Up to Me(38)

Nash.

I park the bike and walk in to find Nash in the bathroom shaving. After rinsing his cheeks, he meets my eyes in the mirror. I’m glad to see the hair of his goatee intact; I don’t want him looking any more like me than he absolutely has to. This could get too sticky otherwise. Plus, I just don’t like the guy. He grew into an even bigger asshole than he was when we were younger.

“Make yourself at home,” I bite sarcastically.

“Oh, don’t worry. I did.”

I don’t even want to ask what that means. It’ll just make me mad, and for the next twelve hours or so, I need to focus. And that doesn’t mean on my brother.

“If you need to get a couple hours of sleep or do any more cleaning up, I can give you the keys to the apartment up town and you can drive the car over there.”

“Trying to get rid of me so soon?”

“Actually, yeah. I am.”

“That’s not very brotherly of you.”

“Look man, you’re gonna have to leave the attitude at the door for a while. I don’t have time for your mouth or your shit. Just stick to the plan and leave me the hell alone otherwise.”

“Well, the plan includes a need for the video, which I’ve stashed in a safe place. I might take you up on the offer of the car. I don’t have one since I’ve been in exile for seven years.”

Again with the bitterness. I want to roll my eyes, but I grit my teeth and resist the urge. Obviously one of us is going to have to be the cool-headed adult of the bunch. And it sure as hell doesn’t look like it’s gonna be Nash.

I walk into the bedroom and open the top chest drawer and dig out my alternate set of keys. “Take the Beamer. The gold key is the one for the condo.”

I give him the address. He raises his eyebrows and nods appreciatively, but he keeps his sarcasm to a minimum. I’m glad about that. Maybe I got through to him.

“Nice.”

“Maybe for a lawyer, but I prefer this place.”

He looks me in the eye, like he’s trying to determine if I’m lying.

“I can’t believe you did it.”

“Did what?”

“Finished school and went to college. And actually graduated and became a lawyer.”

I sift through his words for an underlying meaning, for derision or malice, but I find none. He just seems…surprised.

“It’s not like I enjoyed it. That was always your thing, not mine. But it’s what I had to do to help Dad. Or at least I thought it was.”

I have to work to keep the bitterness from my own tone. It still stings knowing how much they kept me in the dark, remembering all the sacrifices I made because I thought Dad needed my help.

“I guess neither of us turned out quite like we expected.”

“I suppose not. I just hope, in some ways, we’re both better off for what we’ve done and the way things turned out. Maybe it was good for both of us. I needed a little bit of you, I guess.”

Nash shrugs. “Maybe I needed a little bit of you, too. Just not this much.”

His smile seems genuine and it’s easier for me to return it than I would’ve thought, considering how things started out between us.

Maybe there’s hope after all.

I see Nash’s few possessions thrown over the bed.

“I’ll give you a minute to get your stuff together. I’ve gotta get something out of the car.”

That’s a lie. I actually have to get the books out of the safe and I don’t want him to see where I keep important things. I still don’t fully trust my brother, so I consider the fib prudent and necessary.

He nods and I walk back out to the garage, closing the door behind me.

I cross to the hook racks and peg boards on the wall opposite the car. There’s a small lever and hidden hinges on the second board. It opens silently to reveal a safe built into the wall. I punch in the combination. The click lets me know it’s ready.

The only things inside the safe besides the ledgers are an expandable file full of papers related to the club and a small stack of hundred dollar bills. I hate not to have some cash on hand.

I remove the ledgers and shut the door then replace the peg board over it, concealing its presence perfectly. I retrieve my jacket from the back seat of the BMW and then head back to the apartment. Nash is putting on his sunglasses as I walk in.

“Seriously? At night?”

“All these years of the sun reflecting off the water has made my eyes sensitive to light. The glare of traffic lights at night bothers me. Plus, I look pretty bad ass.”

His lopsided grin reminds me of the happy-go-lucky kid from our childhood.

“All you need is some leather pants and an Austrian accent and you could scare the shit out of some kids, Terminator style.”