Hunter didn’t say anything.
Gabriel spun his water bottle on the ground, watching the fractured sunlight turn the grass different shades of green. “I’m the only one of my brothers who gets up early. My mom did, too. She used to drink coffee and play board games with me until the others woke up.” When he’d turned ten, she’d started making him a cup of coffee, too, filling half the mug with milk and two tablespoons of sugar before adding any coffee at all. He still drank it the same way.
“The morning after the funeral, I came down to the kitchen. I don’t know what the hell I was thinking, like there’d be coffee in the pot and a game of Sorry! set up on the table or something.” He paused. “Nothing. Just an empty kitchen. I think that’s when it really hit me.”
Hunter still didn’t say anything.
Gabriel glanced over. “So I made coffee.”
He’d set up the game, too, for whatever reason. Then he’d sobbed into his mug for forty-five minutes, until his coffee went cold and Michael found him sitting there. Gabriel had been worried his brother would bitch about the coffee or the crying or something—he rarely needed a reason in those days.
But Michael had just poured himself a cup of coffee and pushed the dice across the table. “You go first.”
Gabriel didn’t want to talk about any of that. “All I’m saying is”—he shrugged—“if you were going to run the race, maybe you should run the race.”
“Maybe,” said Hunter. He’d peeled almost the entire label off his water bottle.
This was getting too heavy. Gabriel leaned in. “Dude. Seriously, if you start crying, people are going to think I’m breaking up with you.”
Hunter looked up. A smile broke through the emotion. “The way you run, they’d be more likely to think I’m breaking up with you.”
“You can kiss my ass.” His phone chimed, and Gabriel didn’t even want to look at it. Probably Michael, whining about some job.
No, but a number he didn’t recognize.
Were you serious about today? Layne
Layne! Gabriel sat straight up.
“Who’s Layne?” asked Hunter, reading over his shoulder. Gabriel shoved him away and typed back.
Absolutely serious.
Her response took fifteen agonizing seconds.
My dad has to work this afternoon, and Simon is going to see our mom.
He smiled.
Are you inviting me over?
Another lengthy pause.
No. My dad said I’m not allowed to have you over.
Her dad probably had snipers on the roof, trained to shoot Gabriel on sight.
His phone chimed again.
But maybe we could go back to your house and work on your math homework.
He scowled. The words were full of highs and lows. His house! She wanted to come back to his house! But . . . math. Math.
Another chime.
The faster you learn math, the faster we can do other things.
Well, that set his heart pounding. He typed fast.
Pick you up at 2?
This time, her response was lightning quick.
Make it 3. Don’t text back. Gotta go.
“Come on,” he said to Hunter. “Let’s go set things on fire.”
“Got a date?”
“Actually, yes.”
But a few minutes later, he looked over at Hunter climbing into the passenger seat. The heady tension of their conversation had dissipated, but it wasn’t completely gone.
“Hey, man,” he said. “You all right?”
Hunter nodded, his eyes on the windshield. “Yeah.”
When he didn’t say anything else, Gabriel started the engine and started to back out of his parking space.
And while he wasn’t looking, Hunter said, “I don’t think I could do it.”
Alone. That’s what he wasn’t saying. He didn’t think he could do the race alone. Without his father.
But he wasn’t alone. Even if Hunter didn’t realize it yet.
Gabriel wished he’d figured that out five years ago. Maybe then he would have played that game of Sorry! with Michael.
Instead of flinging the dice in his brother’s face and telling him to fuck off.
Gabriel pulled onto Ritchie Highway. He’d never considered that it might have cost Michael something to sit down with him.
He had to clear his throat. “I’ll run it with you.”
A big hesitation. Then Hunter said, “Come on. You don’t have to—”
“I know.”
“It’s twenty-six miles.”
“I know what a marathon is.”
Hunter was looking out the window again. “I’ll think about it.”
Gabriel nodded, shut his mouth, and drove.
CHAPTER 26
Gabriel made it home just before two. Plenty of time to grab a shower and clean clothes and to get out the door to pick up Layne.
Or it would have been, if his brothers had still been out.
He didn’t see Michael—thank god—but Nick stopped him in the hallway, blocking the path to the bathroom.
“Where were you all morning?”
“Sorry, Mom, I’ll leave a note next time.” Gabriel went to push past him.
But Nick stood firm. “You smell like fire.”
Not surprising, considering he and Hunter had burned a dozen hay bales at the back of Hunter’s grandparents’ property. Their practice experiment ended with mixed results: Gabriel had practically set the entire field on fire.
But he was close. His control was getting better. He could feel it.
And they’d been ready this time. A hose hookup was in the old barn. Luckily.
At least he didn’t have to lie about where he’d been. “I went over to Hunter’s. We went for a run and then set hay bales on fire.”
Gabriel watched the surprise flicker on Nick’s face and enjoyed it. The almost-betrayal. The almost-guilt, as Gabriel’s words registered. We did something you never want to do. Then we did something you and I used to do.
And while Nick was standing there trying to think of a retort, Gabriel shoved past him into the bathroom and locked the door.
When he came out, the house was quiet.
Finally. Maybe his brothers had gone on another job. Maybe he’d lucked out and Michael wasn’t going to hassle him all day.
Gabriel pulled on a clean shirt in his bedroom. He’d spent the last twenty minutes telling himself that studying math at the kitchen table meant this wasn’t a date, that he had a greater chance of looking like a moron at this activity than at just about anything else.
Gabriel jogged down the steps and stuck his hand into his backpack for his car keys.
Nothing.
Then he looked out the window beside the front door. No car, either.
“Fuck!” He hit the door frame. It hurt. He did it again.
“Problems?”
Gabriel glanced down the hallway. He’d assumed Michael was out, but he found his older brother sitting in the kitchen. The laptop sat open in front of him, work papers spread across the table.