Once And Forever: Virtually Impossible Part 8

Laney sighed. "Man, Carson, way to ruin my big news. If you'd just told him like a normal person, he wouldn't have had to guess." She looked at me. "You guessed wrong, by the way. And just in case it's still not clear-I'm not pregnant, and won't be for a very, veeery long time."

"Clear," I said. When I looked back at my brother, I stopped smiling. Because, as terrified as he was to have children, I think he was also a little disappointed by Laney's emphasis on 'very.' He caught me staring and brushed off the expression that had given him away, and we both refocused on what Laney was saying.

"My lily pad tables are finally all done! For the piece I started eons ago. Remember?"

I nodded as the memory came back to me. Laney was an artist, and had been commissioned to do multiple pieces inside the enormous lobby of a building downtown.

"It took so long to find the right wood pieces for each table." Right, she'd only wanted to use wood that had been salvaged from the bay. "You can't see them yet, not until they're in place. And who knows how long that will take. The building manager keeps nagging me for a date, but it's art. You can't rush that s.h.i.+t." She smiled. "Just kidding. I have to set a date so they can plan their big unveiling thing for the new lobby with a fancy party and all that c.r.a.p. But I want you to be there. Clare, too."

"Do I have to go?" Carson asked, smiling.

"Don't make me kiss your brother," she warned.

"Hey," both of us said at the same time.

"I'm not sure how comfortable I am with that threat," I said.

"I'm definitely not comfortable with that threat," my brother added.

She laughed at our mutual dissatisfaction and then kissed her boyfriend. "Yes, you absolutely have to be there. The whole thing is about you." They kissed again. I focused on my beer.

"You'll go, Hayden? Please, I need someone to control your brother," she teased.

"I wouldn't miss it." When she threw her arms around me, I found myself thinking that Sira would really like her.

"Who's Sira?" Laney asked.

I flinched when I heard her name. "What?"

"You said Sira would like Lane," Carson said slowly. "Who's Sira?"

"Sira is...um..." I wiped a hand over my mouth, cursing its stupidity.

"Where is Clare, Hayden?" he asked even more slowly.

With only a momentary glance, I saw his eyes widen. Not exactly the same look as Laney-hers held no suspicion-but their intensity came from the same place. Both of them knew something was going on, but they didn't know what. Which made a lot of sense since I didn't know what was going on either.

"Clare is in Colorado with a friend. And Sira is...someone I work with."

Carson's eyes didn't move. "Lane? Can you get us a couple more beers?"

She loudly blew out her breath. "Gee, Carson. I don't actually need a hint to be that obvious. You could've just said, 'Can I talk to my brother alone for a sec?' I know we're together, but that doesn't mean we aren't allowed to talk to people, you know?"

Carson finally looked away from me and toward her. "Actually, I wasn't trying to fool you, babe. I was trying to fool him. So he wouldn't figure out that I was about to call him on some s.h.i.+t he might not want you to hear. But thanks for the relations.h.i.+p clarification."

"Oops." Laney stammered for a second then nodded once. "I'm going to go get us...some fresh beers." She grabbed Carson's wallet and walked into the restaurant toward the bar.

As soon as she was out of earshot, I threw my hands up. "What do you want to know, little brother?"

"I want to know what the f.u.c.k is going on with my big brother. So talk. Who is she?"

"She's no one."

"She's obviously someone."

I paused, looking for a quick way out of the conversation, not sure if I wanted a way out. Carson was as close to a confidante as I'd ever had. Until Laney had come along, I would never have thought to discuss women with him, primarily because Carson's only experience with them was s.e.xual. For the past few years, my only experience with them was...not s.e.xual. Wow, I needed help.

"Waiting. Impatiently."

"Okay." I took a deep breath. "Yes, Sira is someone. She's someone I...I see everywhere."

"f.u.c.k, man." He ran a hand through his hair. "What about Clare? You just gonna give that up?"

"Wait a minute. Now you've decided you can judge me? You've been f.u.c.king up for twenty-five years, doing whatever you want whenever you want to."

"Exactly," he said, nodding. "I was f.u.c.king up. Now that I have something good, I would never do anything that could blow it."

