24

Chase

I can’t stop thinking about Bro. It’s been a week, and she’s gone. She hasn’t been to work. She’s not answering my calls or texts. IT tells me she’s not reachable through internal messaging on her phone, which most likely means she’s removed the app. Her formal resignation hasn’t come in, but it’s inevitable.

If Zeus and Ares know where she is, they either won’t or can’t tell me. There’s no sign she’s been back to her apartment, though the farm-animal-mating struggle on the floor above has been going on every single trip I’ve made to check.

Parker hasn’t heard from her either. Nor have their other friends. Their band is in demand after the write-up on Page Six, but they can’t book without Bro.

And I’m a fucking mess.

One minute I want to throttle her. The next I want to take her to bed and screw her brains out until neither of us can remember anything, from our history to our favorite insults to even our names.

My childhood was hell. My family was broke white trash, too rich for food stamps, too poor for anything but white bread and the canned baloney Mom brought home from work every week. My father had a problem. Several, actually. Any cash Mom didn’t use or hide quickly enough was gambled away. Bro’s family was my escape. I was still a nobody, but I was a nobody with somewhere to go.

To the rest of the world, now I’m somebody. I’ll live in the white-collar world until the day I die. There’s nothing my money can’t buy, and no shortage to the people who want to know me.

But to Bro Berger, I’ll always be that scrappy, angry twit who once tried to set her ponytails on fire. The guy who banged her inside a giant bratwurst. The jackass who cost her Vassar.

She doesn’t trust me enough to believe I don’t want to spend the rest of my life throwing it in her face.

And why would she?

“Honey, I don’t understand your fascination with this woman,” Mom is saying. I took two days off and flew halfway around the world to have lunch with her in Mykonos. Never doubt the power of maternal guilt. Or fresh baklava. “She tried to wreck your life.”

I stare out over the sailboats dancing on the crystal waters of the Mediterranean, because despite being thirty years old and having enough money in the bank to buy this entire city, if not half the country, I can’t quite look my mother in the eye. “Mom, she wasn’t lying. I was there.”

“I’m well aware, though we both wish I wasn’t.”

I give her a wry grin and go back to watching the sea. It’s a little turbulent today.

Sort of like my life.

“Still,” she says, “I know you didn’t tell her to steal that thing.”

I want to deny it, but I can’t. I know Bro. I knew Bro then too.

There wasn’t a single ounce of me surprised when she jumped into the driver seat and took off in that bratwurst. She has just as much of a twisted sense of adventures as her brothers. She’s not as loud or obvious about it, but who is next to those two oafs?

I’d left the parking lot that night thinking that she was Bro Berger. Of course she’d talk her way out of any trouble she’d get into in the Bratwurst Wagon. She always had. Her parents would come to her rescue, she’d fake some tears for the police officers, and her little princess life would go on.

I’d gotten home to find my mother gray and unconscious on the floor, and I hadn’t given Bro another thought for weeks. Mostly, anyway. After her brothers’ ill-timed visit to defend her honor the next morning, followed by a visit with some questions from the cops, I’d decided she could rot in hell for all I cared. I hadn’t known she’d basically been headed there.

I’d been in a hell of my own, watching my mother fight for her life.

“Chase Ryan Jett, tell me you didn’t tell that girl to steal the Bratwurst Wagon.”

“A wise woman once told me we can’t change the past, we can only change the future.”

She heaves a mother-sigh and sips at her coffee. “When did you get smart enough to throw my words back at me?”

“Smart enough to repeat ‘em, not smart enough to know how to use them.”

“You want her in your future.”

“Doesn’t matter. I’m not good for her.”

Mom plunks her teacup down.

I hold up my hands before the lecture can start and tick my transgressions off on my fingers. “She got arrested at eighteen because of me. There was the elevator incident two weeks ago. The Kiss Cam. Don’t ask about the Irish bar.”

“The girl’s troubled.”

“She was never troubled, she was related to Zeus and Ares. She’s been squeaky-clean the past ten years. Good student, then a dedicated employee. She went from small-town Minnesota girl to making New York City her oyster. Lots of friends. Then I show up, push a few buttons—” or she pushes a few buttons, like she did in the elevator “—and one or both of us loses our minds.”

She sighs again. “I was like that with your father,” she murmurs.

First, didn’t need that visual, but I suppose I’ve given her a few she didn’t care to have lately too. Second— “Exactly. The world’s a better place if we’re not together.”

“You’re not your father.” She squeezes my hand. “Though she might be.”

“Mom…”

“Those Berger boys have really surprised me.” She’s not subtle in changing the subject, which is fine with me. “They’ve found a productive way to channel all their energy. It’s rather impressive.”

“So I can go play with them after school?” I deadpan.

She laughs. “Don’t let this give you any ideas, but I was glad you had them. Goodness knows what kind of criminal record you would’ve had if you’d run around with boys who weren’t from such a good family. But your obsession with their sister… You’ve never been able to think straight when she’s around.”

She’s not wrong.

“Oh, look, it’s my friend, Iris.” She leans up in her seat and waves. “Iris! Iris, come meet my son. He’s the one I was telling you about.”

She re-settles her floppy straw hat on her head as Iris turns to make her way toward us.

“Don’t let the cane fool you,” Mom says. “She’s only fifty-eight, and she doesn’t look a day over forty when she’s up close and sitting down with her makeup on. Her husband left her a fortune, and even though she’s through menopause, she’s open to the idea of adopting. Which is good, because I want grandchildren.”

I blink at the woman who gave birth to me. “You are not right.”

“She won’t break your heart. Or drive you to getting yourself arrested for indecent exposure on the Kiss Cam.”

“Next time I book you a cruise, I’m buying out the rest of the boat and donating all the rooms to sorority girls on spring break.”

“Oh, honey.” She pats my cheek. “You’ll have plenty of time for that after Iris is in a nursing home.”

I open my mouth, but for once, my mother has left me speechless. She almost sounds serious.

Until she cackles with undisguised glee, that is. “My goodness, no wonder you were always pulling pranks. This is quite the power trip.”

“Don’t get used to it,” I say. “Takes a lot to prank a prankster.”

“Honey, I’m your mother. I know all your tricks and more.” She ruins the straight face with another gleeful cackle.

I’m chuckling at the sheer joy in her laughter when my phone dings.

And nothing’s funny anymore.

I know where Bro went.

And it’s suddenly crystal clear just how much work I have to do if I want to win her back.