Chapter 13
Sylvie’s house wasn’t huge, like the one I knew she had grown up in. I had been to her parents’ house once with my sister and I had vague memories of a castle, which was probably not right. Her current house, the one we were knocking on the door of, looked like a home, rather than a manor. I loved it.
Digger was examining the windows. “I wonder if they have problems with termites,” he said, pulling on the sill. He stopped and shook his head. “Holy fuck, what have I become?”
“Get out from the plants! They’re going to come to the door any minute.” It swung open as I finished speaking and Digger was still standing in a bush.
“Oh, hi!” Sylvie stepped forward and hugged me and he climbed up on the front porch. “I’m so glad you made it. Sylvie Everhart,” she said, offering her hand to Digger.
“Digger Brody.”
“Come on in and meet Tom!” She smiled at me over her shoulder, her dark hair in thick waves down her back.
“They’re watching a game. Do you like hockey?” I whispered to Digger, who looked dumfounded.
“Am I not from Detroit?” he demanded. “How could you not love hockey?” There was no working TV in his house yet, and we spent our time there together doing…other things. “Don’t you?” he asked me.
I shrugged noncommittally. I wouldn’t have known a puck from a curling rock—or was it a stone? I was only really aware of the sports that Ian played and none of them had taken place on ice.
Tom Everhart, Sylvie’s husband, was a nice guy, quiet, but welcoming. Digger said something about one of the players and then he was sucked into a deep discussion about the team, the coach, potential trades, and I wasn’t sure what else, with Tom and Sylvie’s brother-in-law, Josh, who was married to Rosemond, one of her older sisters. I sat with her and Sylvie and their other sister, Ivy, and I got to hold Rosemond’s baby boy. He was tiny, and an absolutely perfect little human.
“I remember when my brother came home,” I said, looking at the baby’s fingers making miniature fists. “I wanted to keep him in my room and take him to school with me.”
“I remember when Sylvie came home,” her sister Ivy said. “I wanted to put her out in the trash.”
“You’ve always been so full of love,” Sylvie told her, “or full of something.” They laughed at each other. “Ah, sisters.” Her eyes flew to me. “Oh, I…”
“I know what you mean, Margot and I really used to go at it,” I said. “It’s different with Ian because there are so many years between us. We fight, but it’s like he’s my baby.”
“Like me and our oldest sister, Annabel,” Sylvie said.
“I don’t mind if you mention Margot, or talk about sisters,” I told Sylvie. “I’ve been thinking a lot about her lately.”
She looked sympathetically at me. “It really doesn’t seem that long ago to me that she left. I remember how worried we all were, with everything about Margot on the news, your dad giving those interviews.”
“What happened with your sister?”
I looked up at Digger. He was standing behind me, looking over my shoulder at the baby. “Oh.” One more weird, terrible thing about my family. “I guess I never told you all that.”
Rosemond was nodding. “Her family thought that her sister had been kidnapped,” she explained. “Do you remember? It was on TV until they figured out that Margot had left on her own. It was really scary, but it turned out ok.” She looked up at Digger and gestured at her son. “Do you want to hold him?” she asked.
“Sure,” he said easily. “Babies love me.”
“I’ll bet babies aren't the only things that love him,” I heard Ivy say to Sylvie. Digger bent to take the tiny bundle from my arms, then stood, cradling him, slowly rocking his hips back and forth. Tom called to him from the couch and Digger walked over to catch something in the game. We all watched him.
“Your boyfriend’s a natural with kids,” Sylvie announced.
“Does it make you want to bone him, like, immediately?” Ivy asked me.
“Ivy! He’s holding my child!” her sister Rosemond reprimanded her. “And you’re a married woman.”
“Married doesn’t mean blind,” Ivy answered. “Or stupid. My God, look at his ass! Sorry, Rebecca, but someone has to say it.”
Digger slowly walked back over, crooning down at the baby in his arms. I had never, in my life, seen anything sweeter. He looked up at me and grinned. “What do you think, Cinderella? Couple of these?”
There was a collective sigh among the women there.
“Digger, come outside to take a look at our new car,” Tom said. He stared at the baby for a second too and I could see his Adam’s apple move up and down. He looked at Sylvie next, nervously.
“Tom, you have to stop worrying about her,” Ivy told him. “It’s the most natural thing in the world. Sylvie will pop that sucker right out and forget by the next day how terrible it was. You’ll probably faint, though.”
