Five Ways to Fall (Ten Tiny Breaths #4)(101)

“Ah, nothing. I’m just an idiot.”

Crawling onto the bed, she falls back to share my pillow. “Who are you texting?”

“Reese.”

“Ah yes. The friend who visits your mother with you on weekends and spends the night in the same bed.”

I shrug. “This is me we’re talking about, remember?”

She rolls her eyes. “How could I forget? All of my senior friends were asking me to hook them up with my dorky freshman brother.”

“I wasn’t so dorky to them, was I? How’s Shelley Armstrong, by the way? You still talk to her?” Shelley was Elsie’s hot best friend in high school.

There’s a pause and then, “That wasn’t a rumor?”

I feel the wide grin stretch across my face. “At Butcher’s party after the homecoming game. It earned me legendary status with the guys pretty quick.”

“She lied to me!” Elsie punches me in the arm. “You’re lucky I love you so much, you pig.”

“Funny. That’s what Reese calls me. You two would probably get along well.”

I feel her eyes on me. “Is she the reason you turned down Miss Florida today?”

“What?” I feel my brow pinch.

“Hayley Parker? She won the state beauty pageant last year.”

“Seriously? . . . Huh.” Picturing those legs, I mumble. “Not surprised. She definitely wasn’t looking to solve world peace out there today, though—I can tell you that much.”

Elsie snorts. “I couldn’t believe it when Mom told me you were back within five minutes of her sending Hayley out. That sealed the deal in her eyes. Her little Benjamin’s in love,” she croons.

“That didn’t mean anything,” I deny, though everyone under this roof seems to know I’m lying. “Hell, I just lost my father yesterday. I’m just not in the mood.”

She barks out with laughter, sounding a lot like me. “Oh, bullshit! Do you remember when Cheechee died?”

“Of course I do! Man, I loved that dog. He was the best.” I still remember the way my stomach hit the ground as I was rounding the bend in the road, closing out a five-mile run, and found his broken, still body lying on the shoulder. He had been hit by a car.

“Exactly. You carried that dog all the way up the driveway in your arms, bawling your eyes out.”

“We all cried. Even Josh!” Our oldest brother was never big on showing emotion.

“But you sure weren’t crying later that night at that party, when I found you in the back of some girl’s car with her head in your lap.”

I burst out laughing. “Oh yeah. She was consoling me. You should have seen the look on your face.” That was the problem with all of us being so close in age. We went to a lot of the same parties and knew all the same people.

Elsie rolls her eyes. “Well, then don’t tell me you would have had a problem getting into the mood with a beauty queen when a man you hate is finally dead.”

It’s a somber reminder of why she’s here, stifling our laughter.

“And what would Mama have done if I had gone for it?”

Elsie starts giggling. “She said she was going to drive out in the dune buggy and beat your ass if you weren’t back within half an hour.”

Just the image of a fifty-one-year-old Mama racing around in that thing has me bursting out with laughter again.

Nudging in closer, Elsie asks softly, “So, tell me about her. What’s she like?”

I heave a sigh. “I don’t know . . .” I smile. “She’s funny. She has me laughing all the time, even at work when I want to slit my wrists with all the files I’m buried under. And she’s smart. Way smarter than me. I told her she should go to law school. She’ll ace all her classes if she doesn’t piss her profs off too bad. She’s really talented, too. Man, you should hear her sing. She has this incredible deep, raspy voice that—”

“I don’t believe it,” Elsie cuts in, turning to look hard at me, her eyes twinkling. “It’s true! My little baby brother’s finally stuck on a girl.”

Oh, Christ. I close my eyes. “Now you’re starting with me?”

Her head bumps up against mine. “Well, you didn’t lead with ‘she’s hot.’ ”

“Well, that’s a given. I was just trying to spare you. You want to hear how hot she is? Fine! She’s got this round, tight ass that I just want to—”

“Ugh, Ben!” Elsie punches my bicep with one of her bony knuckles. It doesn’t hurt but I stop anyway, grinning at her until she starts laughing, curling up next to me again.

There’s another long pause. “Darrin and I broke up. Did Mom tell you that?”

I can hear the sadness in her voice. “No. But I heard her saying something about it to Dad . . . Are you okay?”

She shrugs. “Yes. No. I don’t know. I loved him so much, Ben. And we were so happy most of the time, except for when we weren’t and it was my fault. I couldn’t trust him. I had no reason not to and yet there I was, constantly checking his emails and his phone, accusing him every time he came home late.”

“Of course you couldn’t. Look at what you grew up seeing.”

“That’s just Mom and Dad, not everyone.”