By this point, I think I must have steam coming out of my ears.
“Take a leaf out of my book, laddie. When you get to the pearly gates, ask Saint Peter if you can come back as a wee birdie. I know I’ll be asking to because, when I come back, I have a long list of people I plan to shit on.”
“June, you crack me up,” Dylan says, beginning to laugh.
“I think it must be almost cake time,” she orders, circling her finger in an order to about-turn.
“And Griffin?” I ask, instantly regretting it.
“The bathroom nearest the kitchen,” June says. “I thought to myself when they went in together, his boaby can’t be as big as all that. He can’t have needed that woman to help him hold it. Don’t pull that face,” she warns suddenly. “Grind your teeth, and you’ll end up with dentures like me.”
“Thank you, June.” My words sound surprisingly calm as I pivot on my heel.
“Something is rotten in the state of brotherhood.” I hear her call.
“Cool,” her pilot answers. “A literary pun.”
“It’s from Hamlet, aye?”
“Yep.”
“Is that the one where the wife goes doolally?”
As I turn the corner, I hear no more.
I find the kitchen and shortly afterwards, find the bathroom. Mainly due to the short queue of people waiting outside.
“Come on!” An elderly man in a white dinner jacket knocks politely on the door. “I need to shake the dew off the lily.” He turns to the person next to him. “These old legs aren’t what they used to be. I can’t go out to the posh porta loos they have in the garden.”
Portable loos. She wouldn’t, would she?
I shake the ridiculousness from my head.
“Have you been waiting long?” I find myself asking.
“Long enough.” The elderly man pulls a face.
I step around him, bringing myself level with the door.
“Fuck, you’re such a dirty little bitch, aren’t you?”
If I’m not mistaken, I’ve found at least one-half of my missing party.
“Yes! Yes!” comes the voice of the female contingent.
American, yes. But Holland? I can’t quite tell.
“You’re my dirty little bitch, aren’t you? Say it!”
“I’m your dirty little bitch!”
“Someone is having a good time,” the old man says.
“Yeah, a dirty little bitch.” Someone snickers as I raise my fist and begin hammering on the door.
“Say it again!” Griffin demands.
“I’m your—”
“Griffin!” I bellow. “If you don’t open this door, I’m going to break it down and tear off your fucking head!” With the side of my fist, I begin to hammer while imagining the block of wood is his head. “Open the door!”
And if that’s Holland in there, at least blood will wash easier from tile.
I can almost see the headline—
Under my fists, the door falls open, and I fall in and almost on top of Griffin. I kick the door closed behind me to a chorus of disappointment, flicking on the lock. Before I quite understand what I’m doing, I have my feckless, treacherous, half-undressed shit of a brother by the neck and pressed up against the opposite wall.
“Al? What the fuck?” He begins to splutter, but I have no time for him, my eyes sweeping the room for—
A blue dress hangs over the top of the shower door, a pair of slender legs the only things visible through the glass. Through my rage, through the red mist that descends, my fist meets with the meat of my brother’s stomach without a word.
“Oof!” Griffin bows forward, his hand reaching out for the vanity. Unsatisfied, I pull my arm back and aim for his face.
“You fucker!” he yells, but I’ve already whipped around, reached for the dress and pulled it down to find, standing in the shower cubicle, arms crossed her chest, an near naked not-Holland.
The dirty little bitch, I presume.
“Where is she?” I pivot back, pulling my brother straight, seeing rage red again.
“Obviously not fucking here,” he spits. “But not through a lack of invitation.”
My hand tightens in his shirt. “You really are a fucker,” I growl, beginning to shake him.
“I saw her first, you twat!” he says, his fist coming over the top and connecting with my head. I twist and pull him against me, pressing my arm against his throat.
“You did not see her first. You don’t know a fucking thing.”
Fists begin to pound at the door, complains and worries filtering in.
“You’re fucking choking me—”
Not yet, but I will, I think.
“She was mine from the start. Mine, do you hear? She was mine long before that cold fucking lane, and if you so much as look in her direction again, I’ll more than choke you. Got it?”
“F-Fine.” Spittle lands on my arm, but I don’t let him go. Not yet.
“This thing between you. Real or fake.”
“What the f-fuck do you think?”
I tighten my arm, thinking that you’re going to answer the question.
“F-Fake.”
Relief seeps out of me, my arm falling loose as my other supports Griffin under his arm. I don’t see his fist, but my kidney feels it.