Tom gave her a sideways smile. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
Digger carefully handed the baby back to Rosemond and followed Tom out, after running a hand over my hair and gently tangling his fingers in it. There was another sigh from Sylvie and her sisters.
“Where did you meet him?” Rosemond asked. “Tell us all about him.”
I did, and how I was helping him in his garage, and remodel.
“You’re not living with him, are you?” Rosemond asked, her eyes narrowed. She unbuttoned her shirt and started to feed the baby.
“Rosemond, if you start talking about how living with someone is like the stupid fucking cow and the free milk while you are actually breastfeeding your child…” Ivy warned.
“Rose doesn’t believe in living with someone before marriage,” Sylvie explained.
“No, I think it’s fine, in individual cases. Like you and Tom,” her sister answered.
“And you and Josh,” Sylvie answered right back.
“I think you have to be careful,” Rosemond said to me. “Cautious.”
I thought. I hadn’t been either of those things. “I think it’s too late,” I admitted. “I’m a little crazy about him.”
Ivy patted my shoulder. “I think it’s mutual.” They all sighed again happily, and I realized I liked Sylvie’s sisters. It gave me a big lump in my throat. I wished I had my own sister there. Yes, we had fought, but we had told each other secrets, and I thought, had each other’s backs.
I went to the garage to find Digger after a while. He had his head stuck deep in the engine, as did Sylvie’s husband, Tom, and they were involved in either removing something or just smearing grease on themselves. “Hey, baby,” Digger said. “Come check this out.” I stood under his arm, nestled in close, while he pointed out parts to me and how they functioned together. I had learned a surprising amount about engines, being in the garage. I had gone zero to sixty in terms of knowledge, so to speak.
“The game ended,” I said eventually. “You lost track of time.” I poked him. “We should head out.”
Digger shook hands with Tom. “See you next week down at the garage,” Tom said.
“Not a bad guy,” Digger mentioned as we backed down the driveway.
“They all liked you,” I said. I thought of Ivy’s comments about his butt. “A lot.”
“Yeah, I get along with people.” Never short of confidence. “It was good to meet them. Are you ready for my friends tomorrow?”
I shifted. “Maybe you should go see them by yourself. You haven’t gotten to hang out with them since…since me.”
“Nah, they want to meet you.”
“You told them about me?”
He glanced over. “Are you supposed to be a secret? You sure you can feed all those people?”
I had a timeline worked out to get it all done. “I can do it.” We drove onto the freeway.
“How come you didn’t tell me all that about your sister? The kidnapping stuff. You told me she ran away, left a note blaming you.”
“She did.” I hesitated. “She did leave a letter for my father, but I didn’t give it to him at first.” I pressed my lips together. “I was afraid to give it to my dad because I knew it would get me in trouble, all the things she told him. She was gone, and he couldn’t believe that she would have left on her own. Like, he believed so much in the control he had over all of us, it just wasn’t possible. He called the police when she was late coming home but they wouldn’t do anything. She was just over eighteen, and anyway, they were sure she was a runaway. So he went to the media…he’s wealthy enough and he knows enough people that he got a lot of attention. I’m surprised you don’t remember it, but it was just that one day, and then I knew I had to give him her letter. I was afraid that someone really would find her and she didn’t want to be found. I gave it to him, and he has never forgiven me. Never. Not only had I been helping her lie, but I let him publicly humiliate himself. He didn’t like me before but after that…”
“Fuck him. Remember? Fuck what he thinks.”
I stared out the window at the snow that had begun to fall. “Margot was the perfect daughter. Beautiful, smart. She was supposed to go to college, the school my dad chose, join the best sorority, major in what he picked for her, so that she could take over Lindhart Auctions. She ran away instead because she was living a lie. Because he hurt her, too.” I stuttered over the words a little. It was still so hard to admit. “We haven’t seen her since. Not one word, but I bet my dad knows where she is. He’s probably watching her and keeping tabs. He can’t let go.” I shivered.
“You’re fine, Cinderella. You’re fine.” He reached over and took my hand.
“I miss her so much. For a long time, I was angry at her, for leaving me, for ratting me out, for my mom…”
“What about your mom?”
