Save Me from Dangerous Men (Nikki Griffin #1)(25)

“You. Up. Go take a walk.”

“Who the hell are you?”

“Come on, Nik,” Brandon said. “These are my friends.”

“You can’t tell me shit,” said Mohawk. He seemed to have woken up in a bad mood. He blinked his eyes, the tiny pupils glaring up at me. “We’re his friends. You heard him.”

“Where are we supposed to go?” argued the girl in that same dull voice. Still sitting on the floor. Her cigarette smoked down to nothing. She took another drag anyway. I wondered how the filter tasted. “You think we have anywhere to go?”

“Sit on the damn curb,” I said. “Same as what you’re doing now. Only there, not here.”

“You can’t talk to her like that,” Mohawk said. He looked like he was trying to get himself out of the chair. His voice not quite aggressive, but getting somewhere in the vicinity.

I looked away. Took a breath. “Brandon,” I said, ignoring Mohawk and the girl. “These two should really go. Immediately. Because I’m getting kind of sick of asking nice.”

Brandon laughed. He had an endearing laugh, at odds with the grim surroundings. A high-pitched near-giggle that faded into a long smoker’s cough. “That’s your cue,” he said to Mohawk. “I wouldn’t make her mad.”

“She shouldn’t make me mad,” Mohawk said. “She has no idea what I’m capable of.”

Brandon laughed again. “If you make her mad you’ll get a reeeeeaaal surprise. I’d listen to her, I really would.” He laughed more.

“Come on,” Mohawk said haughtily to the girl. “I can see we’re not wanted.”

I didn’t look at him. Let him pause in front of me, light a new cigarette, blow a cloud of smoke into my face. I didn’t move. The two of them left. The door slammed. Footsteps faded.

“Why’d you have to kick them out, Nik? They weren’t doing any harm.”

The two of us alone, now. The apartment quiet.

“No harm?” I said. I turned away from the wall. Once my kid brother had been handsome as hell. Unforgettable green eyes that danced with energy, and smooth clear skin. Given a normal childhood, he would have been juggling girlfriends right and left. There would have been girls stopping by the house for help with chemistry homework or to borrow a CD or whatever high school girls did when they liked someone. Traces of that Brandon were still there but I had to look close. He was thin, no longer in a coltish teenage way but just a parched, unhealthy look. A couple of inches taller than me and probably ten pounds lighter. He wore a black sleeveless tank top and dirty blue mesh gym shorts, and his lightly freckled face was covered with scraggly stubble. A Band-Aid on his cheek, his brown hair unwashed. I wanted to cry. I wanted to shampoo his hair, sponge hot water over the dirty skin. His green eyes didn’t sparkle. The pupils were small, the eyelids puffy.

“Are you hungry? You want me to make something? An omelet? Grilled cheese?”

“Not hungry, Nik-Nik,” he said. “But thanks.”

I took the shopping bags into the kitchen. I couldn’t have done much cooking anyway. The sink was piled high with dirty plates and moldering food, the stovetop greasy, covered in pizza boxes and empty takeout containers. A cockroach scuttled across the counter and took refuge behind the stove. I opened the refrigerator. Two six-packs of Bud Light, a bottle of Sriracha hot sauce bearing the telltale rooster, and a rotting head of lettuce. That was it.

I took cleaning supplies from where I kept them under the sink. I threw out the lettuce, scrubbed away the liquid rot that had pooled underneath. Began unloading groceries. Fresh vegetables and fruit, delicatessen cold cuts, eggs, bread, cans of soup. I scrubbed ash and dried food off the dishes, filled two large Hefty bags with trash. In the bedroom, the sheets were rank. I put them all in another trash bag to be laundered, got clean sheets from a shelf in the closet. The air was stale. I managed to get a window open and jumped as a loud jangling went off from the night table by the bed. An old analog alarm clock, a vivid Mickey Mouse imprinted on the bright yellow face. I shook the clock and turned dials until it stopped ringing.

Brandon was just as I had left him. “That alarm clock scared the crap out of me,” I said. “You want a new one that actually goes off when you want it to?”

He shook his head emphatically. “Mom and Dad gave it to me for my first day of first grade. Mom said I’d actually have to start waking up on my own.”

“Sorry,” I said, suddenly guilty. “I knew that.”

“Maybe this one doesn’t work perfectly. But neither do I. We’re a good fit.”

I changed the subject. “You’re sure you’re not hungry?”

“Let’s have a drink.”

“A drink? Seriously?”

“We’re both over twenty-one.”

I looked at my brother, draped comfortably across the couch. “You’re just a regular Oblomov, aren’t you? Sure, we can have a drink. Why not?” I went into the kitchen and twisted the tops off two bottles of Bud Light. He was sitting up now. I handed him a beer. “Here. How much do you need?”

“Could I get a thousand?”

“I took care of rent already. You need a grand on top of that?”

He laughed. “Inflation, Nik. Basic economics. The dollar doesn’t go as far anymore.”