The Imperfections

1

Brant

It’s the end of a long-ass day, the kind of day that makes most people long for the comfort of home—people who have some kind of comfort to go home to, anyway.

That’s what I keep thinking about as I sit here waiting for the little asshole my sister married to show up at my bar. I don’t know how much longer this night’s gonna last, but I have a bad feeling about it.

When my sister married a man younger than her, I had reservations. He’s only five years younger, but it’s enough. Theo wasn’t ready for marriage, but Bri’s biological clock ticked so loudly it drowned out her common sense. When he got her pregnant—before they were even fucking engaged—she was ecstatic. When he proposed to make it right, she accepted without skepticism. She saw him as her last chance to start a family before she got too old, and desperation doesn’t lead to the best decisions.

Most of the ladies in our family start popping out babies before they can legally buy alcohol, so I understood her feeling behind, but traditional as I am sometimes, I still didn’t think she should marry this asshole.

She did anyway.

Now they’ve got a house in the suburbs and two boys of their own. Bri’s trying desperately for a third, wants a little girl this time. I’m not one to break up a family even if I think he wasn’t right for my sister and she could’ve done better, but when he called me yesterday afternoon and told me he needed to meet up and talk, I had the strongest feeling my sister’s dreams of having a baby girl might be about to go up in smoke.

I have sort of a reputation in my family as the problem solver. When Bri got knocked around by the hothead she was dating in college, I was the one who knocked his teeth down his throat and reminded him how not to treat a lady. When my other sister’s daughter had some trouble with a burgeoning asshole in her first grade class, I went around and had a chat with him to let him know how my niece oughta be treated.

Sometimes the problems I have to deal with are a bit rougher than that, but the point is, my sisters both know if there’s a problem and they come to me, there won’t be a problem anymore.

Imagine my surprise yesterday when it was my brother-in-law to call me instead of my sister. I guess he qualifies as family since he married her and fathered both my nephews, but I have a feeling he only called to confess because he was afraid Bri would find out. Then I’d have a whole different problem to deal with, and maybe it would involve him.

I lean back in the beat-up booth and crack my knuckles with anticipation. I hate that I offered this idiot a chance to come clean before it came to that, but the way I figure, if I can save my sister a little pain and protect her from shit like this happening in the future, I’ve done my job. It’s more important to protect Bri than to satisfy my own urge to crush some of the bones in Theo’s pretty-boy face.

I’m sure he cheated. What the fuck else could it be? My brother-in-law’s a fucking asshole, but the kind women tend to be attracted to: physically fit, tattoos, dark looks and blue eyes my sister calls “piercing.” It was one of the reasons I objected to her marrying the cocky prick to begin with, and now here we are.

The front door opens and I sit forward, wrapping my hand around the whiskey glass I brought over and taking a sip.

Theo comes into view, head down, hands shoved into his pockets, all vulnerable-like. Yep, he fucked something up real bad.

“Bring that bottle with you,” I tell him, nodding at the bar.

He stops and turns back, grabbing my bottle of whiskey and bringing it with him. He sets it down on the table in front of me, then takes a seat across from me and sighs. He’s got his hands clasped on the table, head down, the picture of remorse.

“Thanks for meeting me here,” he says.

I don’t want to waste time with pleasantries, so I grab the bottle, pour myself a little more, and lean back in my side of the booth. “So, what’d you fuck up?”

He shakes his head, looking real pitiful. “I’m afraid to tell you,” he says, trying to pretend he’s joking, throwing in a nervous laugh.

I shake my head, throwing back my drink and setting the glass back down on the scarred wooden tabletop. “Don’t waste my time, Theo. It’s been a long day. You need to tell me what you fucked up so we can figure out what to do about it and then I can go home.”