One Last Time (Loveless Brothers 5)

When I turn the corner I can see her head over the top of the cabinet door and she looks at me, surprised.

“Oh! Yes, fine, I just found them,” she says, quickly, grabbing something off the floor. She clears her throat and opens the band aid box. “I like the rainbows.”

On the floor in front of her is the plastic shoebox where I keep my minor injury supplies: bandaids, gauze, Neosporin, hydrogen peroxide.

Next to it is a small pink zippered bag, a hairbrush, and a pair of black lace panties.

My heart falls clear through my chest.

“Oh, they’re also unicorns,” she says, examining the bandaid as though it holds the secret to eternal life, her voice slightly strained. “Rainbow unicorns! Great.”

“Sorry,” I say, bend down, and grab those three things in one quick swipe and, without stopping, carry them to the trash can in the kitchen and throw them in.

Fuck. Fuck. I’d forgotten that those were in there, because apparently I haven’t needed a bandaid in a couple of years.

Women used to leave things at my house sometimes, and I’d keep them until I could give them back or until I was sure I wasn’t going to see that person again.

Except then Fall Fest with Delilah happened, two and a half years ago, and I forgot to clean out my lost and found so those things have been back there for all that time.

In my defense, I did launder the underwear. I’m not disgusting.

I hear the sound of cabinets shutting, and a moment later, Delilah’s back.

“Good as new,” she says, holding up her thumb. It’s got unicorns with rainbow manes on it now.

“I have those because of Rusty,” I tell her, the pit of my stomach still swirling. “She got a skinned knee here once and was bummed that I only had boring bandaids, so I got cool ones. They’re a couple years old.”

“I shudder to think what she’d want now,” Delilah says without looking at me. She picks up the knife again, considers the cantaloupe.

Underwear. It had to be black, lacy underwear. Fuck.

“Go sit down, I’ll get that,” I tell her, rescuing the last of the bacon from the pan. “Don’t cut yourself again.”

“Fine,” she says, teasing and tense all at once. “You want orange juice?”

“Thanks,” I say, and she pours.

We have breakfast and don’t mention the brush, or the bag, or the panties, and I tell myself: clean slate. It doesn’t matter.

Those were just crumbs of the past, and they don’t matter.I hold my phone out in front of me, the flashlight shining into the narrow darkness, cobwebs sticking in my arm hairs. My nose tickles.

I have to clean under my bed more often.

Just as I’ve found a questionable pile of fabric on the far side, my phone rings in my hand. It’s Caleb.

“Hey,” I say.

“Why do you sound so weird?”

“Why do you sound so weird?”

He laughs.

“Seriously, though.”

“I’m cleaning my house,” I tell him, which is technically true. My phone flashlight is still one, illuminating the under-bed-space to my right and something that looks like a huge knot of computer cables.

“Are you cleaning your house from an iron lung?” he asks.

“Can I help you in some way, or did you just call to harass me?” I ask, scooting backward from under the bed.

“I called to see if you wanted me to pick you up on the way to Mom’s,” he says.

Right. I’m supposed to be there in an hour or so, but I’ve still got most of my house to scour.

“No thanks,” I say, sitting on the floor and leaning against my bed. “I’m gonna be a little late.”

There’s a pause on the other end of the line.

“Because of cleaning?”

“Yes.”

There’s a longer pause.

“What are you cleaning?”

“My house.”

My little brother sighs.

“You need help?”When I answer the door, Caleb’s standing there, alone.

“No Thalia?” I ask.

“She’s visiting her brother,” he says, coming inside, taking his coat off.

“Which one?”

“Rehab.”

We walk into my townhouse, and I point at the fridge in case he wants anything.

“How’s that going?”

Caleb just shrugs and looks around, like he’s trying to figure out what I’m cleaning.

“Fine, I guess,” he says. “He hasn’t left it or anything, but Thalia was telling me how long it takes before an addict can really be considered recovered, so we won’t actually know for a couple of years.”

We. The way he says we about Thalia and her family, so casually. There’s a longing inside me I didn’t know I had.

“Shit,” I say.

“Pretty much,” he agrees. “What exactly are we cleaning?”

I rub my hands over my face and pull a cobweb from my hair.

“We’re finding every single item that a woman has ever left in this house,” I say.

Caleb just waits, his face very carefully neutral.

“Please,” I add.

“Not what I was waiting for, though thank you for being polite,” he says.

“Delilah found someone else’s underwear this morning,” I finally admit.