“My mom fell completely apart. My dad told everyone that she was being hospitalized for ‘exhaustion’ but that wasn’t true. She was at an inpatient clinic, out of state, for months, for depression and I don’t even know what else. Eating disorders, probably. It was tough on Ian.”
“And you.” He squeezed my hand.
“Yeah. I was trying to keep everything ok for Ian but at school...everyone at school knew and they kept saying she was locked up in the loony bin, right after all the attention about my sister’s so-called kidnapping. But I just focused on my brother.” I held his hand to my cheek.
He flexed his fingers. “I’m needing that arm rest again.”
“It’s so hard for you when it gets tired.” I moved close and draped his arm over my shoulders.
“You can tell me stuff, right? Better if I know.”
“I’m used to keeping secrets. It always felt like if one thing got out…like if you pulled one thread, everything would unravel. I guess it is, now.” I studied his hand. “You still have grease on you.”
“Maybe you could help me in the shower, make sure I get it all off. Just to be on the safe side so you don't get dirty too,” he mentioned.
“You’re always thinking of me.” Digger laughed, but I meant it. I kissed his neck. “I think a shower together is a great idea. How long until we get home?”
He glanced down at me, and pressed harder on the accelerator.
I spent the next day scurrying around the house, trying to make it look presentable, and cooking enough to feed the minimum 20 people that Digger thought would come. The chilly air inside smelled delicious. I stopped and glanced around. All the floors were now safe, thank God, but it was still dark from the boarded-up windows, and everything needed new paint, and to be refinished. And furniture would have been nice.
No, I wasn’t going to think like that. We had lights, we had some heat, the majority of the bathrooms had water. Those were major, expensive items that I was very happy about. The rest would come. We were on schedule with the timeline and it would all work out in the end. I pulled the pans out of the oven and put them on the tables to cool and checked the pots on the stove. This was all going to be fine.
“This place looks great,” Digger told me. He had been working on house projects of his own for the day, something that involved the scary situation in the basement, and digging a pit in the back yard, and he had just gotten out of the shower. He didn’t have his shirt on yet, and a few drops of water dripped down his chest from his dark hair. “They won’t believe the difference. When I first bought this place, these are the guys that helped me get everything out of here. It was floor to ceiling trash.”
I watched the water drip from his hair and trace down his neck.
“Cinderella, if you keep looking at me like that, we’re getting naked again.” For the third time that day.
I licked my lips. I couldn’t help it.
“Oh, now. Now you’re just asking for it.” His big hands encircled my waist and pulled me to him.
I gave in to the impulse and licked the water from his neck with the tip of my tongue. “Hi.”
He spun me around. “I like your hair this way,” he said, nosing aside my long ponytail and kissing down my neck. I had pulled it out of the way while I cooked. “Better access.” His agile fingers undid my jeans. “Another access point,” he commented, moving lower, caressing me. “Jesus,” he breathed in my ear. “Do you already want me?”
“Always,” I told him, pushing back against him as his fingers stroked. His other hand moved under my shirt, under my bra. “Oh, Digger. Please!”
He moved his fingers faster on my clit, relentless, holding my body still with his heavy arms. “Come,” he urged me. “Let me feel it.” The breath left my lungs as I did, my legs going weak, my body shuddering.
He kept up the motion of his hand. “No, I can’t—,” I gasped, trying to pull away.
“Again,” he said, and his tongue moved down my neck. And I came, again. And maybe again—I couldn’t tell when one orgasm stopped and another began.
I was almost dizzy, leaning back against him and panting. Digger murmured into my ear how beautiful I was. How he loved to see me come. How much he wanted me. I could still feel him, hard, pressing into my back. I turned and slid to my knees, unzipping his jeans, reaching inside to caress him with my hands and my mouth. He came almost as quickly as I had.
Then I hung around his neck, my weight dangling off him, his hands on my butt, our clothes askew. He buried his face in my neck. “Holy fuck. I can’t get enough,” he told me.
I nodded against his skin, breathing him in. “I—I feel the same way.” I had almost said it again. I had almost told him that I loved him.
The doorbell, which was not quite up to par, made its strange sighing noise, and our heads popped up. “They’re here!” Digger put on the shirt he had dropped on the floor and I zipped up my jeans, pulled down my bra, buttoned my shirt, and tried to look like I hadn’t just had multiple orgasms standing in the dining room. Loud voices filled the hallway and Digger came back in, followed by two other guys.
