Free The Kiss Test by Shannon McKelden Page B

wireless devices to deconflict some API naming schemas.”
    I blinked, hoping somewhere, on some level, to someone, that made sense, and it wasn’t an indication my brother had started dabbling in drugs.
    I glanced around his bedroom, such as it was. I didn’t know where he possibly slept. A huge mound of clothes covered the bed. Maybe clean, maybe dirty. The closet, wide open, was virtually empty. The floor sported discarded sneakers and socks and a stray pair of jockey shorts or twelve. The top of the desk was a graveyard of take-out boxes, used utensils and unopened bills propped between the coffee cups. Amazing he had power or running water, considering how scatterbrained my brother was. He didn’t need a roommate, he needed a secretary.
    “So, I don’t have a job anymore,” I ventured, more to fill the silence than anything else.
    “Huh?” He kept typing.
    I tried a different tactic. “I’ve been uninstalled.”
    That got his attention. He turned to face me. “Really? How come?”
    I explained the situation in brief. Korean Jazz station, inability to speak the language, yada, yada.
    “Oh, and, on top of that, Kevin asked me to marry him.”
    Robert’s mouth dropped open and he stared at me over the top of his glasses with unfocused dark eyes that matched mine.
    “And you said…?”
    “What do you think?” I rolled my eyes and shoved aside a pile of clothes so I could sit on a corner of the bed. “Like I want to be anything like Mom.”
    Rob frowned, considering. “Speaking of, she’s pretty mad you’re not coming to the wedding. I’ve had to talk to her twice this week. That’s not really fair.”
    “Don’t talk to me about fair! You never answer the phone when she calls. You go months without talking to her.”
    He shrugged. How could he argue with the truth?
    “You’re a mess,” I said, changing the subject and tweaking the shoulder of his plaid button-front shirt, which sported a large spot that resembled blood, but was probably spaghetti sauce from Angelo’s judging by the restaurant boxes cluttering the desktop. “I hope you’re washing clothes before you go to the wedding.”
    He shrugged again, turning back to his computer. “So what’d Kevin say when you refused him?” Rob asked, tapping out a reply to an email he’d just received. How could he carry on a conversation with me at the same time he wrote a “conversation” with someone else? Especially if it contained all that mumbo jumbo he’d recited to me a few minutes ago.
    Well, let’s see, I thought, concentrating on the question. He called me childish, immature, sophomoric…“He told me I needed to leave.”
    Rob nodded as if that was totally logical. Okay, so it probably was, considering we’d broken up, but it didn’t feel all that logical from my homeless point of view.
    “So, where are you staying?” More tapping on the computer. I hoped he wasn’t transcribing our conversation for his clients by mistake.
    “Nowhere at the moment,” I said. “I found out this morning that the Ballards are expecting a baby, so I can’t very well throw them out of my apartment. I don’t know what to do.”
    He waved a hand over his head, in the general direction of the bedroom door. “You can stay here if you want. It may not look like much, but…” He chuckled to himself as if he’d made a joke. He hadn’t. It wasn’t much. But at this point, it looked like my only choice.
    “How’s the spare room?” I asked.
    He shrugged, so I went to check. I stepped over the monitor. It wasn’t one of the newer flat screens. It was an older seventeen-inch monstrosity that probably weighed thirty pounds. I wondered why he hadn’t set it down twelve inches to the right, where it wouldn’t have blocked the doorway.
    Across the hall, the spare room was dark. I reached in and flipped the light switch, and bit back a yelp. Scientists should study my brother to figure out how someone who never leaves his apartment can accumulate so