he was imagining ways to duct tape my mouth shut.

“Sure thing.” Then she turned, walking with slow, deliberate steps that made her hips sway nicely. She winked at me after she did indeed flip the channel to HGTV.

I kept my eyes trained on the screen while I felt Tristan’s eyes bore into me.

“Don’t,” he said.

My eyes widened innocently when I turned my attention to him. “Don’t what?”

He lifted one eyebrow and turned his stool so he could see one of the other TVs that was still showing the Rockies’ game, given that he did love baseball and the first weekend in October meant that it was the last regular season game, but I knew he wasn’t referring to that.

Tristan turned his pint glass on the cardboard coaster it was resting on and held my stare. My brother used the minimum amount of words in any given day, just another one of our many differences. Of course, we had similarities. Our height, the darker shade of our hair--even though his brushed his shoulders when it wasn’t pulled back, and mine was cropped close, the shape to our eyes and the way we smiled.

The physical. That was it.

After another long moment, Tristan turned back to the game and I swallowed a laugh.

Because he caved first and looked away, I lifted a hand to flag down our server. Tristan’s long, slow exhale made me smile widely. This time, instead of leaning against the table opposite of me, she sidled up next to me and her arm brushed mine, her skin soft and warm from where we touched.

“What can I help you with, Michael?” she asked me, her green eyes bright and kind.

“The bill,” Tristan said gruffly and she blinked over at him in surprise.

When her face dropped, I sent a quick, annoyed look his way and then smiled back at her. “Please. He meant to say please. My brother has the manners of a rabid wolf that’s stuck in a rusty trap.”

She laughed a little, giving me a grateful smile. “No problem. I’ll be right back with that. One check or two?”

“One, please,” I told her. “That way I can make sure you get the tip you deserve.”

Before she walked away, she gave me a quick wink, which caused Tristan to make a small sound of disgust under his breath, don’t even ask me how he saw it. I rolled my eyes when I looked back at him.

“You really didn’t want to do lunch today, did you?” I asked.

He sighed. Uh-oh, back to example one. “It’s not that. I just don’t like being guilt-tripped. About pretty much anything.”

I smiled into my beer, tipped my chin up in thanks when the waitress dropped off the black leather folder with our bill in it. “It’s Mom,” I told him when she walked away again. “That’s her thing.”

The slight lift in his eyebrows was a tacit agreement. Actually, Tristan was the reason I was so good at reading people, why I was a veritable human sponge when it came to the stuff happening around me. People were shocked when I read shit accurately. Yes, the funny guy can also be observant, can be people-smart.

While Tristan finished the last of his beer, I pulled out my wallet and tucked enough cash into the folder to include a generous tip. Written on the receipt in pretty cursive, was Marie (555-0733). Call me if you’re ever in the area again! I stood from the table first, and winked at the waitress, who flipped her long blonde hair over her shoulder and smiled sweetly.

We were quiet on the drive home, something that didn’t really bother me. While Tristan didn’t like the guilt trip of heading out to the modest ranch house where we’d grown up, I made it a point to go see our mom at least once a week.

When we were younger, I was the one who noticed the lines of strain around her eyes, the wrinkle in her forehead that seemed tattooed there from the stress of raising two boys on her own. And when your older brother has the conversational skills of a cardboard box, it doesn’t take long to figure out how to overcompensate. If my mom laughed or smiled, it was because I’d done something to make it happen.

Tristan leaned forward and switched off the radio in his truck, even though we were a solid five minutes away from the house we’d lived in for the last eight years. The silence yawned between us while he turned into our neighborhood. When he got out of the truck and shut the door with more force than was necessary, I stayed in the truck for a few minutes, mimicking that I was about to bang my head against the dashboard.

My options were to follow him into the house and continue dealing with his broody ass, or go across the street to our friends Cole and Julia’s house. When the scream of a guitar riff came from inside the house, my choice was pretty damn easy. Instead of letting him know where I was going, I just got out of the truck and walked across the street, knowing they’d be okay with the unannounced interruption, mainly because Julia, my friend Cole’s wife, absolutely adored me.

When I rapped my knuckles against the glossy black front door, I briefly considered just walking in. The only thing holding me back is if I was greeted by Cole’s bare ass, I’d never recover.

Julia opened the door with a wide smile. “Well, if it isn’t our favorite neighbor.”

“Speak for yourself,” Cole called from his seat on the couch, not sparing me a glance.

I leaned in and gave Julia a peck on the cheek. She was a beautiful woman, graceful and tall, which was good because Cole was a giant at six foot six. I mean, when another dude could make me feel short, and I was just shy of six two, that was saying something.

Julia patted my shoulder and turned around. “Come on in. Whatcha got going on today?”