“Rebecca, this is Ash, and this is Mars. Not his real name, but that’s what we call him. This is Rebecca,” he said, holding out his hand to me. I could hear the pride in his voice and I blushed.
“Hello. I’m glad to meet Digger’s friends.”
“Some of us,” the one he called Ash said. “The rest of us are in the driveway thinking about tearing down that so-called garage. Shouldn’t take too long.”
Digger and I looked at each other in horror and then he took off through the new kitchen door. “There’s an injured raccoon inside there,” I explained. “We’re letting him recuperate before we re-house him.” They both stared at me. Sure, it did sound a little odd that we were now running a raccoon hospital. “Can I get you something to eat? Or drink?”
Ash had his head in the refrigerator already.
“How did you meet Digger?”
I stepped back, because the guy Mars had almost yelled it at me. “We met on the street, actually. It was kind of funny.”
Digger came back in. “They’re leaving him alone. I got them to put more of the debris in the yard in the dumpster instead, keep everyone occupied before dinner.”
“Have you known each other long?” Mars hollered. I stepped back again.
“What the fuck, man? Why are you talking like that?” Ash asked him, knocking off the bottlecap from his beer on the edge of the table. It made me glad that it was made of scrap wood instead of real dining room furniture.
Mars looked at him significantly and made a furtive gesture at his head, and I remembered that I still had my hair in a ponytail from when I had been cooking. Due to my, ah, interlude with Digger, I had forgotten to take it down. Mars had seen my hearing aid. I started to undo my ponytail, but then I stopped. I liked having it up. Digger liked it, too.
“Are you from here? Detroit?” Mars yelled, holding out his arms. “Mich-i-gan,” he said slowly and equally loudly.
“Mars, if you don’t shut your fucking mouth, I’m going to beat your ass.” Digger was pissed out of his mind. He stepped toward his friend. “Shut the fuck up!”
I stepped forward too, and put my hand on Digger’s chest. “Hey, it’s ok. He’s trying to help me. I can hear you,” I told his friends. “If I can’t, I’ll let you know.”
Their friend Ash started laughing. “Never a time when you can’t put your foot in your mouth. How many women did you ask if they were pregnant before we finally got you to quit that shit? Remember how that one chick slapped you over it? Yeah, no bun in the oven. And remember when you called your old girlfriend the wrong name when you were,” he glanced at me, “kissing her?” He had a few more examples that got raunchier as they went.
I busied myself adding to the bucket of dirty dishes I was planning on washing in the bathroom later. “Why don’t we go outside and see what’s happening in the yard?” I suggested. Digger still looked like he wanted to kill his friend so I pushed him out in front of me.
“I’m sorry,” the guy Mars told me. “Uh, Rebecca? I’m sorry. My grandma couldn’t hear very well and we always had to yell around her.”
“It actually hurts my ear when you do that. Maybe next time, just ask. I’m glad when people ask me stuff rather than assuming.”
He still felt bad, because he hung out by me, telling me a long story about his grandma and how she had struggled with various hearing aids, and how much he loved her. Everywhere I went, inside and out, he followed me. Finally Digger came and rescued me.
“Mars, are you still being a horse’s ass?” he asked his friend. “She’s not mad, I’m not mad. You can leave her alone.” Mars waved as Digger put his hand on my waist and pulled me away. “Nice guy, kind of an idiot.”
“I like him,” I said. “I like all your friends.” They were different from most of the people I knew, but I liked them better than a lot of the people I knew. With Mars off my back, I got involved in a long conversation with another of Digger’s friends, a woman named Karen who had her own garage specializing in foreign cars. She and Digger sent business back and forth, she said. She had a daughter my age and we talked and talked. Everyone ate from the numerous pots of chili hot on the stove and inhaled the cornbread and brownies I’d baked. We had stocked up on a huge number of thrift store plates and bowls and washed them very thoroughly in the bathtub.
At the end of the night, Digger made a bonfire in a pit he had dug and we all sat around it. It was absolutely freezing, but we’d gotten a bunch of second-hand blankets too, and I’d put in time at a laundromat (a totally new experience for me) getting them clean. A lot had ended up being more bathmat sized after I took them out of the big dryers, but that was ok. I sat on Digger’s lap with my coat on and his coat over us while three of his friends who had served in the armed forces sang incredibly rude songs, running cadences, they called them. I laughed so hard my cheeks hurt.