"That's the thing, little brother. I don't have anything good. I've never had anything good."

He grimaced but didn't argue. We had the same father, the same mother, and we'd kept the same secrets growing up.

But I had one even he didn't know about. I'd been there when our father died. I was there, and I could've stopped it from happening. But I hadn't. Every day since, I'd played by the rules, did the right thing, lived a life I didn't want, all to make up for that one moment.

"And you think this thing with Sira is good?" Carson asked.

"There is no 'thing with Sira.' I've never even met her. And I never will." I laughed at myself. "But it's as if I see her everywhere."

"So she's what? A webcam girl?" He misunderstood my shocked silence as a need for clarification. "You know, the women who strip and pretend they like having a bunch of hairy, old men jerking off to them."

"I know what a webcam girl is, Carson. I was just trying to figure out why you'd think I'd be that delusional." Then again, I guess it wasn't that much of a stretch. I sighed. "I don't even know what Sira looks like, but every time I hear a woman laugh, I look over and wonder if it's her."

He glanced in the direction Laney had gone. "Look, Hay, I don't want to judge."

"You mean any more than you already are?"

"Right," he said emotionless. "But honestly, on my list of things I'd rather never do, imagining my brother getting naked with anyone is pretty close to the top."

"Above or below imagining me jerking off to a webcam girl?"

"Below, but just barely." He shook his head as if to get rid of any and all images that might have appeared. "I don't know the details, but it's hard to miss how weird you and Clare's relations.h.i.+p is. You act more like brother and sister, but not in the inbred, freaky, 'I'm my own grandpa' kind of way."

"Good, because I was really worried about that," I grumbled. "Do you have a point, Carson?"

"Get a divorce."

It was my turn to grimace. "I can't do that. Clare needs..." She didn't need me, but she needed someone.

"Clare's a beautiful girl with a big trust fund. She'll be just fine. And you're a big boy, although how big I don't want to know." He clenched his eyes and growled, shaking his fist. "Okay, I did it to myself that time. Eww. Seriously, tell me you don't have a d.i.c.k so I can picture you as a Ken doll."

"I worry about you." When he didn't open his eyes, I said, "Fine. I'm-" No, I couldn't do it. "Carson, I have a p.e.n.i.s. A big one. So get over it."

"No way! Ken doll. You're a Ken doll. Okay, I got it." He opened one eye and smiled, looking exactly as he had when he was a little kid before I'd been sent off to boarding school. When things were simple and easy, and the only unpredictable thing in our lives was our father's temper.

"Are you going to judge me or not?"

"Yes! I mean, no. I mean... Aw, s.h.i.+t. You said something to me, not too long ago, when I was being an idiot. Now I'm going to say the same thing to you, only with more finesse, and possibly a dirty joke."

"Can you at least wait until I've had another drink before you ma.s.sacre whatever wisdom I shared with you?"

"No. I gotta say this before Laney gets back. You ready?" He bounced his shoulders up and down a few times. "Here it comes."

"I don't think I'll ever be ready."

"Someday, someone's gonna come along who you never saw coming. She's going to throw you a rope and, if you don't catch it, she's gonna go full-on cowgirl and hogtie your a.s.s."

I cracked up. "I really can't imagine myself saying anything like that."

"Shut up and listen for a second, will you?"

I flinched at the anger in his tone.

"Just..." He paused, his gaze pleading. "I was there too, Hay. With Dad. I felt it, all of it, and it f.u.c.king hurt. Still hurts sometimes."

"I'm sorry." Guilt raised its giant foot over my head and stamped down as hard as it could. I wondered if anyone else felt the earth shake. "I should've been there for you, little brother."

"No, you shouldn't have," he scoffed. "You should've stayed the h.e.l.l away and not come home during school breaks. I wouldn't have. You weren't responsible for me. You weren't responsible for any of it. f.u.c.k, I was the one who said no when you turned eighteen and asked me to come live with you. I was the one dumb enough to think I could 'fix' Renee. So stop thinking that s.h.i.+t. Yesterday." He took a well-deserved breath. "Now, where was I before you ruined my big moment?"

