Every Other Weekend(53)
I pushed him, and he laughed. “At least my impulse came after I actually liked you as a person. I mean, talk about shallow.”
He chucked his empty cup into a nearby trash can and held his hand out for my full-but-no-longer-hot cocoa. “You know, it’s stupid to keep buying this if you aren’t going to drink it.”
“Like $0.65 is really going to kill me. Besides, it warms my hands.”
“So do gloves. Okay, your turn. Why’d you want to kiss me?” he asked.
I let my boots kick up clumps of snow as we walked. “It was just this idea. One second I was about to eat a face full of snow, and the next, you were catching me. And then you were right there, like inches from me with your arm still holding me. If we were in a movie, that would have been the perfect moment for a kiss.”
Next to me, Adam nodded, but he was fighting another frown.
“No, come on. Nobody kissed anybody. We’re just talking, sharing the random stuff that sometimes flies through our minds. That’s what friends do.”
Adam’s frown smoothed. “Well, what if I wan—” But his words kind strangled off as his gaze drifted past me and locked. I saw the blood drain from his face, and I turned to see a pale, black-haired guy with strikingly dark eyes walking toward a navy Jeep with a coffee in one hand and keys in the other. He looked to be a few years older than us, and he went still when he saw us.
“Adam?” I asked.
He didn’t respond, just started moving toward the guy, who had changed course and was heading directly toward Adam, too. I started to worry that they were going to charge each other, because neither appeared to be slowing down, but instead of colliding, they embraced, hands clapping on each other’s backs like brothers.
ADAM
It should have bothered me that I was about to cry in front of the girl who had my heart, but it didn’t. That had as much to do with Daniel as it did Jolene. He clapped me once more on the shoulder and then pulled back. And just as quickly as I’d been about to cry, I was laughing. It was so good to see him. It felt like going back in time, and I half expected to see Greg walk up behind him.
Daniel didn’t join in my laughter, but he did smile.
“What are you doing here?” I hadn’t seen my brother’s best friend since Greg’s funeral two years ago. My laughter faded with that realization.
“I’ve been gone some.” Daniel had tossed his coffee into a trash can before reaching me, and he shoved both hands into his pockets, but not before I noticed that the knuckles on his right hand were split.
He and Greg had been friends for as long as I could remember, and we all knew how messed up his home life had been. He was old enough now that he must have moved out, but things were apparently still bad. Growing up, my parents had called the police more than once when Daniel had shown up hurt on our doorstep. It had never gone anywhere, because Daniel’s mom refused to press charges even when it was clear that her husband was beating her, too, and Daniel cared too much about her to contradict whatever stories she invented to explain their injuries.
As he’d gotten older and bigger, Daniel’s injuries had become less frequent, but I doubted his mom had fared as well. I knew that, for Daniel, his mom getting hurt was worse than getting hit himself. But she wouldn’t let him help her, would even blame him for making her husband angry in the first place.
I think that was why he’d helped Greg rescue injured animals. He couldn’t help his mom, but he could help them.
“How’s everyone?” he asked, drawing my attention away from his hand. “Your mom?”
I’d never been jealous over the close relationship Daniel had developed with our mom. She’d taken him under her wing as much as he’d allowed and had been the only one he’d take any comfort from when things went more wrong than usual at his home. When Greg was alive, Daniel had spent more nights at our house than he had his own. Mom had been talking about turning the attic into a bedroom for him until Daniel made it clear that he couldn’t leave his mom. Still, I remembered plenty of nights when I’d woken up to find the two of them talking over tea in the kitchen, and once, when he’d been much younger, he’d even let her hug him while he cried. Greg had been like a brother to him, but I almost think he loved Mom more.
“She’s, um... Yeah, she’s okay. We’re okay.”
Daniel didn’t nod. He knew me well enough to know I was lying.
“How’s your mom?” I didn’t ask about his dad, because while I hoped he was dead, there was a new scar splitting Daniel’s left eyebrow that told me all I needed to know. Daniel’s hands tried to push deeper into his pockets. His silence was answer enough.
Jolene joined us then, glancing between us with a cautious smile on her face. “I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess you guys know each other?”
I had to stop myself from reaching for her hand. I felt so overwhelmed by seeing Daniel again that I needed something to ground me, and I suddenly felt nervous and proud all at once that she’d get to meet Greg’s best friend. She’d never know my brother—and one of these days, I was going to tell her everything about him—but having her meet Daniel, who’d been like a brother to me, too, somehow made it feel like I was getting to share a part of Greg with her.
“Yeah, this is Daniel. He was Greg’s best friend.” Daniel flicked a glance at me when I said Greg’s name without having to include the fact that he was my brother, and I saw him turn back to Jolene with more interest than before. “And this is my—this is Jolene.”