Always Crew

He nodded, his shoulders falling. “Maybe.”

Another minute we sat there. Silence.

And then from him, “Then why can’t I make myself get up and go to her? I can’t bring myself to do it, and I’m ashamed of that. That’s not a man. That’s a coward. I’m a coward, Cross.”

I didn’t have the words. Not anymore. I had shared the ones I did have, but I had one last thing to give him.

“You’re not a coward, Jordan. I’d bet my life on that.”

His eyes were so pained as he stared at me, like I was a life preserver, then he blinked and it was gone. He turned, his focus returning to the backyard.

Yep. He was gone.

Blaise was pissed. That was obvious as soon as I headed inside psych. I ignored him. He didn’t get to saddle up and get on his high horse about Harper. Whatever he did, he already did it. It was our turn last night. Zeke was actually in class today, sitting next to Blaise. I glanced down their row. Aspen was on Blaise’s other side, but Zeke’s fraternity brothers stretched out in the row from Zeke onward.

No Harper.

I hadn’t fully trusted any of them, so I called 9-1-1 from Harper’s own phone, knowing it’d take them a beat before they got to his location. We were long gone by the time we saw squads lighting up the sky. They hadn’t even gone past us, we were already turning for a north road toward the house. Harper would or could still be in the hospital. I told him to keep his mouth shut, that we had someone on his dad, but entitled dicks tended to do what was best for them. Sometimes they didn’t enjoy eating bitter feelings. Egos and pride sometimes got involved, too.

So, we would see what happened.

“Hey.” Zellman slid into the seat by me.

I’d picked the far back and left for a reason. We were well and truly isolated from the class.

Zellman dropped his bag between his legs on the floor and looked around. “No Jordan?”

“Would you have showed up?”

He considered my question and didn’t respond. Yeah. He got it.

But he glanced over, seeing the attention we were getting. It wasn’t just Blaise glaring, but the rest of the frat guys were all glaring, too. “That’s interesting.”

Yeah.

Zellman added, “They know it was us.”

Also, yeah.

“That’s not good.”

A third yeah from me.

Zeke was the only one not looking at us, but he was throwing furtive looks at his frat brothers, then also sending Blaise dark looks right after.

“Your brother is pissed because we cut him out from the beatdown. The guys sitting two seats from him and stretching out are all pissed because we beat down their boy. Note the irony of their seating arrangements.”

I shot Zellman a grin. “Thank you, Professor Greenly.”

He puffed up his chest. “No problem.” Then added after pulling out his notebook, “Your brother doesn’t care he’s putting his best friend in a spot, huh?”

That was the basic gist I overheard last night. “Whatever Harper did, it was bad enough that Blaise wants him out from Zeke’s house.”

“You think?”

I nodded. “I don’t know my brother that well, but I have picked up that if he hates you, he really hates you.”

Zellman grunted. “Huh. Still shitty he’s not backing off, even enough to have Zeke’s back.”

“Nah. He’ll have it. The problem is that he’s not getting that Zeke needs to let him have his back, not just doing it when the guy doesn’t know you’re doing it. That’s not entering my brother’s head.”

Zellman glanced at me, giving me a pointed look. “Maybe you need to educate him.”

I shot him a look back. “You educate him.”

He grinned.

I scowled.

Then the professor came in, and it wasn’t worth being discussed anymore.

FROM: Tazsters

TO: Cross

SUBJECT: I need an update. Pronto.

If you don’t tell me what is going on, I’m calling Blaise.

Bombs primed and ready, brother buddy of mine.

I’m very violent in these emails, I’ve noticed lately.

I’m liking it.

LOVE YOU SO MUCH BECAUSE WE SHARED A WOMB TOGETHER!

I’M TYPING THAT TO HALF ANNOY YOU, BUT ALSO TO MAKE YOU SMILE AND I KNOW I DID BECAUSE I CAN FEEL IT SINCE WE’RE TWINS!

Love you, for real.

THE BEST TWIN

BREN

I stopped to pick up motorcycle gloves on the way to work.

My knuckles were sore and cracked, but this would have to do. I didn’t want to get reprimanded at my job for shit they didn’t understand. I was just hoping no one would comment on it. If we were in the field, I didn’t think they would. All day in the office, though, was a whole different story.

As it was, I walked in and Shetland was behind the bowling register. He waved me over, sliding a piece of paper to me. “Go out and get those coffees. You’re going to spend the rest of the day manning the bowling lanes, and we’ll bring out a list for lunch. You can clock out at six.”