I'd forgotten how good he was at finding something to make fun of no matter how bad the situation. "It still hurts."

"Right, okay, give me a sec to get my dramatic mojo back." Another breath. "Okay, got it. Yeah, our home life sucked a.s.s, and we both dealt with it in our own way. I watched you, Hayden." Any hint of humor was gone from his voice. "It took me a while, but I finally figured out that the only way you could make it stop hurting was to turn everything off-all your feelings and hopes and..."

He swallowed. "I get all that. But the b.a.s.t.a.r.d has been gone for a decade, and you still haven't come back, still haven't woken up. It's like you're doing the eternal sleep thing with him, and who the f.u.c.k would want to sleep next to that p.r.i.c.k?" He took a breath and smiled. I couldn't breathe, but I did start to process what he'd said. And every word rang true.

It had been easier to stop feeling anything, and it still was. Except, after the pain I'd been trying to control no longer existed, a life built from it did. My way of coping was to slowly suffocate my chance at happiness.

"If this woman-Sira?" Carson waited until I made eye contact and nodded. "If Sira can make you feel something again, don't let her get away. Let her in. Because if you don't, if you play dead and just pretend to be alive, I don't know if you'll ever come back."

It was getting late, which meant the bar was filling and the noise was growing, but my brother and I sat there in silence for a little while.

"Wow." I cleared my throat. "I'm a lot smarter than I give myself credit for. You sure I said that?"

"No, yours wasn't nearly that impressive," he said, his grin growing. "But the general idea was the same."

"Did I make a weird face afterward like you're doing right now?"

"What weird face?" he asked, brus.h.i.+ng his hair back. "Screw you. I don't have a weird face. I have a great face."

"You're right. Mine is just greater."

We laughed and lobbed insults until we saw Laney watching us intently through the restaurant window. Carson held out his hand toward her. "She's incredible, isn't she?"

"Absolutely."

"I hope she and Sira get along well. Because it would suck if they didn't, brother." That simple statement, said by a man who'd fought so hard not to fall in love but who'd ended up there anyway, was more powerful than anything I could ever tell myself or deny.

Whatever could or couldn't happen between Sira and me, she was the only one who'd made me feeling anything in a long time-annoying brother and his endearing girlfriend aside. Without even trying, she'd given me something to hope for. So I'd be stupid not to take the gift.

When I got home, the house was as quiet as normal, but it had never bothered me before. Carson's words had been bouncing around in my mind since I'd left the happy couple. Everything he'd said made perfect sense. Unfortunately, I was still no closer to knowing what to do about it.

But as one of my grad school professors used to say... 'Those who refuse to go to the table before they've come up with a foolproof plan are the fools who come to an empty table.'

I got a drink before sitting down on the couch and texting Sira. 'I'd like to meet you. In person.'

Her response took a while. 'What for?'

Because... 'Because I'd like to meet you outside of work.'

'That's not a good idea.'

'Why not?'

'I'd rather not go into it.' Her next message had popped up before I had a chance to respond. 'How about we discuss something different? Something work related.'

'Did I offend you?'

'Oh please. You're going to have to try a lot harder than that if you want to offend me.'

'I don't.' I typed.

'Don't what?'

Don't want to talk about work. Don't want to pretend. Don't want this to stop, whatever it is and no matter how wrong. 'Don't want to offend you. But I'd still like to know why you don't want to meet.'

I watched the gray bubbles that signaled she was typing. Then they stopped, but no new text appeared. So I waited as long as I had the patience for-probably close to thirty seconds. 'Sira?'

'Because you're very married and very nice, and I am very not married and not nearly as nice.'

Oh. That wasn't what I was hoping those bubbles meant. 'You're much nicer than I am.'

'Is there anything else you need from me tonight?'

'To meet you.' Then I added, 'Although, it doesn't have to be tonight.'

Wow, the bubbles kept going and going. Again, I was disappointed by their efforts.

'Maybe I'm not explaining myself clearly enough. If we met, there's a good chance I would embarra.s.s myself. There's another chance, albeit a much, much smaller one, that you would do something you'd regret. Either way, meeting each other would be bad. Do you understand?'