The Hard Count(62)

“Your brother…he…sold drugs?” I ask.

Nico shrugs and shifts his weight, his focus more intent on my hand in his.

“Not totally, but he was…he was around for a lot of things when they went down. He was the low man on the totem pole, I guess you could say?”

I nod.

“Then…Alyssa came along,” he says, and I glance up to see his crooked smile, his eyes moving to the screen then to me. “Her mom bailed when she was days old. She was pretty hooked on some bad shit.”

I breathe in deeply, not wanting to show how unnerved his words are making me.

“That guy…that day at your house,” I say, and Nico grimaces, looking down again.

“He comes around sometimes. He’s smalltime, selling at playgrounds and shit like that,” Nico says, laughing through a serious face. “He’s actually the narc who got the houses in our hood busted. He needed to save his own ass. He’s been dealing in West End since I was a kid, though. Fucking * used to chase me home from school.”

“Oh my God!” I say, unable to hide the wince that paints my face.

Nico raises a shoulder.

“It’s not really that bad,” he says, looking up at me through his flickering eyelids. “It’s a flawed system, sort of. Like…like the Axis and the Allies, World War Two. Only, instead of countries, it’s groups of punk-ass losers looking to make a quick buck. These guys hook up with the ones on the next street so they have someone to watch their backs, then the ones they bully make friends to watch their backs, and then you mix drugs in, and money and territory, and then all of a sudden you have a war.”

“War, huh?” I ask.

“Feels like it sometimes,” he says, shaking his head and smirking.

I reach up and touch the lock of hair falling into his eyes, giggling when he goes cross-eyed watching me. “Only you would make such a nerdy analogy for gangland warfare,” I say.

“I’m pretty sure we decided that you, Miss Prescott,” he says, touching my nose, “are by far the bigger nerd.”

I narrow my gaze on him and pout, which makes him laugh.

“So why is your brother in the Middle East?” I ask.

“Marines,” Nico says, confirming what I thought. “He got his act together, and talked to a recruiter. Probably lied a little about drugs and shit to get through the process, and his past didn’t really do him many favors. But he wanted to do something big with his life, step up and be the dad she deserves.”

I watch him look at Alyssa’s image again as he leans forward and clicks to save the file we made.

“He sounds like a pretty great brother,” I say.

Nico’s mouth forms a tight smile.

“I’ve always thought my brother was the greatest man in the world, even when he probably didn’t deserve me thinking so,” he says.

“We do that for our brothers,” I say, thinking of my own, how lost he is and how my heart aches for the time when he was just my bratty twin who I secretly adored.

“Yeah, we do,” Nico says, slipping his hand loose from mine, and scooting closer to the computer to email the final video file to himself. “That’s why I missed school Friday. He gets video calls every now and then, and one came Friday. We have to go to the community center to log into their computers, and sometimes the Internet is too damn slow. We got to talk to him Friday, though. He looked so much older.”

“How old is he?” I ask.

“Twenty-five,” he says, chewing at the inside of his mouth while his lips slide into a proud grin. “He said he missed Alyssa, seeing her face. He looked so goddamned sad, and I just thought—”

Nico reaches up with his arm, sliding it along his right eye, wiping away the tear I see forming.

“I think he’ll love the video,” I say. “If you want, I can send it to him. We both can. Maybe you can come over one night, after practice.”

Nico looks up at me from the side, his mouth quirking up in a faint smile.

“Yeah?” he says.

“Yeah,” I repeat.

I lean in, my lips twitching with the need to feel his again, but just before I reach him, the door slides open, and we both twist in our seats to see my father standing in the doorway along with Jimmy O’Donahue. I let go of Nico’s hand quickly, and stumble to a stand so I’m facing him.

“Dad, hey,” I say, my body beat-red with guilt, my palms sweating and my heart thumping wildly while my dad’s eyes shift from Nico to me.

“I saw your car. I’m getting pizza,” he says, nothing about his tone warm or fuzzy or happy in the least. “Nico,” he says, his name coming out clipped, smothered in a hint of a threat, perhaps.

“Coach,” Nico says, standing next to me. I scoot to the right, giving us distance, and I feel Nico glance to me.

I swing my arm against my side, my mind spinning, unsure what to do, what to say—what to confess to. My eyes are wide, and the Western standoff we’ve all found ourselves in only grows more uncomfortable when Jimmy O’Donahue clears his throat, drawing my dad’s attention to him, his face looking to the ground, to his feet, away from me and Nico.

“Got it,” Nico says through a soft and unhappy chuckle.

My lips quiver, and I want to apologize immediately, but I don’t. Nico holds up his phone and leans in.