“This again? I said I’d do it.”
He holds up a finger and moves toward me. “Exactly. So why haven’t you?” I grab his finger and force it down by his side. He raises it again and pokes my chest. “Help us help you, for fuck’s sake.”
My hands ball into fists, and I clench my jaw because if I don’t exert some self-control, I’ll take a swing at him like I used to when we were kids. And teenagers. And…well, last month. But he should know better than to poke me.
Instead, I take his paper cup peace offering and walk into my kitchen. It takes three full deep breaths in and out before I feel calmer. It used to take ten. Feels like progress.
My brother’s kindness in the coffee department is tempered by his lack of attention to detail. I don’t drink black coffee, neverhave. I don’t care if it’s half ’n’ half or some nut milk, but there has to be something in the cup with the coffee.
“Thanks for the coffee.” I can hear him panting behind me like he just finished a fifty-yard dash. He’s not out of shape. He just runs hot, always fired up about something and spitting nails. I worry about his blood pressure. Our dad died of liver disease when he wasn’t much older than us, so I worry about that too.
I pour milk into the cup and take a sip.
“Sorry, I always forget you put shit in your coffee.” Chad comes up next to me and peers into my cup like it’s mysterious. He’s slightly calmer.
“Traffic bad out there?”
It’s rush hour, or what qualifies as such in a small town. Slow trucks on narrow mountain roads clog things up, and day laborers trickle in. I rustle around in my freezer for a bag of banana muffins and pop two into the toaster oven.
He laughs. “No traffic. Just assholes.”
“Yeah. The usual.” I’m momentarily mesmerized by the orange tube in the oven blazing brighter as it thaws the muffins. Then I shake myself out of the trance and chug half my coffee, which burns the roof of my mouth. I’m off my game today already. Not a good sign.
“Heard you hooked up the other night.” Chad grins with this bit of gossip. There’s no use in trying to deny it when Chad spends enough time at the Hitching Post to know what goes on even on a night when he’s not there.
“Yeah. Unlike me, I know. It was nice.”
“Nice?”
I shrug, and he shakes his head. “That’s all I get?”
“That’s all there is.”
“Jesus, you can’t let anyone in. Ever.”
It’s not a new conversation, and I’m unlikely to change, so I don’t know why he’s bothering to bring it up.
“I don’t expect I’ll see her again, and I’m fine with that. Moving on.”
The toaster dings, and I give it one more round to make sure the muffins thaw in the middle. The smell of burnt sugar and melted butter fills the kitchen, and I inhale deep.
Chad laughs. “Still with the muffins, huh? I never met a guy with such a thing for banana muffins.”
“It’s the only option. Bananas make no sense.”
“Here we go. The great banana problem.” He swings a leg over a stool and leans his elbows on the high countertop between us. “I know your whole thing…they’re sold in bunches so they all ripen at once…”
“Exactly, and there’s only one or two days when they’re good, so the rest end up soft and brown.” The toaster dings. “And fucking delicious in muffin form.”
“You could put them in a smoothie,” Chad says.
“Fuck that.”
I roll the muffins out of the oven and onto plates. No chance Chad will eat his without butter, so I grab a stick from the fridge and hand him a knife.
“Anyhow, I did a drive around the perimeter of the property and ID’ed a couple of blind spots where you need eyes. If you don’t put cameras there, you’re asking for trouble from people looking to steal water right from your spigot, and we’re already stretched thin at work. Got a former cop starting this week, so that’s already a shit show because he thinks working security is the same thing as being a cop. On top of Dirk, who’s on administrative leave, and Gina, who's about to go out on maternity. Don’t make more work for me.”
I talk through a bite of muffin. “Fair enough.”