When Digger and I said goodbye to his friend Mars, the last to leave, it was very, very late. I yawned and leaned back into Digger’s hard chest. “Tired, baby girl?” He tugged my ponytail. “Good night for you. Everyone ate your food like they’d never been fed before and Karen couldn’t stop telling me how lucky I am.”
“She was teasing you.”
He spun me around as I stepped up on the bottom tread, and I wobbled into him. “Nah. I’ve always thought I made my own luck, but I did find a four-leaf clover when I met you. You serving that beat-down to the pimp was a fortunate thing for me.”
I laughed again. “I think I got tougher and meaner in the telling of that story tonight.”
“You mean when I started talking about your nunchuks?”
“And the switchblade,” I concurred. Digger started walking up the stairs with me holding on to him.
“You’re a tough customer, Cinderella. Look what you’ve done in a week. You kicked ass in the garage, fixing up how we run the office. You kicked ass here, getting our house fixed up. You keep me in line.”
“Really? How?”
“Who knows what hell I might be raising if I wasn’t sniffing after you, trying to get into your pants every second of every day?”
“I like you in my pants,” I told him, then laughed at how shameless I was.
“I like you out of your pants,” Digger told me, grinning. Things moved quickly in that direction.
The next day we slowly cleaned up from the party and I got to see Ian when I went to his away game. Our father didn’t bother to come if Ian wasn’t in the starting line-up, so I felt like it was fine, even without Digger there. Ian sat on the bench in his street clothes, shifting and moving around as if he was out on the court, too. No matter what he said about being glad to sit out, being away from our dad’s eyeline, I knew he missed playing. The Wethers lost, putting him in a bad mood. “If I had been in…” he said, then stared at his ankle.
After the game, Ian and I drove together over to Maryam’s house for dinner. It had gone into overtime, and we were a little late. Digger’s car was already in the driveway when I pulled in behind him. Ian’s mood had worsened as we got later and later.
“We would have made it here faster if you could drive the speed limit!” Ian was grumbling at me as we went up the walk.
“I did drive the speed limit! Right on it! We got a lot of red lights and that’s not my fault.” I rang the doorbell. “Wow, it works great,” I commented.
“Yeah, it’s supposed to,” Ian said. I narrowed my eyes. I knew he was nervous about meeting Maryam’s parents but I was seriously considering putting snow down his neck.
“Hello, come in!” It had to be Maryam’s mom, because she was exactly her daughter, in an older version. “Ian, I’m so pleased to see you. Thank you for coming. This must be your lovely sister that Maryam has spoken so highly of.”
The whole way in the car on the way to their house, Ian had been pretty much freaking out about this dinner. How Maryam’s parents hated him already. How they were going to sit around and lob insults at him for trying to sully their perfect daughter. How they wanted us all to come over so they could yell at me and Digger too.
He had considered. “Maybe not Digger. He probably wouldn’t let them.”
“I’m not going to let them rip you apart, either,” I had said, gripping the wheel and starting to get a little nervous about the evening. “If they start with insults, we’re out of there. After I tell them to leave my brother alone.”
It was too dark for me to see Ian rolling his eyes, but I was pretty sure that it had happened.
We were both so, so wrong about her parents, Fatima and Salim. They were two of the nicest human beings I’d ever met. Fatima took us right into the kitchen where Maryam and her dad were finishing up dinner and Digger was parked in a chair, downing appetizers, totally at home. I kissed him hello on his stubbled cheek. I hadn’t seen him for a few hours and I had missed him.
Salim was as welcoming as his wife had been. They moved us into the dining room to serve the food, and it had real chairs and overhead lighting and uniform heat. I sat towards the end of the table with Salim and Digger; they talked about Detroit sports, but Salim immediately switched the conversation over to a more familiar topic to me when it became apparent that my knowledge of sports ended with the high school lacrosse season in the spring.
“We’ve wanted to have you over here for so long,” Fatima was telling Ian. “Maryam is always talking about you.”
“Mom!” her daughter warned.
I could see Ian go red, probably thinking of some of the not-so-nice things he might have said to her lately. Or what he thought she had said about him to her mom, about how he wanted to sleep with her. Yeah, I could understand how Ian might be uncomfortable.
“Tell us about your parents,” Salim asked, pouring me a cup of delicious, hot tea.
