Linnie hung back a second and looked at me, then pulled me into a quick hug. “Thanks for the call,” she said to me. “You okay?” I knew she meant everything that had happened in the family room, and while I wasn’t sure okay was the word I would use, it was like I could see okay, somewhere in the distance, a shore I could hopefully get to someday in the future. I nodded and she smiled. “See you in the morning.”
She got into the hybrid, which, a moment later, pulled forward, made a quick U-turn, then headed down the road and disappeared.
“I’ll drive with Charlie,” Danny said, tossing his keys to J.J., who caught them with one hand. “Seems like since she came all the way out here, it’s the least we can do.”
“See you at home,” I called to them. Mike was already ducking into the passenger seat, and J.J. gave me a nod. “And maybe just go straight home. Don’t knock over a liquor store on your way, or anything.”
I walked back to my car, Danny falling into step next to me. “Thanks for coming, Chuck,” he said, dropping an arm around my shoulders. “And for calling Rodney too. That was great.”
“I can’t believe you guys almost got arrested,” I said, lowering my voice to a near whisper on the last word.
Danny grinned at me. “Wouldn’t have been the first time.”
“What?”
“A story for another day.” He got into the passenger side, and I climbed into the driver’s seat and started the car, cranking the heat up—it wasn’t until I was back inside that I really felt just how cold it had been while we’d all been standing around, trying to keep the Grant brothers out of jail.
I pulled the car around and made sure to signal, then pause, when I reached the main street—I was all too aware that there was a police officer who could, presumably, see everything I was doing, and one who was probably a little annoyed with all of us at the moment. When I was sure I’d paused long enough, I pulled out onto the empty road and headed toward home.
“So, let’s not mention that to Mom and Dad,” Danny said, sprawling out in the passenger seat, turning to lean against the door so he could face me.
“If we told Mom, she’d probably just be mad she could no longer use it for the strip.”
Danny let out a short laugh. “Well, that’s certainly true.”
“Was it—” I started, then hesitated. Asking Danny why he’d done something foolish and ill conceived was something I had very little practice in; I was much more used to it with J.J. “Was it just because of what’s happening with Mom and Dad?”
Danny let out a breath and gave me a half shrug. “Mostly,” he said after a moment. “It’s also . . .” He hesitated, and I glanced over at him. “Brooke and I broke up.”
“Oh,” I said, blinking at him for a moment but then turning back to the road, trying to get my head around this. It had seemed like something had been going on with Brooke and Danny all weekend—but I hadn’t realized they’d gotten to that level. Only yesterday, I would have been secretly thrilled about this, but that was yesterday. “I’m sorry.”
He shrugged again. “It’s for the best. She’s a great girl, but I just don’t think we were really in the same place.”
“When did this happen?” I suddenly remembered Brooke leaning over me, concentrating hard as she applied mascara to my lashes, talking about how coming here, with Danny, hadn’t been what she’d expected.
“Middle of the reception,” Danny said, with a grimace. “Obviously not when I would have chosen . . . but I don’t think Linnie noticed, did she? You didn’t, right?”
“No,” I said, glancing over at him, but then back at the road. “I mean, I saw Brooke leave, but I think there were enough people around that it wasn’t obvious.”
“Good.”
“Did you guys have a fight?”
“No,” he said automatically. “Well . . . kind of. She didn’t like the toast I gave.” He shook his head.
I remembered Danny’s toast with sudden clarity—when he’d said he hoped someday to find something like what Linnie and Rodney had. What must it have been like for Brooke to sit there and listen to that, knowing it wasn’t about her?
“Anyway,” Danny said with a yawn, “I guess that started the conversation, but it wasn’t like it was a total surprise—things hadn’t been working with us for a while, actually.”
“But . . .” I shook my head, trying to understand this. “If things weren’t working out, why did you bring her to Linnie’s wedding?”
“Because she wanted to go,” Danny said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “She was always bringing up how she wanted to meet everyone, see the house where we grew up. . . . She started talking about it all the time, and I didn’t want her to be disappointed. So I told her she could come, and she practically freaked out, she was so happy.”
I gripped the steering wheel. I was used to being on Danny’s side whenever he talked about his breakups, when he sketched them out in the most general of terms. And I never had any trouble believing that the fault lay with the other people, all of these girlfriends of Danny’s who came and went. But now . . . I couldn’t stop myself from feeling that it was Danny who was utterly in the wrong here. That if you ask someone to come home with you, to a family wedding, it means something.
“But ultimately, it’s for the best,” Danny said around a yawn as he looked out the window. “I think we’ll be able to stay friends, which is good.”
I nodded, fighting not to let what I was feeling show on my face. Because this was Danny. But right now, he kind of sounded like an asshole.
“Anyway,” Danny said after another huge yawn, “I think we got lucky back there. Good thing the governor showed up when he did.”
“I bet that’s the first time you’ve ever said that sentence.” It felt like a relief, to go back to talking about something else—something that would let me stop thinking about this other version of my favorite brother, the one I didn’t like very much.
Danny laughed. “You’re right about that.”
I took a breath to say something—what, I wasn’t sure—and looked over at my brother to see that he’d closed his eyes and was resting his head against the window. I glanced over at him for just a moment longer, then looked back at the road.
Even though almost no time had passed—it had been ten minutes, maximum, that we’d been in the car—my brother looked different to me now. It was like some of the glow that had always surrounded him had dimmed, like his gloss had rubbed off. He had always been my big brother, who knew everything and could do anything. He was the one who found fortunes under soda bottle caps, the one who had all the answers, the one who wasn’t afraid of anything.
But now, in this moment, he no longer seemed perfect, the one who knew everything, the one who was always right. Because he wasn’t. He was in the wrong with Brooke—and what’s more, I could see it and he couldn’t. It was the latest revelation in a night that had been chock-full of them. But it felt like it had tilted the world on its axis a little. Because who was Danny if he wasn’t my big brother, the one who could fix anything and do everything? Who was I if I wasn’t looking to him for answers?
As I drove in silence, my headlights cutting through the darkness, I realized that maybe it meant we could be closer to equals. Maybe I could actually find out who he was, now that I wasn’t blinded by the vision of him that I had been holding on to, the one left over from when I was six and he was the best person in the world.
I pulled into the driveway, and Danny stirred. “We here?” he asked, yawning again, covering his mouth with his hand.
“Yeah,” I said, shifting the car into park and glancing over at him, feeling in that moment just how tired I was. “We’re home.”
SUNDAY
* * *
CHAPTER 27
Or, About Last Night
* * *
IT WAS VERY EARLY WHEN I crept downstairs into the kitchen, dog at my heels. It was barely light outside, but I’d been lying awake for the last hour, so finally I’d just given up and headed downstairs. I’d been sleeping in Linnie and Rodney’s room. When Danny and I arrived home, I headed to J.J.’s room just in time to see Jenny slipping inside and closing the door behind her. I wasn’t really mad at him about this—given the night we’d all had, if any one of us could have turned it around a little bit, that seemed good to me.