Rob gives me this kind of creepy death glare, like he's convinced I had his kids hanging out with some hooker I picked up on Second Street.
“Brooke and Zayden lick each other's private parts in the shower,” Kinzie tells them confidently, and I feel the blood drain out of my face.
“You son of a bitch,” Rob snarls as Kinzie starts calling out curse jar, curse jar.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I say as I back up and put my palms out. “It wasn't us that she saw; it was you and Mercedes. She's just putting stories together. She thinks that's what couples do now, I guess.”
Mercedes and Rob exchange a look before my brother turns back to glare at me, clutching Sadie to his side with a giant, muscular arm the size of a tree trunk.
“You have got a ton of explaining to do,” he whispers as he walks by me and I roll my eyes. That fucker's thought he was my dad since he turned twelve. If he thinks I'm going to stick around and listen to his lectures, he's got another thing coming.
I feel stifled suddenly, desperate to get the hell out of here, like if I don't leave Eureka now, I'll never escape. I waited my whole life to leave this place and I finally did, finally found someplace where I could be happy.
If I stay for Brooke, we'll have a few blissful weeks and then everything will just fall to shit like it always does. I know that, know it and yet I'm finding it almost impossible to leave.
I push the empty stroller behind Mercedes as she lets the kids babble to her about all the things we've done while they were gone. You know, like how I filled the curse jar to the brim, punched a guy out at the mall, and had us permanently living with my new girlfriend.
Oh, and also how there's a banshee that lives at Brooke's house, one who sounds like a screaming woman in the middle of the night.
That's always fun.
Rob makes me drive the van to the house so he can sit in the backseat with his kids.
Mercedes sits in the front though and keeps looking at me with a raised eyebrow as we drive back to the duplex.
“This girl,” she starts and I stick out my tongue at her.
“Nope. Nuh uh. Don't want to go there,” I tell her as some god-awful kids' music plays in the background, keeping our conversation relatively private from my brother.
“Zayden,” she begins, using this big sister voice on me that always makes me laugh since we're pretty much the exact same age. Maybe she picked it up from being a mother? “I know you, and I have never seen you like this before.”
“You hardly ever see me,” I joke as we head down the highway, past the ocean and the waving sea grasses. “Mostly we just talk on the mic during raids. Hey, did you know that expansion pack came out last week?”
“Don't do that,” she tells me, shaking her head and reaching her hands up to brush back her wild curls. “Don't pretend that you're fine, try to cover up a wound with a bandage. It doesn't ever work, baby.”
“When you call me that, it makes me feel like I'm ten. Can we please not? This conversation is pointless.”
“Do you need somewhere to stay for a few days while you work things out? Is your girlfriend mad at you?”
“Brooke's not my girlfriend,” I say, but it feels like she is. That same weird male possessive bullshit that I felt the other day comes raining over me like a tidal wave about to strike. “Basically, I'm dropping you guys off and Hubert and I,” I reach down to pat the cat's kennel between the two front seats, “are going back to the desert. I don't know if you know it, but I like, haven't worked in two weeks and I'm pretty much down to zero in the money department.”
“I know,” she says, turning towards me and reaching out a hand for my knee. Mercedes gives it a little squeeze. “And I'm so thankful, Zay. Really, I am.” Her eyes get all teary and I can't help but roll mine. Damn it. Such a sucker for pretty girls in distress. Like Brooke. I purse my lips and keep my eyes on the road. “It's nice to know there's somebody out there we can count on, you know?”
“Yup. Any time. Although hopefully not anytime soon because I'm dead broke.”
Mercedes laughs and then turns to look at Kinzie as the kid starts in on a tale of “dogging” between Dodger and the chihuahuas. Yet another highlight of the past two weeks.
But I find myself smiling anyway because even though I thought this whole thing was going to be miserable and even though at times, it was kind of miserable, it was also kind of awesome, too, in it's own way.
Or maybe that was just Brooke?
Mercedes and Kinzie cry when I get in my shitty old Geo to leave, while Rob glares at me. Again, I don't take it personally because I can see tears shimmering in his eyes as I pull out of the driveway and Hubert starts to yowl. Believe it or not, this is actually our second time trying to get the fuck out of here but the first time, the damn cat took a dump before I got halfway down the block. I had to turn around and clean his kennel out, bathe him, and put on a fresh sweater that says Total Feminist on the back of it.