“My mom is originally from Louisville. She still has family there, my grandma and some cousins. My dad is a Detroiter. Have you heard of Lindhart Detroit Auctions? That’s us,” I explained, wondering how brief I could be.
“Maryam said they weren’t able to come tonight,” he said.
“No. No, they’re busy.” Ian looked away when I said it. Lying. More lying. I was tired of it, too. “What I meant to say was, our father isn’t very nice,” I said, and Salim’s eyebrows shot up. “I mean, he’s—well, no, that’s exactly what I meant. We didn’t want you to meet them because we didn’t think you would like Ian if you did.” Honesty. Maryam and her parents were staring at me with their mouths agape. Ian too, for that matter.
“Ian is going to come live with us, with Rebecca and me,” Digger said, finally swallowing the bite of his third helping of dinner. He was the only one of us who seemed perfectly relaxed about the conversation. “He’ll move as soon as we can figure it out with the lawyers. Their dad is no good and mom can’t cope. Rebecca’s a great mom for him, though.” He nodded, smiling proudly at me.
Fatima and Salim looked shocked. Well, if Ian had a chance with making a good impression, I figured we had blown it now. I cleared my throat. “Tell us more about yourselves. Ian said that Maryam started at Lamb’s Academy last year. Did you live somewhere else? Are you from Michigan?”
Slowly, slowly, the conversation wheeled around to less controversial themes than “custody battle” and “unfit parents,” topics which could really sink a dinner party. Salim and Fatima were too good of hosts to let us sit there embarrassed—well, Ian and me, anyway. Digger honestly thought all of it was not a big deal. I didn’t know if he ever got embarrassed.
I helped Fatima clear the table. “Salim cooks, I clean it up,” she said to me. “Early in our marriage I tried to convince him that whoever made the dirty dishes had to wash them, but that didn’t work.” While she rinsed in the sink and I put everything in the dishwasher (two things I really appreciated after doing the dishes from our party in the bathtub), she spoke to me in a low voice. “I’m sorry we brought up your parents at the table. Maryam never mentioned to us that there were…are, uh, problems.”
“I’m sure Ian didn’t tell her. He’s very embarrassed about it, about our father.” I thought of last spring, when my dad had come to one of his lacrosse games and had been so abusive to the refs and the other team’s coach and players that the Lamb’s coach had to jog across the field to talk to him. Ian had wanted to die.
“Ian is welcome at our house any time.” She patted me on the shoulder.
Maybe the good impression wasn’t totally screwed up.
I gave my brother a ride home after we said goodbye to Maryam’s family, back to the house he shared with our parents. He was very quiet in the car. I kept looking over at him.
“Every time you do that, you slow down even more. Stop staring at me,” Ian finally said.
“I’m not! I was just wondering, a little, what you thought about tonight.” More like dying, feverish to know.
“Maryam must not have told her parents about, you know,” he said.
“Yeah. That’s what I was thinking too.” No matter how nice they were, if they had known about the possible sexual stuff between my brother and their daughter, I sincerely doubted they would have been urging him to have a second slice of cake. More like they would have been throwing it at him.
Ian sighed. “That means that I got really mad at her for no reason.” I didn’t answer until he prompted me. “What do you think, Wr—Rebecca?”
“Ian, I don’t care if you call me that!” I reached over and shoved his shoulder a little. “It reminds me of when you were little and I made you play dolls with me and dressed you in a lace bonnet. You were so cute.” He snorted. “About Maryam, maybe she’s not ready to, you know. Maybe she said that her parents didn’t want her to come over because she didn’t know how to tell you that. Think of all the excuses we’ve told over the years to hide the truth.” Like, why can’t you participate in swimming in gym class, Rebecca? Not because I have bruises to hide, not at all. It’s my ear. “I would say, if you’re still interested in being her boyfriend, apologize a lot. Tell her you’re not going to talk about, you know, until she brings it up. Then don’t!”
“You’re good at this stuff, Wreck. You were good with her parents.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. They liked you and Digger a lot. Maryam’s telling me right now.” He held up his phone.
I had done a good job for my brother, without tripping, falling, or dropping anything. In fact, it had been a while since any of that had happened. It also seemed like Ian’s dreams of Ilsa Brody might be fading, for which I was grateful. “I’m glad it worked out so well.”
“Me, too.”
For his sake, I tried to drive a little faster, but it didn’t come easy.