While she snuggled next to Cole on the couch, I helped myself to a bottle of water from the fridge. “Tristan is extra moody and my eardrums were going to pay the price.”

Cole looked over at me as I took a seat across from them. “Isn’t he always moody?”

“Quiet, yes. Not always moody.”

He thought about that and then nodded. “Well, you’re welcome to hang out until we leave in a bit. After that, you’re on your own.” Julia smiled up at him and rested her chin on his shoulder. Cole looked down at her with the kind of mopey expression that I’d normally make fun of, but it was almost like … I couldn’t with them.

“What are you guys doing?” I asked after I took a sip of water and tried to not look like a creeper.

Julia grinned at Cole before turning her face toward me. “Cole is taking me to a movie. He’s been trying to get out of seeing it, but I made him swear under duress that we’d go.”

I winced when I tried to imagine how she could have done that, and Julia laughed. “I really don’t need to know more.”

Cole laughed and wrapped an arm around Julia’s shoulders, dropped a kiss on top of her head. “No, you really don’t.”

“I saw you and Tristan leave earlier,” she said.

“Yeah, we had lunch at our mom’s. She likes to see both of us if we have a weekend free.”

Julia smiled. “She was so sweet the one time I met her.”

I laughed and scratched the side of my face. “Yeah, I think she’s a lot sweeter now that Tristan and I can fend for ourselves. We were certainly a handful for her when we were growing up.”

Cole knew about our dad bugging out when I was young, so he just squeezed Julia’s shoulder when she made a sympathetic humming noise. “That couldn’t have been easy on her.”

Just like it normally did when I thought about my mom juggling two jobs, stretching her grocery budget so that we could make it until her next payday, I felt a rock in the bottom of my gut. Tristan and I weren’t rich guys, we couldn’t afford to buy her a huge new house or allow her to quit her job, but at least now, we were able to be responsible for ourselves. Her forehead had smoothed out over the last few years, no more permanent stress lines, just a desire to spend time with us when we could manage it.

“It wasn’t,” I told her.

Cole and Julia didn’t have kids, though I knew they were trying. And the way Julia’s face clouded over a little bit, I knew she was probably thinking about one of two things. Either she was trying to put herself in my mom’s shoes, or about her sister, Brooke.

Brooke was also a single mother to two kids, thanks to a similar situation as my mom. The guy just up and walked out. I’d only met Brooke a handful of times, but she was pretty fricken cool, which automatically put him in Grade A douchebag territory.

Julia gave me a small wink when she realized I was watching her. Her eyes cleared up and she pushed a smile on her face before she spoke. “Helping Brooke has given me a little glimpse into what it must be like, but I can’t imagine how strong your mom must have been to raise you guys on her own. Did she have help?”

I was about to answer when Julia’s cell phone went off. She picked it up and frowned.

“What is it?” Cole asked.

“Brooke. I guess she had a client text her that she had an emergency and needs Brooke’s help.” Julia’s brows scrunched in on her face. “She wants to know if I can help with the twins.”

“A hair emergency?” Cole asked skeptically.

Julia shook her head and laughed under her breath. “I know. I guess this is one of her best clients though.”

“So, no movie then?” Cole sounded so hopeful that I snickered under my breath.

But Julia looked torn. She stared at her husband, and it was like I wasn’t in the room. Not in a weird way, but in a way that I knew they were actually comfortable around me. Instead of staring, I turned my attention to the TV.

Julia spoke quietly, but I could hear her just fine. “I don’t think it’ll be in theaters past next week. Is it wrong if I ask her to see if the neighbor lady can help?”

The face of one of our neighbors growing up flashed through my head, her disapproving frown when my mom needed help … yet again. Suddenly, I was speaking up before I even knew what I was saying.

“I’ll go.”

Cole and Julia turned to me in tandem, both of their jaws going slack.

I squirmed in my seat. “What? I can. You guys have plans already. Besides, Brooke and I get along just fine.”

Okay, so I hadn’t seen a whole lot of Brooke since Cole and Julia got married, when her twins were about six weeks old. She didn’t look like Julia, she was shorter, slimmer and with much darker hair. Yeah, Brooke--aside from the pregnant and slightly complicated life situation--would have been exactly the kind of woman that appealed to me. Snarky and feisty, with a dry humor that made me laugh easily, Brooke didn’t remind me of any other woman I’d ever met. And I liked that about her.

Beyond that though, I knew, from the other side, exactly what she was going through. So, I nodded and met their surprised faces head-on.

“Don’t look so shocked.” I stood and stretched, feeling a tingle of excitement at seeing Brooke again, even if I was heading over to play babysitter. I mean, how hard could it be to manage a couple almost-one-year-olds for an hour or two? “Just tell her help is on the way.”