Free Precise by Rebecca Berto, Lauren McKellar Page A

”
    “This.” He takes Katie’s hand and waves to the girls with the other. He leans toward Katie’s ear. “The one where I promised not to leave you.”
    Katie is silent.
    As if to confirm her thoughts about the squealing group beside her, Brent says, “The guys and I will be better company than . . . this .”
    • • •

    W hen Brent arrives with Katie, Tim, Cooper and Marco are lazing around in canvas chairs. Cooper winks at her and drags another chair forward. He lines it up next to his one and holds an open palm above his act of kindness.
    Katie chuckles but Brent sees how she’s already turning away from Cooper. “Er, thanks. I might just grab something to drink before I sit down, though,” she says.
    After she’s out of earshot, Cooper asks, “Hmm, what’s that all about, Brenny?” He still sounds upbeat, regardless of being turned down.
    Brent rolls his eyes. “She isn’t into you.”
    Marco smirks and tips his head in Tim’s direction, as if meaning “told you so”.
    Cooper jabs Brent’s shoulder and scoffs. As if it is preposterous that Katie could be repulsed by his physique or his smooth persona. “No. Really .”
    Brent swallows. Of course they’ve noticed something’s up. “I should have warned you.” He fingers his thigh through the hole in his jeans. When he speaks, his voice sounds hard. “She isn’t herself these days. It’s complicated.”
    Cooper looks at him expectantly. He’s tipping his chair toward Brent. Tim and Marco are much the same.
    Brent envisions Paul with his waxy complexion. When he touched him at the viewing, his skin was cool and suctioned to his finger like frog’s skin. As Brent watches Katie rummaging through glass bottles, he remembers the last thing he saw of Paul: the Good cleaners make good wives t-shirt that he was buried in. Liam had seen that he wore it, even when Katie had no clue, and his mother, Pam Anselin, was too crumbled to think.
    Brent opens his mouth and forces the words out. “Paul, her husband . . . recently died.”
    “Oh, fuck,” Cooper mutters. It doesn’t matter that the song playing through the speakers is about to climax. As the bass kicks in, Cooper’s voice sounds like a mouse squeak, yet Brent hears it clearly. And it seems the others do, too.
    Paul’s death feels wrong to talk about, like discussing cheating on final school exams. This is still all a horrible dream. They say people never die in their dreams, but this feels like an exception where Brent’s dreaming and dreaming . . . What healthy twenty-nine-year-old just drops dead? No warning. Just gone.
    Brent doesn’t realize the silence until Tim stumbles on his words, then speaks up. “How long?”
    He pauses a beat to count. “About four months ago.”
    “How?”
    Brent’s eyelids close, Paul’s waxy, cool skin the only image he sees. Paul felt so soft and cool. So unlike normal. He looked like you could say, “Wake up, idiot,” and the guy would roar with laughter. But he’s a doll, painted in colors that are artificial with a body that seems to be merely sleeping.
    Brent dreads Tim’s question. “Aneurysm . . . ” and now the part he almost can’t mutter, “I think.”
    Katie won’t talk about it, not even to her dad, Logan, or Liam, so his brother tells him. The less he thinks about why, the easier it is for Brent. Now he’s started talking, the conversation is itching to be spoken of.
    “She can’t say the name. He was a top bloke. One of the best.” He half-smiles to himself. “She might seem to be doing okay. You know, no water works or anything, but my brother has gone from worried to convinced that something isn’t right with her. I don’t know any more than she lets on. And she’s like family, so,” he looks directly at Cooper, then addresses the others, “no more.”
    Tim and Marco nod.
    “You wouldn’t guess, ‘ey,” Cooper says, oblivious to Brent’s warning. “She’s such a stunner. Mm.”
    Katie crouches down beside the