Free Never Been Kissed by Molly O'Keefe Page A

fountain swimming thing.All sorts of shit to make the town feel like home for a couple thousand people. To his right and in the distance was the gleaming silver snake of the river, giving the town that nostalgic stink.
    And here, close to the tracks, on the wrong side of town, was The Pour House. The family dive bar Sean was trying to pull out of its dive.
    “It’s nothing special to you, huh?” Sean asked, smiling as he took a sip of coffee.
    “It’s fine.” Lying to his brother was second nature. Lying to just about everyone was second nature, it was something a kid learned quick in foster homes.
Always say you’re fine. Always say it’s nice. Always say thank you; eat what you’re given and don’t complain.
“I never really came up here for the view.”
    As a kid, right after the adoption, he’d liked being high up and alone and watching everyone. No one knew where he was half the time, or cared, with everything that had been going on. But as soon as Sean was able, he started tagging along and Brody was never alone again. Especially up here.
    “It’s hot,” Brody said, wiping sweat off his forehead. He could feel it trickling down his back.
    “Rained last week, now we’re soaked in humidity. August in Arkansas, no place like it.” The back of Sean’s neck was red, he always burned in the summer, turned into a red, peeling, freckled mess.
    Brody had no such problem. His mother had been Filipino, his father black.
    “How is the bar doing?” he asked.
    Sean shot him a wry, laughing look. “Like you care.”
    “As an investor—”
    “It was a loan, I paid you back.”
    “I’m talking about the blood, sweat, and tears I put into the place a year ago. That makes me an investor.”
    Sean kicked a pebble and it bounced across the roof,off the edge. He couldn’t hide his grin, he loved it when Brody got involved in the bar. Feigned caring. “It’s good. Better than it’s been. Weekends are picking up. I’ve got some plans for the garage next door—”
    “I’m sure you do.”
    “If you stick around long enough, I’ll let you help.” Sean wagged his eyebrows and Brody smiled on cue.
    “I won’t be here long enough to dig out the tool belt.”
    Sean’s smile faded and Brody felt the pinch of guilt that accompanied disappointing his brother.
I’m sorry,
he wanted to say.
I’m sorry I’m not what you wanted. I can’t give you what you need.
    Something somewhere in Brody was broken.
    “We’re not up here to talk about the bar,” Sean said, fiddling with the plastic edge of his coffee lid.
    It was always strange when Sean was cagey. Sean, as a rule, was sort of a take-me-as-I-come kind of guy. A shit disturber. A sentimentalist. But very rarely cagey.
    “We’re not?”
    “Don’t make jokes.” Uh-oh, Sean was angry. “It’s been three months since I’ve heard from you. Three months.”
    He could feel Sean’s gaze. The sun didn’t bother him, but his brother’s eyes could burn him to the bone. “And then you show up in the middle of the night with an unconscious woman—”
    “She was sleeping.”
    “You know, I don’t ask—”
    “It’s better that you don’t.”
    Sean looked at him, really looked at him, so Brody looked back. The wisecracking shit disturber was gone, and in his place was the man Brody didn’t understand. Or like. The one who wanted something … different from him. Who seemed to think Brody owed him something.
    Brody shifted in his skin. This is why he didn’t come home. This bullshit, right here. Demand disguised by coffeeand rooftops. The black bag of family. He was who he was in a vacuum. In the context of Sean and Ed, his family, he didn’t know who he was supposed to be.
    “Are you in trouble?”
    “No more than usual.” That wasn’t exactly true. The Montgomerys were going to be looking for their daughter and should they find her, Brody would take the brunt of that particular anger.
    “You know,” Sean said, his voice low, his eyes on his