Drake

“Hey, old man, you need your glasses?” Jayden says from my driveway.

“Watch it, Captain, or I’ll let it slip that you’ve been fraternizing with the general’s daughter.”

Jayden approaches with his hands in the pockets of his jeans.

“That’s not cool, man, I don’t even like her. It’s not my fault she follows me around like a lovesick puppy. You know I’m messing with you. Where are your glasses, though?”

“Inside.”

“They aren’t helping you find the screw you’re looking for in there.”

“I’m well aware and I’m looking for zip ties, not a screw.”

“Oh really? You got something else inside you want to tell me about, or someone?”

I turn and give my best and most annoying friend, Jayden, a look of disgust.

“I’m not tying anybody up with zip ties you pervert. I’m bundling all of the electrical cords together so they aren’t lying around for me to trip over.”

“Ah, baby proofing, I get it.”

“Fuck off, Jay. If you’re not going to help me, take your ass home.”

“I’m messing with you. They’re in here,” he says opening a small drawer on my immaculately organized workbench. He takes out a handful and passes them to me and I take them and mumble a quiet thanks.

“You want some help?” he asks.

“No, you’ll just insult me, why would I want to listen to that?”

“I’m not gonna insult you, man. Come on, I don’t have anything to do; let me help.”

I don’t say anything but I leave the door between the garage and my kitchen open so he can follow me inside.

“What prompted this project?” he asked.

“I almost broke my neck,” I tell him.

“You’re getting clumsy in your old… never mind.”

“I hardly think thirty-seven is old.”

“It is if you’re ever gonna have a wife and some kids,” Jayden continues.

“You sound like my mother. Like I said, it’s not old.”

I squat down next to the television to zip tie the cords behind it securely.

“Oh, come on, you’re not going to spend the rest of your life alone in this house, are you? You need to stop messing around with all those one-night stands and find some hot young thing, make her your wife and pound a baby into her.”

I roll my eyes even though he can’t see me behind the TV. What a caveman. “So, you think I should pick up some random barfly and impregnate her so I don’t die alone?”

I look at him from behind the TV. His expression is one of utter confusion.

“Yeah, why not?” Jay asked.

I shake my head and stand up moving to the desk where I tripped over a stray lamp cord earlier today.

“There is a multitude of reasons but I’ll start with the most obvious, I’m slowly going blind. You know how strongly I feel about saddling a wife and children with that problem. And you know I don’t date. But if I did, I would date someone with a GPA above 2.0 who doesn’t have any sexually transmitted diseases. There are no such women at the bars you frequent.”

Jayden flops down on my couch with a grunt.

“You’re always making up excuses, I think you have commitment problems.”

I answered, “I’ve got problems all right.”

“Is there something you’re not tellin’ me, old man?”

“No, just the usual struggle of faking my way through the sight test at my yearly physical next week, so I fully qualify for a promotion. Nothing big.”

“Is it getting worse? You think you’ll be able to do it again this year?”

“It’s no worse since last weekend, but I’ve given my entire life to the Marine Corps and I want to be a Lieutenant Colonel before I go blind. If my failing vision fucks this up now, my life will have been for nothing.”

Jayden is the only person in the world other than my secret eye doctor and the people helping me get a service dog, who knows that my sight has been slowly deteriorating since I was twenty years old.

Macular degeneration of unknown cause is what they call it. A big, fat pain in my ass is what I call it and it couldn’t have chosen a worse time to progress. It’s not a severe setback, but the shadows in the center of my vision are becoming darker and I’m nervous about my upcoming vision test and physical.

“I don’t know. I’ll figure it out, I always do.”

Jayden’s phone buzzes in his pocket and he takes it out to read a text. I hope it’s something interesting that will make him change the subject.

“Fuck.” He sits up on the edge of the couch with his phone in both hands.

“What’s wrong?”

When he doesn’t answer, I cock my head to the side to see him better from my peripheral. He has a death grip on his phone and he’s shaking. I drop my zip-ties and carefully walk across the sparsely furnished room to see what’s got him so upset.

He’s watching a video that I can’t make out but it sounds like people in a bar or a club.

“That’s my little sister.” His voice is tight and strained.

“What’s she doing? You know I can’t see that tiny screen.”

“Practically fucking two guys on a bar in New York.”

“What?” I lean down over his shoulder and see a young woman dancing on a bar. “How can you even tell who that is? She’s not facing the camera and it’s blurry.”

“It’s her. She doesn’t do shit like this, or at least she didn’t use to.”

“Didn’t you say she was going to be on that singing show?” The video ends and he continues to stare at the screen.

“Just Sing, yes she was but not if they see this. I need to talk to her.”

“Who sent you the video?”

“Her roommate Suki.”

“Is she trying to get you to fly to New York and commit homicide?”

“Her text says she’s worried about Tiana.”

His phone rings in his hand startling him.

“Tiana? What the hell is going on there? I just got…”

It’s quiet while his sister speaks. I’ve known Jayden for seven years, we live next door to each other here in Jewel Falls, North Carolina, but I’ve only ever seen his sister from afar running in or out of the house. She wasn’t around much.

She was living in the dorms at college back then. Jayden insisted she go to school somewhere close to home in hopes that she would continue to live under his roof. She wanted to spread her wings and go to college out of state so they compromised.

Seven years her senior, Jayden is powerfully overprotective of his baby sister. He was more her father than her brother growing up after their parents died in a house fire. Losing both of your parents at the same time is tragic, but being moved from England to the US to live with an aunt soon after compounded the loss.

“Of course, alright I’ll see you Saturday then. We’ll figure this out, don’t cry, Tiana, please.”

He hangs up and slouches down into the couch.

“She’s coming home?”

“Yeah, she hasn’t come home since she moved to the city. She says I smother her.”

I sit on the edge of an oversized chair next to the couch and prop my elbows on my knees. “Do you?”

He doesn’t answer right away, he’s busy staring at the ceiling and thinking.

“Yeah, I do I guess, but it’s because I love her and she’s the only blood family I have left.”

“Maybe you can try to give her some space when she gets here. Did she explain what happened?”

“No, well, yeah sort of. She said they went out to celebrate her acceptance onto Just Sing and she got carried away but she doesn’t remember a lot of the night.”

He jumps up and turns for the door.

“I’m going to get her room ready. I’ll call you later.”

“Are we still on for drinks?”

“Yeah.” He stops in his tracks and turns to me. “Drake.”

“What?”

“Don’t get any funny ideas about my sister. I know you man and she isn’t your type. Got it?”

I don’t take well to being bossed around but I let it go in the light of what’s happening.

“Of course not. Wait, how old is she again?” I have to mess with him a little so he knows I don’t appreciate the insinuation that I would take advantage of his sister.”

He narrows his eyes and his hands ball into fists at his sides.

“I’m fucking with you, go… make your sister’s bed or whatever.” I wave my arm toward the front door dismissing him.

“I mean it, hands off,” he warns as he leaves.

I roll my eyes and go back to zip-tying my cords. I would have loved to tell him I’m not interested in dating his sister if she looked anything like him but I think he’s had enough shit for one day.